Funny stuff other hunters do
General Topic
Took this pic from the road on my way back home.
Took this pic from the road on my way back home.
Checking snares this morning I noticed the set up in the picture I attached and got me thinking about some of the funny things I’ve seen over the years other hunters do.
Preparing for the gun season next week this fella set his ground blind up 50 yards from the road and put his corn piles 30 yards from the road. This isn’t a backroad. We get a lot of traffic daily. Hope it works out for him. I just couldn’t bring myself to shoot towards a road. Even if a car isn’t going by people are always riding bikes and walking/jogging on it.
I’ve got a property I hunt that the landowner lets other people hunt as well. I’ve had a stand in the same spot for 15 years on it. Just a small 5 acre woods surrounded by fields and a small marsh on the south side of it. My stand is on the edge beside the marsh. My father n law and myself have shot some nice deer from it. Last year one of the other guys set a ground blind up on the west side edge of the woods. Not in the edge of the woods but 5 yards in the open field. I stopped hunting there after the blind went up it’s 60 yards from my stand. This year the blind was in shambles and the fella put a new one in the same spot leaving the trash from the first one there. Not to be out done the other guy that hunts the place set up another ground blind 30 yards beside it.
Another good one was elk hunting one year. Seen two fellas walking towards me after I had done a little bit of calling. I met up with them to bs and find out what direction they were heading. We met up and started bsing and I noticed they were both covered in what appeared to be horse shit. I asked if they had fell down on the trail walking in and they both told me they had covered themselves in it for cover scent. We went our separate ways and I couldn’t help but laugh imagining them coating themselves down with it every pile they came to.
I don’t care if you paint yourself purple and sit naked on a mountain of corn or peanuts in the center of a field. If that’s how you want to hunt I hope you have a good time. This thread isn’t about bashing on anyone’s style or methods of hunting. What’s some of the amusing things you’ve seen other people doing in the field?
Another good one. One year my younger brother and I were rifle elk hunting in Colorado and had been seeing this 3x with 3” brow tines. Not legal every morning. Think it was the third morning my brother was watching it and a few cows in a field. Suddenly two hunters come running out of the woods charging the elk across the field. They were running towards the elk and shooting as they ran as the elk ran off. One of them eventually fell down and buried the barrel of his gun in the ground. His buddy stopped running and went back to help him up. Luckily they didn’t hit anything that we could tell. Nothing fell in the field so they walked away without looking for blood.
Way back in the bush one time, heard a truck coming up the logging road. All the way he was honking his horn. When he got up to us, he stopped to say hi - friendly enough guy. I asked him what was up with all the horn honking. He said he was trying to scare a moose into crossing the road, so he could shoot it. My guess is that he eats a lot of salad.
I’m prolly one of the guys people make fun of and I don’t know it lol
Hunting a friends farm opening morning of rifle season this year. I was sitting in a gar hole next to the truck and the property line waiting for the guys to finish hunting so I could look for a buck I shot the evening before with my bow.
Neighbor has a 8-9 acres switchgrass field right behind his house. With a mowed path around it. For two hours that guy hunted by walking around his switch patch. Around and around. Couple times went right through it. It was 7 feet tall. Can’t see in it. Never saw me either. ;)
I watched a 10 point and several does walk a small ridge right above his patch. If he’d been in a short stand he’d have had a shot. But he kept walking around and around . . .
I’ve seen a bunch over the years . . .
I also watched the end of the Bears game yesterday
Another good one. Guy that used to live across the road from me was complaining one evening about not seeing any deer that week. Knowing where his only stand was and the way the deer work that piece I told him the wind had been wrong all week for that spot. Dead serious he told me that was the beautiful thing about his stand that the tree was bigger around than he was so it blocked his scent from going down wind. I stopped talking to him after that.
Here’s another good one I did one time. My buddy Dave and I were trapping state land. Not allowed to use a 22 to dispatch critters so I carried a shovel handle to crack them with. We walked up on a foothold yote and I went to hit him with Dave jumping up and down beside me yelling get em Dave get em! I swung and it moved its head at the last second. I hit the trap and knocked it off its foot. We stood there looking at each other for a bit wondering how did that happen. I still laugh thinking about him jumping up and down yelling at me to hit it.
