RE: does this ever happen to you
It is some kind of corollary to Murphy's Law. "You will be incorrectly armed for the game that you see or the game that you see will not be in season."
Before it was a park area you could hunt the borrow ponds below Saylorville Dam north of DesMoines. In one fall my buddy and I went duck hunting there and saw pheasants (out of season), went pheasant hunting and saw ducks, went again and saw ducks and deer. We each got within 10 feet of nice bucks. We naturally decided to go deer hunting there when the season opened and the carp were rolling so thick you could shoot all day (if your bow fishing rig was with you). A week later, with bow in hand, we saw ducks and pheasants again. We saw more game in that area that fall (close ranges too) than I've ever seen anywhere but we were never armed correctly or what we saw was out of season.
Bob