What is your Best Hunting Story?

[memtb]

All of my deer have been memorable, due to sheer ridulousness, great family time, or insane luck. I would love to write them all out, and I will probably give an accounting of them when I'm not typing on a cell phone. But my most memorable that comes to mind is my first buck.

I was hunting with my uncle and cousin, whom really taught me to hunt. My dad rarely hunted and wasn't very good at it when he did make it to the woods.

So in oregon the rifle season is extended two extra days for youth hunters. My cousin and I are both youth (he was 14 and I was 17), so it's late late November and the last weekend of season for us. I've never killed a deer, my cousin had killed a stack already by this point.

We made a walk out through a logging skid road, and were on our way back to the truck just before last shooting light when my uncle says "there's a buck!! Just across the draw!"

Being fairly new to hunting, I couldn't spot the buck with my naked eye. It was dim light, rainy, and blacktail deer are fairly dark haired and blend in well with the ground especially when they're wet. I tried scanning with my rifle scope for the buck, but it was so fogged up I just had a little center portion of the scope that was clear, showing the very center of the reticle. Finally after a couple of minutes my uncle verbally walked me into the buck and I could see the white patch on its throat.

The problem was, we couldn't see antlers. My uncle knew it was big based on the white throat patches (it had 2) but we just couldn't spot antlers. So we're passing my rifle around, each of us trying to put antlers on this critter, for several more minutes. The buck is standing stock still this whole time. Eventually I remembered I had some Kleenex tissues in my backpack and I told my uncle to grab them so we could clean the scope lens off and maybe see the deer better to verify it was a legal buck.

My uncle unzipped my packs front pocket (which was my brothers pack that I borrowed and just threw my own stuff in on top of his) and found not only my Kleenex but a set of binoculars! So he pulled those out and started looking at the buck and forgot to give me the tissues.

After just a few moments of watching with the binoculars, my uncle exclaimed "it's a buck!!" I'm aiming at it through my limited field of view in the old Leupold 3-9, and I ask "cool, is it legal?" And my uncle halfway yelled "FREAKING SHOOT!!" So I did.

A 200gr Sierra game king from my dads old Remington 721 in 30-06 did the job, and we heard the buck run uphill for about 10 seconds before crashing and tumbling back down the hill. It was wild to hear just how much noise he made tumbling down the hill.

We knew he was dead so we ran back up the skid road to get close to him. Walking down in on him in the dregs of last light, I didn't have enough knowledge of deer to understand just how big he was. My uncle and cousins started losing their gourd while I just sat there looking at this big old fella. We expect he weighed 230 on the hoof, and measured 25.5" wide which is huge for a blacktail.

My cousin gutted him out in about 3 minutes flat and we started dragging him downhill while my uncle took the packs and guns to go grab the truck. We hit a couple of blind drop offs while heading down the hill where the deer took off, dragging my cousin and I downhill for ~30 feet before hitting a plateau. The second drop off my cousin took an antler tine in one butt cheek which bruised the heck out of him.

After a short, brutal drag we got him to the truck and it took 4 of us to get him up and in. Then the cold work of skinning him began at the house. It was a party, as the whole family came over to see my first buck, and we took turns warming up inside with pizza and hot chocolate while other people would work on skinning for a few minutes.

Every aspect of that night is printed in my brain, and is nothing but joyous.

The only bad part is the next day I papered that rifle just to have some bench time, and it was shooting an 8" group. Proper to the hunt it was shooting about 1". Somewhere along the line the scope took a hit. I'm extremely glad I still hit the deer where I planned to, even with the scope being out of whack.

Picture of the blacktail attached

Quite a buck and quite a memory for you and your family!
Congratulations! memtb

 

[marksman1941]

Quite a buck and quite a memory for you and your family!
Congratulations! memtb

Thanks! It was a good day. That buck, and the following, sorta spoiled me though. I killed the buck pictured here as my second one, and it took me a couple years of killing little ones to accept that meat hunting was more my style and the antlers were secondary. But, starting on bit antlers can ruin a kid for a short time lol.

