Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

It's the off-season, and kind of slow, so I thought it was time for a true hunting story. This happened to me (and to a doe antelope) three years ago.

It was my first antelope hunt, and I was really into it, crawling around for hours on end. I spent more time on elbows and knees than on my feet. Anyhow, I spotted this lone antelope doe and began a long stalk. In the course of an hour and a half I crawled up onto a berm that gave me a nice prone shot at her.

She was in company of a herd of cows, no other antelope in sight. I had no range finder and guessed the range to be about 300, maybe 325. I squeezed off my first shot. Nothing. The antelope started looking around for the source of the racket, but I was well-concealed, so she didn't see me.

I shot again. And again. And again. Nothing times 3. Now I've emptied my rifle (I only load 4 rounds at a time in my 270). I reloaded in some agitation, but the doe stood for it. Four more shots blasted down range. No results. Antelope still standing there. Me frantically reloading for a third time.

Stupidity, they say, consists of doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result on the next try. I guess you could say Stupidity was my middle name on this day. I held stubbornly to my belief in a 300 yard shot, and continued holding at the top of the spine, just into the hair at her backline. Three more shots rang out (that makes 11 shots for you scorekeepers out there). Nothing.

At this point I quit. Just set the rifle down and said screw it. Something triggered in my mind that by stopping there, I was avoiding emptying my rifle 3 times. For some reason, that carried some weight with me. Plus, I was running out of rounds, and I like to keep a few rounds available forif I encounter one of Patrick McManus' FMCs. (That's Fast Mean Cows for the great unwashed.)

Well, at about this point, the little doe decided she should leave the area, having given me more than a fair shot by any standard. She ran off about 600 yards, then stopped to look for trouble again, still never having seen me.

The cows in the field were a different story. Some of them had seen me as I emulated a blind sniper in a target-rich environment. What did they do? Exactly what cows everywhere are programmed to do - the unexpected. From all over this pasture, I had cows converging on my position. Curiosity, I think it's called. Maybe they thought, like some oversized Lassy, they would lead the blind man to safety. That, or they figured, 'Hey it's sure making a racket, but maybe that's a new brand of hay that just sounds like a firecracker. Might be tasty.'

As the cows drew near, the antelope doe began to look on with interest. Remember she was all alone except for the cows. Apparently she just wanted company. That, or maybe she had some Cape Buffalo genes in her. She started her charge at 800 yards! I'm not kidding here, she bore down on me at a full gallop.

If you've ever watched an antelope gallop, you know it didn't take long before she closed the range on me. I lay there in disbelief, realizing I was in the midst of a hunting story that I would tell for the rest of my life. I stopped her charge at 200 yards with two more shots.

I'd love to report that the story ended here. Not quite. When I approached her downed carcass, she lifted her head, still not deceased. I was really sick now, hating to see a critter suffer, so I raised my rifle for the coup de grace (shot number 14 for the scorekeepers) at 20 yards. She folded at the shot, but some unidentified object went flying into the air about twenty feet overhead. I walked over and saw that, unbelievably (am I overusing that word here?), I had shot her tongue clean out at the root and propelled it into the clear blue sky.

[I went back to my shooting spot, readily identified by the pile of expended brass, and stepped off the yardage to my first 11 shots. Four hundred ninety yards! I purchased a rangefinder within the month.]

[Did you know that you can't write the second half of the word "firecracker" on here? Rhymes with slacker, and is apparently a really bad word. Watch: fire cracker. God I love PC.]

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

dang, lol

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

I have to wonder why you could not see the bullets hiting the ground way in front of her. I like my rangfinder.Thanks for the truth.


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RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Don't feel bad,when it comes to antelope they have a away of making guys miss,and miss alot.LOL
BBJ

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Ever had diareah in an ice storm with waders on.You guessed it.You can hold-hold-hold but when she blows theres no slamming that back door!
I went skinny dipping on the delta last feb.Now tell me thats not embarassing!!

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

anyone had a #2 in the bush and wipe themselves with something they shouldn't of.... haven't heard of that in a while... always brings a grin to me anyways... maybe others don't think thats so funny.... ummm.... soooo....

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Great story loved it. Made me laugh too from your sense of humour. Thanks.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

a few years back up at moose camp, i had a little too much soda or sumthin the night before, and at about 3AM i needed out of that tent NOW. so in the pitch black alaskan darkness i scramble outta of the tent and try to keep quiet so i dont wake anyone up and they think im a bear before they realise im not in the tent. so i sneak up to the first patch of brush i can trip over, and let loose the flow. as soon as it hits the ground, the brush explodes into a fury of wings. i fell straight on my butt, still peeing. amazingly i made it out of the situation dry and with a new bit of learned knowledge. grouse like to spend the night in the brush right outside camp, and they dont like being peed on.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Very good question dayna0306! I have wondered the same thing as I thought back on it. Why couldn't I have noticed dust flying? I don't know. My rounds were dropping something like 50 inches at that range, and on flat ground maybe they were hitting like 200 yards short of the target? Or I was too zoned in on the spot of my hold to see anything else?

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Semi hunting story:

We where on our way back from a hunting trip. Tooling across South Dakota one evening. My buddy says he needs to make a stop. I say ok at the next truck stop I'll pull over. About a mile down I-90, he says "pull over I got a powerful stomach cramp!" Now anyone who's traveled I-90 knows that there is some isolate land out there, and we are smack in the middle of miles of picked fields. No cover. He says to pull over anyway. So I do. Its dark, we're in the middle of nowhere, what's it gonna hurt?

