travisville

I got lost my second season of deer hunting when I was about thirteen. It was the final weekend of rifle season in northern Minnesota and I had already shot a spike. I wasfollowing some deer tracks that were fresh in the first snow. I came up on a doe in the thick cover and I was standing about 15 feet away from her. She didn't see me so I threw the gun up and took a quick shot. The snow was starting to melt as it warmed up. Being very inexperienced I just started to chase after it right away and I jumped it when it was laying down where it should have died if it wasn't for my stupidity. I continued my stupid streak and continued to follow it and jumped it once again. I now realized that maybe I should go home and get some help. It struck me that I had no idea where I was. I didn't see any of my tracks and I began to panic I started to run back the way that I thought was the way back to my 4 wheeler. I then realized that I had run in a complete circle and I was back where I was. I started tocalm down a little and tried to plan a little. I tried to follow my tracks a little but I had run in a circle and screwed up all the tracks.
I started to look orsomething of a spot to build a fire. My fire starting skills were awful I just sat there and burned up a bunch of Fire starting sticks and birchbark but Icouldn't find any dry wood and everything in the woods was wet from the melted snow. I knew that my grandparents were going to come out and check on me at about 2 o'clock and I had lots of extra ammunition in my backpack.
I waited until about 2:30 figuring that they would've figured something was wrong I did the 3 shot thingand I got a 2 shot answer and I shot once in return. My grandpa is the master of the woods and a superior outdoorsman. He would shoot once every five minutes or so and I would answer back. I just stayed in the same place the whole time waiting for him to come to me. I could now hear him yelling after about 30 minutes of this. I yelled back at him but he couldn't hear me ofcourse because of his bad hearing. I could see him now and I got up and walked towards him. He just seemed so calm and relaxed. He took out his compass and walked that way and in no time we were back on the trail.
Now it was time to go find my deer so I showed him where I was standing when I took the shot. Got on the blood trail like a hound and got to the deer. It was I big doe took out the knife he gutted it for me because darkness was starting to close in on us. It seemed like it took him only a couple of seconds. Now was the tough part dragging it back he had cancer and was in poor physical condition and I was only a little kid. It took us quite a while to get her out on the trail but we finally got her. By now my grandma had a couple of neighbors looking for us. It was now time for me to take on the embarressment.

My grandpa was taken by cancer the year after this and I really wish I would have been alive while he was in his prime. I made about 50,000 mistakes that day and I learned so much in that little period of time. I've taken six deer in the two years since this day and all of them have dropped right where they stood. That was the scariest day of my life.



Let's hear some lost stories that you guys and gals have.

petasux

When I was around 12 or 13 we were going to do a drive on a chunk of river bottom.Never hunted it before but there was kind of a forked tree line that ran through the bottom, apparently i was supposed to stay on the outside fork and make a half circle, i took the inside of the fork instead and wound up following all the way to the next road.It took a couple hours and I came out after dark,I wasnt really lost, I knew where I was, but the rest of the hunting party didnt and they were looking for me back at the other end of the section.I wound up walking to a farmhouse to call mom, shefound dad and they picked me up.

Funny thing was I went back to that spot for the first time in 20 years about 2 years ago anddid almost the exact same thing.This time I thought I was in the inside of the fork and wound up following the wrong one about 1/2 mile off the river and came out in a field.I have no idea why I get lost in that particuliar section