Practical Jokes in Camp
Elk
Costume
Costume
I have been chuckling all day as I recall good practical jokes through the years that my hunting partners and I have played on each other. Love to hear some good ones from others. This year, I am fortunate to have my 14 year old son on his first bow hunt. He will be hunting muleys out of a tree stand near camp. So, what's the best way to prank him? Well, a full sized Bigfoot costume of course! One of my buddies will suit up while I am next to him on the stand and slink through some trees about 100 yards out. Just enough to set the stage. He will then circle behind us and come through the woods 5 mins later. Knowing the risk of him collecting an arrow from an over-anxious youth, I will be there to keep things under control. Hoping to Go Pro this little adventure and if it goes off well, stay tuned for the after hunt posting. Private land BTW so limiting the risk though expect some of you to be concerned.
Glad you're going to be with him. Bigfoot comes in downwind of me and he's probably catching one in the chest. I also hope there are no unknown hunters on "bigfoots" travel route. Maybe best to take off the mask once out of your sons sight.
It is always funny until someone gets hurt.........and depending on who and how bad it often still is funny. But damn...don't get yerself killed.
I had a jokester bombing my tent with massive amounts of methane expelled from his bunghole. I didn't think it was funny.
I like it!
I like to remove the quiver off of buddies bows and remind them after we've gone like 100 yards from camp. I also put chick magazines, think Cosmopolitian, in their backpack or truck. My favorite for newbies is the white stuff in the old coiled bugles...never gets old!
a dead critter in a sleeping bag is always good for some excitement. a chunk of fur can work well too
Make sure his safety harness is on tight so he doesn't fall out of his stand when he freaks out
Not a big fan of practical jokes. I've seen as many go poorly as go well. They are particularly ripe for unintended consequences. Like horse play.
Someone once changed all the clocks so that I was 2 hrs early to stand, i thought the world was ending or something. It was a lot funnier for everyone else than it was for me.
that is in the middle of the bigfoot rut. Is that a male or female costume? if it's a male you may get beat up. if it is a female you may have preferred to have been beaten up.
I am dead serious on a hunt so I personally don't do jokes. Hopefully, this doesn't make me no fun. I glad for those that can enjoy the fun. My focus and intensity probably limits the amount of people that would hunt with me but I am typically a loner when it comes to hunting.
I wouldn't do the bigfoot prank. when you get out there, it's time to hunt. Running around the area (contaminating it) you will loose at least one day of hunting. Just put a realistic fake snake on his stand or in his tent.
Be sure to submit the video to "Hunting Squatch" shows as they will take it as a DOCUMENTED SIGHTING!........LOL
Put a set of fresh buck nuts in my sons hand warmer muff. Don't think he finds that funny yet. Probably 10 years ago.
Gene or Barry had a good one. Take a short 8/32 flat head screw and toss it in your buddys bow case. See how long he tries to find out where it fell out from.
Not in camp, but on my way out West...
Whenever making a gas stop, I would let the clerk know that my buddy thought they were good looking, but he's kind of shy and didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. If they wanted him to give them a call when we were passing back through in a couple of weeks, they should just slip him their phone number.
In would walk my hunting partner... better than 6'5" of black police sergeant.
I was disappointed that none of those guys ever slipped him their number. My buddy said that he felt like he was getting some odd looks in some of the small towns that we passed through. I told him that he was just imagining things.
Put womens dirty underwear in tbeir dirty clothes bag
Dang Pete, that can go more wrong than the Bigfoot prank!!
Put a big rubber snake in your buddy's cooler with a piece of fishing line between the snake neck and the lid. Open the lid and the snake "strikes".
I did this once to a buddy who revealed his deathly fear of snakes. He nearly tore the wall tent down trying to get out, screaming like a little girl.
Orionsbrother i used to do that same thing to my old boss except he was a 6'7" ogre with stadium row seating for teeth lol.
If you dont have dirty underwear condoms work too.
I'm not a practical joker nor do I receive them well. If that makes me no fun, then so be it. I've seen too many, mostly at work, turn into an ass whipping or injury.
Big fan of a rubber snake tied to a shed antler in a pile of leaves placed just off the trail. When they fall trying to run from the snake I almost cry
Can of beans slid into the campfire is always good for a few yucks. Box of large rifle primers is taking it a bit too far, however. :)
I love the jokes. I was looking for one to play on my son this year and I may have to copy the Bigfoot one.
I don't understand guys that can't have fun/laugh/joke when hunting. You're on vacation fellas. Let loose a little bit.
A good classic one to play on your son is the old chocolate covered raisins prank. Place a pile of them somewhere you will walk by with him. Explain that you can figure out how long ago the deer was there by tasting the deer poop.
There are usually 4 of us in camp. We travel in pairs in a couple of side by sides. The guys in the other sbs are always getting ahead of us when coming in after dark and one will jump out and hide behind a tree to pop out as we come by to scare me. It worked well the first time but after that I was ready for it.
Last year I carried an awful looking alien mask to wear while doing the same to them. Well, the driver of the other sbs is such a type A he would never let us get ahead of him when coming in after the evening hunt. The last night when we were packing to leave he went outside the cabin to secure something in the sbs. I hid behind the door with the mask and when he entered the cabin jumped out and grabbed him. Thought the guy was gonna die or he was going to beat me to death or both....Oh sweet revenge!
Three foot long zip ties attached to the drive shaft (use the black ones, as white are to easy to spot.) Sounds like mud being kicked up at low RPM, but it never stops. Don't ask me how I know this. HA!!
For the humor-impaired types, I was joking about the can 'o beans in the fire. No need to cause burns or a forest fire.
We've done a lot of fun things to one another. You got be careful though. We've had a few newbies that took it wrong, had some regulars that would take some things wrong, and you gotta do it when the victim isn't in possession of a lethal weapon.