I was in my treestand just inside the woodline next to a field with apple trees along the wall. Suddenly I spot movement at fifty yards away in front of me. Some guy with a compound and an arrow on the string finished climbing over the stone wall and after waiting at least 30sec. proceeds to begin walking towards me in an erratic fashion. All his movements were quick like his head was on a swivel and in a darting fashion he was soon at the base of my tree. That day I was using rapid rails and a hang on stand and I figured for sure he would spot the ladder as he almost brushed the lower section while passing me. He didn't. OK, let's see if he bumps something to me, so I listened as he did his quick flit walk down the hillside towards a swamp. I estimate he went at least at least sixty to fifty yards away I had no problem tracking his progress by sound. In fifteen minutes he was again approaching me and this time he spotted my ladder from directly below me. Aw shit, he says and marched away from me in the direction he first appeared. His hunt was over.and I left soon thereafter.
A few years ago while spring turkey hunting, a guy walks in 30 minutes after sunrise. Sets up a couple of hundred yards across from me and my son. He does't know we are there.
He then starts to call.... First, a crow call, then a hen call, then a longbeard gobble call.....
Every. Five. Minutes... For over an hour... The same sequence.
After not hearing any gobbles, the guy turned and went back from the way he came..
I couldn't stop laughing, I'm retired, and can go during the week. But my son was POed.
Was in my stand in Kaibab about 15 years ago and this guy is still hunting towards me. He stops by a log about 30yds from me and proceeds to take his pack off, get some tp out and is about to drop his pants when I gave a firm throat clearing alert. Scared the crap out of him but he waived, threw his pack on and took off.
Bowhunting in early October. I got into my tree stand in the dark and, as it got light, heard something down the draw from me a couple hundred yards. Turns out another hunter had set up a ground blind that morning. It wasn't there the day before. I was thinking how no animals were going to go past with a new blind sitting there, when I spotted his head pop up out of the blind. He had made a hole in the top of the blind and decided his best strategy was to stick his head out, looking in every direction, all morning. Every few minutes he would put out a grunt, then a doe bleat, then a cow elk call. Did this for over 2 hours, all the while with his head sticking out of the blind and swiveling all around. He never did see me, and neither of us saw any animals that morning!
Just this September my son and I had a good herd of elk on public - maybe 25 cows with 4 bulls in it. Two nice 5x5’s we had a chance at getting a shot at. We were above them, had the wind in our favor and they were bugling lots and doing elk stuff. They were filtering up the mountain and we could definitely stay ahead of them for a shot. We stayed silent.
We began to hear another hunter bugling below them. He was non stop. And the elk started to look his way. Before long, the cows and calves were doing really weird actions - staring, kinda spooked, running around. The hunter kept on bugling closer and closer non stop. What was happening??
The herd exploded up the canyon while still looking at the hunter. We had no idea why they kept staring….. as the bugling got closer we understood why….. this absolute moron was behind a Montana Elk Decoy walking as fast as he could directly at the herd bugling almost every other step.
The elk took off past us and up the mountain with no shots offered. I waited for the guy to keep following the herd….as he proceeded to do bugling constantly. I was going to blow him up if he found his way to us……which he didn’t. He turned around and bugled all the way back the way he came.
You can’t make this stuff up :(
I was in a tree a little before daybreak got all situated in one of my favorite oak flats in Catoosa WMA . I was there about an hour and I heard a commotion coming out of a laurel thicket . Out comes this hunter heading right by me. He was wild eyed and walking at a helluva pace.Just as he was walking by I spoke to him and he about jumped out of his skin. He looked up and said “do you know how to get out of here.” I told I did and started climbing down. When I got down he told me he was camping with his friends and was hunting yesterday afternoon and got lost. I asked him where they were camping and he told at the Genesis Road camp area. I then asked him where did he cross the Obed River and he said he didn’t cross any river and he was still pretty wet on the coldest morning we had up till then. I got him in my truck and took around to where they were camping and TWRA was there organizing a search party. I knew a couple of the rangers and told them my story and when I told them where he was the first question one of asked was where did he cross the Obed and when I told them he said he didn’t cross a river well you can imagine. That was a crazy morning.