 

[memtb]

Thanks! It was a good day. That buck, and the following, sorta spoiled me though. I killed the buck pictured here as my second one, and it took me a couple years of killing little ones to accept that meat hunting was more my style and the antlers were secondary. But, starting on bit antlers can ruin a kid for a short time lol.

I wouldn't know the bad side effects of "big antlers"! memtb

 

[Ol' Red]

All of my deer have been memorable, due to sheer ridulousness, great family time, or insane luck. I would love to write them all out, and I will probably give an accounting of them when I'm not typing on a cell phone. But my most memorable that comes to mind is my first buck.

I was hunting with my uncle and cousin, whom really taught me to hunt. My dad rarely hunted and wasn't very good at it when he did make it to the woods.

So in oregon the rifle season is extended two extra days for youth hunters. My cousin and I are both youth (he was 14 and I was 17), so it's late late November and the last weekend of season for us. I've never killed a deer, my cousin had killed a stack already by this point.

We made a walk out through a logging skid road, and were on our way back to the truck just before last shooting light when my uncle says "there's a buck!! Just across the draw!"

Being fairly new to hunting, I couldn't spot the buck with my naked eye. It was dim light, rainy, and blacktail deer are fairly dark haired and blend in well with the ground especially when they're wet. I tried scanning with my rifle scope for the buck, but it was so fogged up I just had a little center portion of the scope that was clear, showing the very center of the reticle. Finally after a couple of minutes my uncle verbally walked me into the buck and I could see the white patch on its throat.

The problem was, we couldn't see antlers. My uncle knew it was big based on the white throat patches (it had 2) but we just couldn't spot antlers. So we're passing my rifle around, each of us trying to put antlers on this critter, for several more minutes. The buck is standing stock still this whole time. Eventually I remembered I had some Kleenex tissues in my backpack and I told my uncle to grab them so we could clean the scope lens off and maybe see the deer better to verify it was a legal buck.

My uncle unzipped my packs front pocket (which was my brothers pack that I borrowed and just threw my own stuff in on top of his) and found not only my Kleenex but a set of binoculars! So he pulled those out and started looking at the buck and forgot to give me the tissues.

After just a few moments of watching with the binoculars, my uncle exclaimed "it's a buck!!" I'm aiming at it through my limited field of view in the old Leupold 3-9, and I ask "cool, is it legal?" And my uncle halfway yelled "FREAKING SHOOT!!" So I did.

A 200gr Sierra game king from my dads old Remington 721 in 30-06 did the job, and we heard the buck run uphill for about 10 seconds before crashing and tumbling back down the hill. It was wild to hear just how much noise he made tumbling down the hill.

We knew he was dead so we ran back up the skid road to get close to him. Walking down in on him in the dregs of last light, I didn't have enough knowledge of deer to understand just how big he was. My uncle and cousins started losing their gourd while I just sat there looking at this big old fella. We expect he weighed 230 on the hoof, and measured 25.5" wide which is huge for a blacktail.

My cousin gutted him out in about 3 minutes flat and we started dragging him downhill while my uncle took the packs and guns to go grab the truck. We hit a couple of blind drop offs while heading down the hill where the deer took off, dragging my cousin and I downhill for ~30 feet before hitting a plateau. The second drop off my cousin took an antler tine in one butt cheek which bruised the heck out of him.

After a short, brutal drag we got him to the truck and it took 4 of us to get him up and in. Then the cold work of skinning him began at the house. It was a party, as the whole family came over to see my first buck, and we took turns warming up inside with pizza and hot chocolate while other people would work on skinning for a few minutes.

Every aspect of that night is printed in my brain, and is nothing but joyous.

The only bad part is the next day I papered that rifle just to have some bench time, and it was shooting an 8" group. Proper to the hunt it was shooting about 1". Somewhere along the line the scope took a hit. I'm extremely glad I still hit the deer where I planned to, even with the scope being out of whack.

Picture of the blacktail attached

That is a very nice Blacktail.

 

[marksman1941]

My next year I shot a button muley and it was…. Sobering. But I've done alright since then!

