I was thinking of some of the things Dad did when I was just a young'en tagging along. I remember 1 spot where we often squirrel hunted. It was swampy getting to the core oak area. At one point we had to cross a swampy section on a fallen log. Dad aways made me pay extra attention as the swamp was 13 ft deep! (he always reminded me) We always carefully crossed. Even as I got older and hunted on my own, I always crossed carefully, remembering his words. Over the years the log became soggy and was falling apart. One morning it happenend.. I was running late, my foot slipped off the side and I was going in. Gasping for breath, I readied for the water. My surprise came when the water barely coverd my boots to the ankle. I laughed a bit as my heart rate settled...dang! I mumbled..He got me again!! He still laughs when I tell the story! Let's hear yours..sadly, I have more. lol ! :D
i have a funny story my first year hunting, gun season i wasn't carrying a gun yet, just learning. anyways my father and i were walking around or to and from the stand and we walked up on some deer droppings. he proceeds to bend down next to the pile and i follow suit. he asks me if i know how to tell if it was a buck or doe, being new and young i of course say... no. he reaches to the pile and the next thing i know he's licking what i thought was a deer dropping and says, the bucks droppings are much more salty. i am in shock and thinking..... did that just happen. he says you try, i freak out and say no way, he starts laughing his ass off and shows me the package of rasinets. needless to say i copied his little trick with a few other people and had a great laugh
When I first started going out hunting with my dad, around 7 or 8 I suppose he'd always let me carry my BB gun. I'd carry that thing everywhere, and when we got to the stand I was constantly raising it and aiming it...then lowering it again (keep in mind those BBs were rattling around the whole time)... The next morning, we went out and I went to shoot at a squirrel, I then learned why it was important to be quiet in the woods. Dad took all those BBs out of my gun that night. I also remember very vividly going out turkey huntin with pops. I'd try and walk SO quiet...so I'd want to put my feet exactly where dad did (at 7 or 8 those are BIG steps when your dad is 6'3"). We got to the spot, and I was huffin and puffin to beat hell. When he asked me why I was so tired I simply said "Just following in your footsteps dad". He loves tellin' that one. I learned then to take your time walking to a spot...because before that sun comes up...you get real cold when you were covered with sweat!!
I guess my first learning story would be my dad always told me that if you are not going to eat it you don't shoot it. Well my cousin and I and my dad were walking out of the woods after a morning hunt where he was hunting I was only about 7 yrs old and my cousin 6 and we had our recurve bows with us and our 6 arrows with target tips.Well we see this porcupine up in a tree and we bug my dad enough to shot it he finally says fine go ahead and try. Well needless to say after all 12 arrows were stuck around that poor thing and we never did touch it we had no arrows to shot at our target all weekend. Lessen learned don't shoot at it unless you intend on eatting it.
Believe it or not, as a wee lad, the first four elk I witnessed being shot were done so while my father was in the act of doing a number two. With me on lookout, (couldn't hunt yet-I was like seven or eight y/o) and my father in the bushes, I'd shout. "ELK!". My father would appear with his pants around his ankles, fire the shot, and then retreat to finish his business. I thought this was the standard operating procedure for many years...
^ you guys must have been rifle hunting. lol I have a few. When I was around 8 I would always go up and go elk hunting with my old man. We would always take dirtbikes in close to where we hunted and walk in from there. The one frosty morning we were riding towards our hunting spot and came across a log bridge. With me being so young I didn't have my own bike to ride as they didn't want to have to wait for me so my dads friend was doubling me. As we crossed that bridge we hit a loose log that slipped out and I got tossed off the side of the bike and off the side of the bridge. Fell around 6 feet and landed on my head. For some reason it didn't hurt at all. I just learned from then on that doubling sucked. Also about 3 or 4 years later we were hunting elk in the same area and my dad was trying to get me into calling. He gave me a cow call and gave me a couple minute tutorial on how to use it and off we went. He started to bugle and had a elk coming in. He gave me a couple signs on when to call so that was the only times I did. I was also getting super nervous so you could kind of hear it in the call. I didn't feel all that confident in it so once the elk got withing 100yrds i stopped using the call. What I didn't relise was that my dad was getting into his shooting position and was expecting me to use the call to bring the elk in closer. He made a couple calls but I never responded. He LOST it on me, swearing away on how he has never lost animal from not calling. I spent that night and the next morning by the river learning to use my call. The next year came around and we spotted a elk crossing our cutline. We got into the trees and I started using the cow call. I called that elk within 5 yards of me. My dad was about 15 yards away but put himself behind a big fir tree expecting the elk to have come from a different direction. He never did get a shot off but to this day I will keep on bringing this story up saying how I have never not had a shot at a animal cause I decided to hide behind the biggest tree around.