Long ago I was rifle hunting in the National Forest, just sitting on the ground against a big pine tree. I caught something in the edge of my vision and slowly turned my head. There was a guy creeping through the woods looking all around and when he got about 40 yards in front of me he sat down looking the same direction I was. I just got up and sneaked away. He had looked directly at me at one time, no hunter orange required in those days and years before I wore camo, but he evidently didn’t see me. There was no hint of recognition.
Now, I’ll tell one on myself. I was hunting on some timber company property that was open to the public and still hunting through the woods as I did when I was younger. About an hour into my hunt I happened to look up and there was a guy in a home made tree stand about 30 yards in front of me. I felt like a damn fool !
Chuckster you spurred a memory. Years ago I was hunting Camp Ripley, a busy military base in Minnesota. Mid morning I hear footsteps, a guy comes over the ridge looking around & taking a few more steps. He got directly under my stand & drops trou. In the middle of his BM I said in my deepest voice “ need some ass wipe?” He just about jumped out of his skin. Still can’t believe he didn’t notice me up there.
Basil and Bou LOL. A few years ago, my brother and I were sitting our stands on each side of a large water hole on an elk hunt in AZ. We hadn't been there 20 minutes when I hear a couple guys talking very loudly what a beautiful waterhole this is. It's still pretty early in the afternoon so I climb down and walk over to ask them to politely move along. They are sucking water out thru their water filtration pumps so I tell them about a natural spring about a half mile north of us. I tell them my brother is sitting on the east side of the waterhole because the elk are frequently bedded up there. What do they do? They walk RIGHT under my brothers stand and walk straight east up the hill. For the next 45 minutes we hear elk busting out of the side of that hill. To say I was pissed would be an understatement.
My son and I were deer hunting in the national forest in Northern CA.
After our morning hunt we came out of the timber and onto a dirt road on our way back to camp. This was a fairly steep and rough dirt road. There were small narrow wheel tracks in the road, as we walked along we were trying to figure what made them. We thought maybe some sort of deer cart or something along those lines. Rounding the next corner we figured it out.... An older gentleman was road hunting squirrels on a rascal shopping cart scooter. He was holding the handle bars with his hands and had his 12 gauge held under his chin barrel up while watching for squirrels.
“What do they do? They walk RIGHT under my brothers stand and walk straight east up the hill. For the next 45 minutes we hear elk busting out of the side of that hill. To say I was pissed would be an What do they do? They walk RIGHT under my brothers stand and walk straight east up the hill. For the next 45 minutes we hear elk busting out of the side of that hill. To say I was pissed would be an understatement.understatement.”
Sounds like that would be prosecutable under Hunter Harassment regs.
The thing that really pissed me off last year (‘23) was a group of about 5 guys who managed to occupy the only 2 decent campsites in the valley, but who nonetheless were hiking out to the trailhead every night… because that was where the beer was. So basically, they were just being d*cks, occupying campsites they didn’t even use.
Rifle kills on "Bowsite" why? The funny things hunters do!
Several years ago, my buddy and I heard some far off bugles. As we were working our way towards them, we could tell one bull was headed up, so we let him gain some elevation in order to keep the thermals in our favor before getting in too close. The second bull was still in the same spot down low, where they had been nearly an hour before. That same bull also had a very monotonous bugle, so it didn’t take long to realize this “bull” was another hunter. Since he had originally been working this bull first, we just sat tight to see what he would do. The real bull kept going further up the drainage, while the hunter stayed put, tooting on his bugle. It was obvious he’d been watching too many Primos videos. His loss. About half an hour later, I sent an arrow through that 6 point bull. As we were following the blood trail, we could still hear that hunter, calling from his original spot.
Funny things hunters do:
Make fun of how others hunt or how they pose for pictures
And then think that their opinion matters.