I wouldn't know the bad side effects of "big antlers"! memtb

 

[wv270wsm]

My best hunting story I never fired a shot on . Me and my two sons were setting in a box blind . It was 2012 the first day of Wv rifle season . My oldest son at the time was 7 and the younger one had just turned 6 .

The Christmas before me and my wife had bought them each a 223 H&R rifle . I'd loaded up 60 gr nosler partitions and man did they both shoot good .

It hadn't been daylight long when two smaller bucks came chasing a doe through past us , but I couldn't get any of the 3 of those deer to stop . One was a fork horn and the other was a spike . My youngest son completely lost it . He was crying and just wanted to kill a deer so dang bad , he could not for the life of him understand that sometimes that's how it went .

It was going on 830 ish and I looked out the side window towards the truck and there stood a decent 8 pointer . That's the side my older son was setting on . So we get the window open and the buck is just standing there perfectly broadside at 80 yards . Not a care in the world . He gets on the deer and put an absolutely perfect heart shot on that sucker. That deer done the text book jump straight in the air and kick the back legs and run . He went maybe 50 yards down hill and piled up .

We're all hugging and high fiving and my younger son said daddy there's another buck over here now . Lo and behold the spike from earlier had snuck back in on our left 40 yards away just looking around .

We got that window open and he smoked that sucker . Dropped him in his tracks . Both my son killed their first bucks within a minute of each other in the same exact day.

The only way that day could have been any better is if my dad who'd passed away two years prior could have been with us in person . It was from his stand that this took place.

 

[unclebob]

All of my deer have been memorable, due to sheer ridulousness, great family time, or insane luck. I would love to write them all out, and I will probably give an accounting of them when I'm not typing on a cell phone. But my most memorable that comes to mind is my first buck.

I was hunting with my uncle and cousin, whom really taught me to hunt. My dad rarely hunted and wasn't very good at it when he did make it to the woods.

So in oregon the rifle season is extended two extra days for youth hunters. My cousin and I are both youth (he was 14 and I was 17), so it's late late November and the last weekend of season for us. I've never killed a deer, my cousin had killed a stack already by this point.

We made a walk out through a logging skid road, and were on our way back to the truck just before last shooting light when my uncle says "there's a buck!! Just across the draw!"

Being fairly new to hunting, I couldn't spot the buck with my naked eye. It was dim light, rainy, and blacktail deer are fairly dark haired and blend in well with the ground especially when they're wet. I tried scanning with my rifle scope for the buck, but it was so fogged up I just had a little center portion of the scope that was clear, showing the very center of the reticle. Finally after a couple of minutes my uncle verbally walked me into the buck and I could see the white patch on its throat.

The problem was, we couldn't see antlers. My uncle knew it was big based on the white throat patches (it had 2) but we just couldn't spot antlers. So we're passing my rifle around, each of us trying to put antlers on this critter, for several more minutes. The buck is standing stock still this whole time. Eventually I remembered I had some Kleenex tissues in my backpack and I told my uncle to grab them so we could clean the scope lens off and maybe see the deer better to verify it was a legal buck.

My uncle unzipped my packs front pocket (which was my brothers pack that I borrowed and just threw my own stuff in on top of his) and found not only my Kleenex but a set of binoculars! So he pulled those out and started looking at the buck and forgot to give me the tissues.

After just a few moments of watching with the binoculars, my uncle exclaimed "it's a buck!!" I'm aiming at it through my limited field of view in the old Leupold 3-9, and I ask "cool, is it legal?" And my uncle halfway yelled "FREAKING SHOOT!!" So I did.

A 200gr Sierra game king from my dads old Remington 721 in 30-06 did the job, and we heard the buck run uphill for about 10 seconds before crashing and tumbling back down the hill. It was wild to hear just how much noise he made tumbling down the hill.

We knew he was dead so we ran back up the skid road to get close to him. Walking down in on him in the dregs of last light, I didn't have enough knowledge of deer to understand just how big he was. My uncle and cousins started losing their gourd while I just sat there looking at this big old fella. We expect he weighed 230 on the hoof, and measured 25.5" wide which is huge for a blacktail.