When I was a kid.....when we were in the car, traveling, we'd pass the time "counting cows". It was tough to do when you got to a big herd. I'd be frantically counting and pointing as fast as I could. My dad would be spitting out 1,2,3,4,5,18,29, 48,70,103,128,etc... I asked him one time how he could count them so fast. He told me he counted their legs, and divided by 4. I don't recall how long I believed that.
Good stuff all!! At 3 years old I started tagging along with dad In the bear woods In northern Mn helping him bait and get ready for the bear season. On our 4.5 hour drive up dad would always tell me "keep a look out for bear sign". I was looking for signs that said bear on them. We still bring this up every year sitting around bear camp and every once In a while dad will ask me If I see any "bear signs". Good old days they were!!
When I was a youngster on one of my first deer hunts my dad had me up in the wood-built treestand and was explaining to me the importance of only moving slowly when you have to and keeping still when he let a loud raunchy fart rip. My face soured as the putrid cloud hit my nostils. Dad then went on to explain the importance of scent control.
Good stories guys! Sadly, I didn't really get to hunt much with my real father. He did leave me with a few good lessons tho'. Not really 'funny' but amusing..... :D I can remember when huge flocks of blackbirds would land in the trees around deer camp, my father, step-mom, uncle and cousins would grab shotguns and coordinate a volley at them. Then us little kids would help breast 'em out. We'd cook the meat in cornbread stuffing. Tastes like doves but it was easier to get a mess of 'em. (In hindsight, it probably wasn't legal but I'm not sure a game warden back then would bust you for eating blackbirds) Another one was when I watching my father brain tan a deer hide. As he unrolled the hide which was still very early in the tanning process I spotted a few fat maggots on the edge of the hide where the scraping had missed. I recoiled in disgust and fear. My father looked at me like I couldn't possibly be his off-spring. He asked what the bleep I was so scared of. He made me hold out my palm. (you did what he said) I was horrified as he picked up those maggots and placed them in my palm and made me make a fist and hold them for a few minutes. He told me "Never be afraid of things that can't hurt you." I was very young then and that really did sink in. When I relaxed he let me drop them and squish them. While I still find maggots disgusting, I've never since been afraid of them or any other harmless creepy-crawly critter. I can remember another time when he sent just me and my sister (she was really little) out in the woods with a bb gun and told us that if we didn't kill something for supper, we'd have to stay out in the woods all night and starve. I still can't figure out if he was trying to make it a learning experience or if he was just trying to get rid of us. :-O
I just remembered another funny one. My parents divorced when I was at a young age. Come Christmas time every year my dad would take us kids out to cut down our own christmas trees. The one morning he decided to take his bike out and ride it around in the snow. Later on that day we went out looking for trees and we came across his tire tracks. Me and my brother being 6 and 8 i believe didn't recognise the tracks and asked my dad what they were. He told us they were snow snakes, and he decided we should go snow snake hunting too. While we were walking around he would scream out, we would hide behind him and he would shoot his .22 into some hills and into the snow around us acting like he saw a snake. He did that a few times as we walked around and we never did get one. When we got home we told our mom that dad took us out snow snake hunting. She was livid with him, phoned him up and screamed at him saying how dangerous it is to take us out snow snake hunting and went on and on about how the snakes could have gotten us. Needless to say that was one of my dads favorite moments.
I got the snow snake thing, too. I was told they kill you in horrid fashion. They crawl up your ass and freeze you to death.
Last season my buddy Al was on his way to come hunting with me. I live about a mile away from my hunting property and he was on his way from work. Al decided he would stop at my place and pick me up. I'm all ready to go, got everything sitting in the driveway so we waste little time. As we get about 3/4 the way there I notice his truck starts to chug. He decided not to grab gas on the way home to save time Luckily we were right next to a cemetery that is somewhat close to my property. The only problem was that we had to cross a cornfield and the way the corn was planted we had to walk against the rows! It was a hot day and that corn was taller then me. By the time I got to my stand a half hour later I was seriously drenched in sweat. It would have been a great story if I shot a deer that night, but I ended up seeing nothing. Stopping for gas would have been the better choice.