Well my buddy heads off into the field to get out of sight of the headlights. I get out and walk around to the ditch to release some coffee while we're stopped. And who should show up just then? The LAW. He commenced to tell me that I could be ticketed for indescent exposure etc etc. Then he asks me if I'm alone. So I tell him I'm traveling with a buddy. He wants to know where he is. I tell him out in that field takin a dump. So ole smokey walks to his cruiser and turns on the spot light and starts shining it out across the field to verify what my buddy is doing. Yours eyes just follow the swath of illuminate earth as it sweeps across the field. A flash of pale white. the beam stops and goes back to center up the patch of white. You guessed it, my buddies stark white butt pointed straight at the highway doing his business. Just then a semi goes by blarring his air horn, and my buddies eyes got as big as dinner plates. A total deer in the headlights situation. I laughed all the way back to missouri.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Ha ha ha that is quality. Man that is some funny stuff. you made my day shatodavis

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

I missed a 70 yard shot with my .270 on which would have been my first elk[:@](cow) that was standing in the middle of an old road, double[:@], so don't feel to bad.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Shato,
Man that brings back some funny stuff.LOL
Kinda of the same deal,Me and my pa were headed up to Troy MT to go hunting up on the Kootnie with my Uncle.We left after Thanksgiving dinner heading down HWY 200 Greatfalls To Missoula.About 10 miles out of Linchon MT my dad makes a bee-line to the shoulder of the road.He bails out with a roll of TP in hand.He comes around on the passenger side of the truck and is squating against the back tire.Well a light bulb gose off oi in my head.I jump over to the driver side and put the truck in first gear and start creeping forward.The look on my dads face was priceless when he was fancy shuffling his feet trying to keep up with the truck,pants around his ankles and all his glory hanging out.As I'm typing this I still laughing.
Good time,Good times.
BBJ

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Great story! It's always comforting to know our crack law enforcement officers are keeping "criminals" like you on a short leash!

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

heres a story thatkinda made me humiliated, but also pi$$ed off. about 6 years ago i was hunting this logging cut block for moose, i saw moose in there like crazy, but was waiting for the legal one to wander through. i was hunting the same block for about two weeks morning and night, and i noticed that no one else was hunitng the same block cause everytime i would get there, there was only my vehicle tracks still in the mud, and also the trail was a little greasy looking. anyways so i go in and get there an hour before light and i am sitting there calling moose while watching the ridge where i have seem them almost every day.the light starts to come up and i am still calling, no moose, about another hour goes by, did some more calling and nothing, so the ridge i was watching has a big face to it and at the bottom is a gully but i cant see the gully, so i figure i have been here for about 3 hours calling and watching and havent seen nothing, i am going to walk over to look down the gully. as i start walking to the gully i look up and behind this little bush about 200 yrd away almost near the top of the ridge i see this thing waving, i look through my binocs and here is some guy, he has been sitting there the whole time listening to me call, and now i know why there wasnt any moose that day cause they probably could smell him sitting there on the ground.

anyways i was kinda humiliated cause allthough my moose call isnt pro sounding, it is effective, i wonder if that guy thought i sounded like a dead horse calling or something. and of course i was upset cause he was in the same spot huntin as i was, but oh well, he has every right to hunt there as i do, but you guys know how it is when you see someone hunting in your secret spot. in the end i ended up taking a moose there about a week later. hope you like my story.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Ha Ha great story

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

I got a bunch of humiliating hunting stories but this one is a Humiliating Guiding story.

This year I am guiding out in Idaho with two great friends Dennis who is about 50 and and Brandon who is about 17. Both of these two are filled with more wit then any human beings should be allowed to have! So I am walking up the trail on Pole Mountain and cruising up the hill and every time I come upon a track I point it out. Elk Track, Mule Deer, Whitetail, Coyote.. etc.. And then we come by piles of horse manure and then elk manure and then deer manure and then coyote manure and I keep pointing it out so that they can learn what it is... Sure enough here comes Dennis...

"Hey Brandon, Kevin sure does know his S&*(!" and that started off the two of them for the rest of the day!

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Me and a buddy were duck hunting a flooded field in Arkansas. The water was probably 8 inches deep. We were smack dab in the middle of the field when my buddy looks at me with that "I gotta go now" look. He said he couldn't make it to the ditch on the edge of the field. So he walks down wind about 80 yards and commences doing his business. He has peeled his waders and pants down to around his knees, and I was looking the other direction, and after a gust of wind I hear a splash. I look up to see two bent legs sticking up in the air and a muddy bare ***. He jumped out of the water as fast as was humanly possible and madea beeline for the truck. We ended that hunt early but for me it was well worth the laughs.

RE: Most Humiliating Hunting Experience
 

Camelcluch was kind enough to 'spot' for me when I drew RFW antelope tag for a nearby ranch. On each antelope I saw saw I guessed the range, then he told me what it really was. 300 yrds guessed was usuallly 450on the rangefinder. SO next fall IWILL have a range finder even if I dont draw a tag. No shame in your missing asover two days I also fired at least a dozen misses.I then suspected my scope was off, as my shooting usually isnt THAT bad.A week or so after the hunt I benched my rifle inmy shop and it was off two inchesright on paper when I boresighted it. So I was missing left by 4" at least. The elev was ok. How it got so far off I dont know as I shot it several weeks before on a 100 yrd range.

Oh well, theres always next season...