We were antelope hunting a few years ago on a big piece of public land. Found an “organic” operation of small scale tucked into a ditch while checking a waterhole to possibly drop another blind on. Ended up hearing about someone in town looking for their “dog” in the exact area said operation was found. Always figured there was something more to the story and guessed that it might have been relocated buy someone and the rightful grower was looking to repossess.
On the same hunt, opening morning we had a group of 5 bucks that were working our way. A truck pulls up about 200 yds away, pulls sideways, and out come the spotters and xbows. They watched the bucks commit, drink, and leave. No attempt was made to cut them off or get closer. The bucks left, and so did the hunters. I could have killed any of the bucks, but was looking for bigger. Never saw those guys again.
About 40+ years ago a few archery buddies and I decided to hunt Pungo National Wildlife Refuge on the coast in eastern NC's Washington and Hyde counties (It's now known as Pocosin Lakes). The most notable things on the refuge are deer, mosquitoes the size of drones and the biggest Eastern Diamondback rattlers I've ever seen in my life. We were walking in by foot on a cabled-off canal road for the evening hunt when two young guys asked us, "If we'd seen any snakes"? I wanted to reply, "do our eyes look open?" but simply said, "not since that morning"! Well, as karma would have it my buddy says "there goes a nice 'un"! Maybe 50 yds down the canal road was an eastern diamondback that looked like he'd stretch from one ditch to the other. It's middle looked like Iron Mike Tyson's biceps in his prime. They took off arguing... "I saw it first", "it'll make a better hatband for mine"! This was way before cellphones, we still had a long hike, and I announced I was not carrying either of those idiots out of there! They got entirely too close to it before they realized they needed a forked stick to pin its head with. Somehow one managed to pin it and pick up, but I was not at all sure he could hold it. They started back our way, still arguing about who would get the skin! When they were in earshot I heard the one holding it get pissed and say, "well here, if you want it you take it" and threw it down at the other's feet. The snake immediately coiled right between them and could have struck either....but didn't. I chalked it up to Divine intervention and the old saying about "fools and children". If God closes the mouths of lions, then I'm sure the fangs of the mother of all eastern diamondbacks are a "piece of cake"!
I had a guy stalk my dead buck for 2 hours as I watched from my blind. When I walked up to him . He said get down there is a buck right there. I told him he was dead. We both got a good laugh out of it.
I was hunting off the ground one time and saw a guy coming out the mt. He got closer and closer, there was a really thick patch of greenbriar about 25 yds from me, about 10 yds in circumference. I figured he would go around it, but for some reason he decided to go through it. ? maybe to test his pain level?...or maybe he was hunting rabbit with a crossbow?...mt rabbits?
Anyway in short order he was so tangled up, and his vocabulary got pretty colorful. I sat watching the show and despite wanting to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, i couldn't help but wonder what on earth he was thinking?..he could of easily went around it. maybe they don't have greeenbriar where he is from?...The comical part was that when he was deep into his dilemma, a sort of panic set in, and he began thrashing about....ya know the guy finally continued on....and he never did see me, good camo i guess.
My cousin on his first deer hunt was sitting in a tree with mu uncle . Both had shotguns. The buck they were after walks right under them. My cousin yells bang and jacks a shell out then yells bang and jacks another, My uncle then shot the buck as it left. He had to show my cousin his unfired shells on the ground before he would believe he didn't kill the buck with his first 2 bangs.
I was cruising timber one spring morning during gobbler season. Walked up to the edge of a woods opening to look out in it as I took a leak. I was a mile or better from the nearest road and on private property. So, I felt like there was no harm.
I snuck up and looked out in the field expecting to see a gobbler in strut. I didn’t. So, I unzipped, pulled it out and let it rip. I finished and was putting my little buddy up and looked down for the first time. That’s when we made eye contact.
Turkey hunter fully camped was setting about 5 feet away. Never said a word until I jumped and hollered. I reckon he stayed quiet as he was trespassing. We had a good laugh about it. Scared the crap outta me.
I had a guy stalk my dead buck for 2 hours as I watched from my blind. When I walked up to him . He said get down there is a buck right there. I told him he was dead. We both got a good laugh out of it.