I know a guy that got fired for a rubber snake placed in a stack of paperwork. And the woman's underwear in the laundry gag is a good way to lose a hunting buddy. Unless of course, you are the one married to him.
Jokes are great. I love to laugh but I draw the line at potential harm. So that excludes most practical joking.
I never got into the jokes at hunting camp. I guess to each their own, just not my cup of tea.
WS
Want to watch someone pile out of their sleeping bag in a hurry? Find something small and fuzzy and tie it up to some clear fishing line. Place the warm and fuzzy thing in the bottom of their sleeping bag in the opposite bottom corner from the zipper side opening. Run the fishing line along the inside edge of the bag and out along the bunk or cabin/ tent floor to your bunk/ cot where you will have control of the line. During lights off when everyone is still kind of chatting in the dark and just about asleep, listen for the first few snores. Then kind of give the line a couple of tugs to get their attention, they will usually stop snoring then. After a few seconds set the hook so to speak, and pull the fuzzy thing fast up along their leg out the bag. They will pile out in a hurry.
In camp, my hunting buddies dad kept a coffee can next to his bed to piss 3 or 4 times a night. (He is getting older). By the 3rd night, we got tired of hearing the piss hit the bottom the can, then you would slowly hear it fill up.
So, my buddy, used a bottle opener and put holes in the bottom of the can once he was asleep. When he woke up to piss, all you heard was the bottom of the can until he YELLED "OH #$%^&". He pissed all over his sleeping bag.
It was the funniest thing you have ever seen......
On a pig hunt one of my friends had to walk by my stand to his. Quitting time (dark) I tied one of those motion censored shrunken heads next to the trail he walked out on in the bottom of a dry creek bed. I checked it & it worked great. When he got to camp that night, he never said a word & we knew he had chit his pants. Another time, one of the fellas was getting married when we returned from a hunt. During an afternoon nap, the guys jumped on him & CHAINED & Locked a bowling ball to his ankle they had made. He wore it till evening hunt & a sample of what was to come in married life. As for me, my brother was to meet us right after he got off work & go hunting with me & my son (15 at the time). He never showed so we left. It was dark when we reached the truck & when I opened the tailgate he raised up, growling & definitely got us both. Mixed communication, we were to pick him up.. I've given & received plenty but definitely think of the safety factor..
Like the Bigfoot prank, however, for any of you guys out there who actually see the real deal and shoot it, remember what happen to the dentist who shot Cecil? I think anyone who shoots Bigfoot will find themselves up on murder charges in today's world.
Some of these are pretty hilarious to read especially your post Jeff.
To be honest though, some I wouldn't take so well. I agree with the above post, I'm out there to hunt and kill, not mess around. I guess for me a little would go a long way, although the fishing line and furry creature or snake would probably get me laughing after the fact. I've read about guys who load up their buddies pack with rocks and let them carry it for a while. Not sure I would be real happy about that one, as it's draining much needed energy for the hunt! Jokes can be great for sure, but agree with the above post about unintended consequences and going too far.
Get two new hats that match your friends hat. 1 smaller and 1 bigger : every day , switch them out and your buddy will think his head is growing and shrinking . Improvise as needed.
My brother and I play jokes on each other all the time. However, most of my elaborate ones backfire.
I thought it would be funny to go back to my brothers stand and place a foothold trap right where he sits. I had baited it to target a raccoon, something he could whack over the head and continue hunting. It caught a wolf instead! I had to go back to the truck (a mile hike) and get the catch pole so we could release the dam thing.
My most elaborate prank happened a few years back when *+I shot a doe. When I was gutting her out, I thought it would be funny to splash the blood out of the chest cavity onto the front of my blaze orange jumpsuit. I also took a tied off a portion of the bowel and strategically placed it sticking out of my lower front pocket. I then went and laid down along the trail leading to my stand. My brother hunts on the opposite side of the logging trail so we often head over to help each other out if we hear someone shoot. This time was no different and I could hear him crunching through the snow as I laid there "bleeding out". Once he saw me lying face down in the snow, he ran over and flipped me over. Upon seeing that I was in serious trouble, he thought it was prudent to start CPR, cracking 2 ribs in the process. Needless to say, he was visually shaken and PISSED when he realized that it was just a prank. The down side was that I had to drag out the deer on my own, hurt like a SOB.
One year after shooting a buck and a doe, I replaced his normal hunting loads with ones filled with black powder. Sure enough, another big doe walked right in front of him, POOF and there she was....gone.
When I was a kid, my father and his buddies would load up all our families and spend a week hunting out of our camps in Northern Maine. One old guy, Smitty, was a funny character. He showed up with a little Italian semi-automatic and my father and his buddy, Phil, a gunsmith got it ready and sighted in for him. Unknowst to Smitty, they rigged it to be fully auto. We put Smitty on a crossing and did push for him as he was 80. We jumped some deer and heard him cut loose. We got there and he had a deer that he kiiled. He told us , "boy, that friggen gun has a nasty recoil." "I shot that deer and the next thing I knew, the barrel was pointing to the sky." "How in hell did I shoot once and hit him twice."
I used to hunt waterfowl years ago. Late in the year we would get out of the blind on the real cold mornings to keep the water open. One time my buddy got out of the blind to break ice and i quietly unloaded the shells out of his Remington 870. Shortly later we called in a flock of mallards, and as usual he would be telling us to wait and would then jump up and shoot first. This time we let him go. I don't think we laughed so hard as we did that time. Not a shot was fired because my other buddy and I were laughing so hard. Better yet he didn't learn the first time so we over a couple years we pulled this same prank with the same result. All good fun with friends. He got his revenge over the years.