My cousin gutted him out in about 3 minutes flat and we started dragging him downhill while my uncle took the packs and guns to go grab the truck. We hit a couple of blind drop offs while heading down the hill where the deer took off, dragging my cousin and I downhill for ~30 feet before hitting a plateau. The second drop off my cousin took an antler tine in one butt cheek which bruised the heck out of him.

After a short, brutal drag we got him to the truck and it took 4 of us to get him up and in. Then the cold work of skinning him began at the house. It was a party, as the whole family came over to see my first buck, and we took turns warming up inside with pizza and hot chocolate while other people would work on skinning for a few minutes.

Every aspect of that night is printed in my brain, and is nothing but joyous.

The only bad part is the next day I papered that rifle just to have some bench time, and it was shooting an 8" group. Proper to the hunt it was shooting about 1". Somewhere along the line the scope took a hit. I'm extremely glad I still hit the deer where I planned to, even with the scope being out of whack.

Picture of the blacktail attached

Great buck
Was your next one that big?

 

[Backwoods towny]

The only way that day could have been any better is if my dad who'd passed away two years prior could have been with us in person . It was from his stand that this took place.

I'd say he had a part of it.

 

[marksman1941]

That is a very nice Blacktail.

Thanks! He was a good buck. I ate well off him also.

 

[marksman1941]

Great buck
Was your next one that big?

Larger rack, smaller body. My first buck, for as wide as he was only scored 108 5/8". He didn't have a ton of mass or height to him. My second buck (an archery kill that I posted a picture of a couple posts back) scored 143 6/8". He was symmetrical and tall, just a perfectly formed blacktail aside from a partially broken rear tine.

That first buck I have have a sneaking suspicion was a bench leg, which is a blacktail / muley hybrid. Between the antler shape and the sheer size of him, I think he was a cross breed. My uncle guessed he was 230 on the hoof but the only time we weighed him was after hanging for a week. He was skinned, head cut off, right shoulder removed due to bloodshot, and legs cut off at the knees. Hanging for a week so he'd dried out a fair bit. He weighed 99 pounds right then.

 

[marksman1941]

I've been looking for this pic for a while now. This was my third buck, which brought me back to earth on the reality of what meat sometimes looks like lol. They won't all be big monsters.

 

[Grizzly60]

I've been looking for this pic for a while now. This was my third buck, which brought me back to earth on the reality of what meat sometimes looks like lol. They won't all be big monsters.

Those are better eating than the big monsters. My preferred target.

 

[marksman1941]

Those are better eating than the big monsters. My preferred target.

He tasted great. Ironically, since I was used to hunting oregon blacktail, this dinky Idaho muley had larger hams than my huge oregon blacktail lol. That was an eye opener.

I was in college when I got this guy, and my roommate was NOT impressed to open the fridge the next morning to find cookie trays full of partially butchered meat. I managed to get the shoulders butchered up the night of harvest, but called it quits around 2am and stuffed the hams in a trash bag, put them on a cookie sheet, and stuck them in the fridge. I apparently didn't close the trash bags well enough cause the roomie got a bit of a surprise in the morning! She already didn't like me and that just cemented it.

 

[Barehandlineman11]

I share one. Two buddies and myself had an outfitter fly us out on the Alaska peninsula, north of Illiamna. When flying through the pass, wing flaps down on a DeHaviland Beaver, we still gained about 100 feet of altitude a minute due to high winds. As we were landing on the lake I remember thinking what a smooth landing for floats. When the floats actually did touch the water the shore, which had a four foot cut bank, looked very close. When the pilot said $h!t, I was concerned. He gunned the engine and pulled the stick back hard and skipped up onto the bank. We came to a stop about 35 yards on dry ground. All of us were very quiet for a while ( don't know how long), and I finally said "if I knew we were landing on dry ground I may not have worn my hip waders. The pilot said he needed a few moments to gather his thoughts. I told him I would be a short ways off kissing and hugging the ground. We pushed the plane back into the water and he lifted off into the 70 MPH wind in just about twice the length of the floats. The winds got worse later that day and brought a couple inches of rain. That story can wait. It's a little crazy.

Wonder if it was same pilot i had this year lol he wouldn't fly in any wind ptsd maybe