WV, before I scrolled down to see you had a third paragraph, I thought it was the first time you made eye contact with your little buddy.
I had a guy stalk my dead buck for 2 hours as I watched from my blind. When I walked up to him . He said get down there is a buck right there. I told him he was dead. We both got a good laugh out of it.
Jethro...and it was "love at first sight"! And he knew how he could pass the time on stand when the deer weren't moving.....
About 25 years ago was hunting in a stand along the St. Croix River Bottoms. Was a good morning, saw some deer, waiting for one to get in range. About 10 AM two bowhunters stalk the ridge edge I am on. They get to about 30 yards then give each other a hung, then a smooch, caress, etc. Parted ways then started towards each other again on the trail....
Looked like it may turn into something right there but then I lowered my bow in between them. She gave out a quiet shriek he just kinda shrugged it off and they walked back up the hill holding hands and their bows.
My buddy was about 40 yards further up the hill and said something about the rut getting started...
I was in Florida on a draw hunt hunting with my son trying to get him his first deer. He was 5 (sorry rifle hunt). We were in the double stand well before daybreak and were waiting for shooting light. My son said he heard a truck. I said there was no way there were trucks in the area because there weren’t any roads. A short time later he said he heard wheezing. I guess youth ears are really good. Well, as shooting light arrived we watched an older gentleman man walking in our direction. He would take 4-5 steps, stop, wheez for a few minutes. He was carrying a rifle and a bucket Then walk another 4-5 steps and repeat the process. We saw him about 100 yards off and he continued into about 25 yards in front of us. I kept trying to get his attention but he could not be distracted.
Once he was about 25 yards in front of us, he stopped for the final time. He laid his rifle down and opened his bucket. He then proceeded to toss handfuls of corn all over the place. Once he had thrown corn absolutely everywhere all while wheezing, he turned his bucket over, grabbed his rifle and sat down.
I slowly climbed down and went to talk with the guy. Turned out he had taken his hearing aids out so he couldn’t hear me.
I explained that he had set up right in front of us. Had baited the area (illegal) and we couldn’t hunt there anymore. He then proceeded to tell me he always uses corn and that nobody ever told him it was illegal. He then said sorry and said he would move. He then took 15 min to move another 20 yards. Turned his bucket over again and sat back down. 45 yards from our ladder stand. I told the old guy we were moving and my son and I were leaving.
As we were hiking out we found the old guys truck. He had driven across the state forest land, taken out a few small trees and had gotten stuck in a sandy area about 200 yards from our stand.
I ended up calling the game warden. I didn’t want to be blamed for baiting deer. It was just one of the crazy stories we had in Florida.
Had a gal squat and pee about a hundred yards from me while I was deer hunting on public. I was repelled as she was large and unattractive.
Another time while elk hunting on top of a mountain miles above a small Colorado town, we had a young skinny guy wearing a suit jacket, tennis shoes, and skinny jeans carrying a Walmart sack, ask us which direction town was. Funny thing is, the only way up there was a 40 minute 4 wheeler ride, and town was very visible, miles below us. With darkness approaching in an hour, we pointed at the obvious town, and he stumbled down the burned hillside, not taking the trail. In hindsight, he seemed a bit disoriented, probably on weed.
Another time I was in my treestand on heavily hunted private ground, and when the field lit up a bit from the sunrise, I saw a pair of bucks fighting, and another hunter only 20 yards from the base of my tree that had been sitting there in the dark. My dad and friends were in a haybale blind across the field, and didn't see the bucks, so I crawled out on a limb and took a shot with my 7 mag. That woke everybody up, including the guy beneath my tree. Found out later the guy sitting by my tree didn't even have permission.
I should have taken a pic, but during the 9 day rifle hunt this year in WI, I saw a ladder stand in the only pruned tree 60 yards into a new clearcut. The stand was maybe 10 feet up and 200 yards off the main road. Looked kind of silly.
I was going to look for sheds on day on my lunch break. I parked on the side of the road and hiked in quickly since I had to piss bad. Got maybe 50yds in and stopped behind a tree. Got half done and not even 25 ft in front of me was a guy also looking for sheds wearing the best camo I've ever seen. He just walked away. Yup that happened
Years ago, I was hunting a family member's property late bow season. while out X-county skiing with my wife on the property, noticed one of my stands was missing. Property is well posted but adjoins somebody who is anti-hunting and has been giving the local property owners grief for years (he gun hunts with extended family).
Well, I told the property owner about it and said I would be putting up another stand when I came out later in the month (last month of season). On the day I came out, he was working on his fish house and told me about a guy hunting a nearby property who drove over to his place to accuse him of stealing a stand. Ok that makes two from well posted land.
Got a call from one of my relatives in the hunting circle and he told me about someone who was taking stands off of a property after an anti-hunter let them on to look for sheds. Really? He asked them about it. While at the local archery shop, they went on to explain further just where the property was and various landmarks. Apparently, the anti-hunter was directing them to adjoining properties claiming they were Her's and to have them remove any stands they found. Also to ignore any posted no trespassing signs as they were illegally posted. Which they did.
#1. Can't believe anti-hunter would stoop this low. #2. Can't believe the supposed bowhunters stooped so low as to steal stands without verifying the situation. #3. A couple of angry bowhunters who were hunting legally, with permission on posted land want our stuff back.
You know who you are and what you did, shame on you. Anyone else encounter a similar situation??
#1. Can't believe anti-hunter would stoop this low.
I believe anti-hunters will stoop to any level. They praise hunters and others getting killed by wild animals for gods sakes.
Will make a long story short... I had a guy cut down the tree my treestand was in once... We both had permission to hunt the property but he worked on the owners farm, (dairy farm) and just didn't like me being there... He did leave my stand though...
I took a leak one time only to zip up and realize I'd been right in front of a trail camera.
I was in high school and had just started deer hunting with a bow. I had one climbing stand and a couple hang on stands to hunt a 160 acre farm that my father owned. This particular farm was well known as a main frame 12pt had been coming out into a bean field all summer where the public could easily drive by and see him, this buck would have easily grossed in the high 190s as a typical. I had been hunting this deer since opening day and even managed to have a few encounters over the course of the season.
Mid November I decided I needed to take my climber to the north side of the property for an evening hunt. This entire property had a fence around it. I sneak into the area I wanted to hunt and as I'm getting ready to climb the tree I had picked out; I hear someone trying to get my attention. Of all people it was Hank Parker who crossed the fence with his camera man and let me know they were close by, they had leased a neighboring 80 acres to target the large typical. I was a bit star struck after recognizing him from his fishing shows. I moved on to a new spot and later that night I relayed the events to my father who I met that day. I was intent on hunting that spot, so I went back the following day after making sure they weren't hunting the area. I had been in my stand for an hour or so and notice two guys walking my way. It was good ol Hank again but this time he had no tolerance for me being in the area. He crossed the fence and let me know that I would be arrested for trespassing(my father owned the land) and that he was calling the law right then and there. I suggested I could call them as my friend's father was the game warden in the area at the time. Hank was an impressive bully for someone had trespassed on our land two days in a row to confront me.
He got a nice visit from the law, and I eventually got an apology from everyone involved on his side from the outfitter, landowner, and Hank.
No one ever killed that deer......
ZBone, Had a guy *build* a primitive stand about ten yards from where I had a stand set up already. Threw his trimmings in a mock scrape I'd opened up. Kind'a wished he'd show up while I was hunting...
That’s a good one duckhunterbrad I have a charter Captin at Lake Erie I’ve known for a long time and fish with a lot. He’s got some good stories on ol hank and a few other well known celeb fishing guys that would make you think a lot less of them if made public.
Few years ago I set up a stand on a ditch/fence row a month before season opened on private land. I stuck a camera on a good crossing to check out what was in the area and went back two weeks later to check the card. Found someone had set a new stand beside it 40 yards away on the opposite side of the ditch. I always hoped he would show up while I was there so we could discuss the weather and tell dad jokes while waiting on deer to pass by.
