Funny Stories w/ Dad(or uncle or grandpa or aka your hunting mentor)

[teej89]

I don't know if this has been started before but in light of a recent deer hunting thread and a post I wrote today I thought this would be neat for people to post up their different comical/lessened learned stories with their dad/uncle/grandpa/hunting mentor.

My dad and I still laugh our butts off to this day reminiscing about the stories we have.

One of my funniest stories was squirrel hunting when I was 12 with my dad. I was mad at my dad b/c he was making us leave and I still wanted to hunt and he was mad, rightfully so, b/c I was being a brat.

We were coming off a steep embankment and my dad (being the supervisor he is and always will be) goes "watch your step these sticks are like ice when they're wet". Me being bullheaded self ignored him and kept going, but faster.

I charge down the hill all mad and get to the bottom just in time to turn around and watch him slip on a branch causing him to roll head over heels into the bottom. As soon as he hits the bottom he stands up in a fluid motion and then we walk, in silence, for the next 15min. I'm scared to death b/c I feel partial blame so my brain is going a million miles an hour the entire walk back on excuses and apologies. Then we get back to the truck and before he puts it in reverse I look at em and go "watch out dad, those sticks are slick when they're wet".

Now I swear 5min passed till he responded and in that time I thought I'd end up dead(it was probably more so 5 seconds) and he just laughed and I laughed (nervously) and all was good.


Then another story we were crappie fishing, catching a lot of crappies, I was very young 6-8yrs old, and all day he's picking bird nests outta my reel so when he does that I take his rod and catch fish with his rod till it birds nests haha! So finally he's like no, you can't use my rod. Again another bird nest and while he's doing that I decided to toss my float into the water with the minnow via hand as he's trying to undo the line on the other end. Low and behold the float goes under, I yank on the line with my hands and in comes a crappie hahaha!!


My first doe



His First Mule Deer

 

[OhBoneCollector]

Thanks for sharing. It's funny how our lives change with these stories as well...

 

[JEL]

One that stands out for me. I was pretty young. To young to hunt in Montana at the time but was tagging along with my Dad (now passed away). We were mule deer hunting the milk river breaks of North Central MT. He was carrying an old Winchester 30/30 lever gun (only gun we owned besides a .22). I remember walking along with dad when we spooked a buck. It was pretty close and started trotting dead away up the coulee bank. I remember thinking.....dead deer running. My dad was pretty good with the 30/30. He drew bead, pulled back the hammer and squeezed....CLICK. He thought he had one racked but didn't. The buck was over the rise before he had a second chance. My being probably 10 immediately shouted SH$T! Dad didn't say much about that. I think he was thinking the same thing. I don't carry hot for big game so it seems like that memory comes up every time I have something in my sights. Did you rack one?

 

[OhBoneCollector]

Good story JEL- thanks for sharing.

This is why I always have one in the chamber. I also check my safety before loading every outing and follow gun safety regs.
I don't want to lose an opportunity or simply have the game hear the 'racking' process. No matter how quiet you think you are, we can all hear it... often times so does the game unless they are long range.
The "wait to chamber a round" has been the recent rage on canned tv hunts and it's been discussed on HT in the past. Perhaps its an attempt to entice additional safety... at the expense of some lost game. However the folks who need to adhere to the policy probably shouldn't even own a firearm.

*If this is a policy you adhere to, then great and to each their own. Can never be too safe.

 

[TheBenHoyle]

Sadly I haven't hunted near enough with my dad, but I do have some funny memories.

The first is from when I was a senior in high school. For some reason, I told dad that I wanted to go turkey hunting. He had gone out when I was younger, but it had been at least 8 years. I was 18 years old and thought it would be super cool. So we got tags and went out. Now I was not a morning person back then and it was a VERY early morning, but there was a lot of adrenaline going in to our first set up. We were sitting under some trees with a hayfield out in front of us and it was cold. But I was bundled up and the sun was rising and... nothing. No birds. No gobbles, nothing.

Dad decides we should hike around to the back side of the trees and sit under a big oak where a couple of fencelines came together at a gate. Well now it is like 9 am and it is much warmer and we have been hiking and I'm all comfy cozy under the oak tree and I can't keep my eyes open. Dad is sitting next to me calling on his little box call and I am in and out of reality, head bobbing up and down.

Next thing I know I hear dad whispering that there is a turkey and I should raise my gun and shoot. In my half-asleep head I think he is pranking me because he saw that I was asleep. But I open my eyes and sure enough, there's a turkey 5 yards in front of us... Well, going from asleep to the full-surge adrenaline rush of a turkey at 5 yards, I pull up my gun and fire, but I'm nowhere near the bird and my brain is not functioning enough to rack another shell and fire again. And dad was waiting to shoot because he really wanted me to get that bird. By the time he did shoot it was too late and the bird was out of range. It was a disappointing end to my first turkey hunt but it is a memory I will never forget.

Fast forward about 10 years and dad and I are back in the turkey hunting game. We have been hunting for 3 years in a row and seeing birds, but not quite able to seal the deal. In that time, I have decided that we need stools to sit on in our pop-up blind. I decide to make a pair of campaign stools out of some hand-turned dowels with a leather saddle. They are pretty slick little deals and he was touched that I had made these for us. We get in to our little blind and set up our stools and right at sunrise we have gobbles all around us. At 6:30 we have 5 toms in front of us and we both take aim and shoot. My bird goes down, but somehow dad has missed his. On top of that his empty shell is stuck in the ejector. But the birds are still there.

So I hand him my shotgun and start working on clearing his gun. He takes aim, shoots and there are still 4 toms pecking at their fallen comrade. And now my gun is jammed. So I switch guns with him again and he gets ready to shoot a third time.

Now the thing about a three-legged campaign stool is that two of the legs are in front and there is only one in the back. And we were sitting on somewhat wet dirt, so every time dad shot he leaned back and that one leg sunk in a little deeper into the soil. Well he takes his third shot and one of the toms goes flopping and the other 3 go running off, but dad has no idea that he got his bird down because that third shot was just enough to send him over backwards off the little stoll I had made for him.

He and I may be able to take a few more turkeys, but those two will probably be my favorite.

 

[JTHOMP]

One that comes to mind is when my dad and I were going fishing. When he was walking down the river bank he slipped and busted his butt on the bank slope. I was probably 12 years old. Of course I laughed at him and confidently walked around where he slipped only to do the exact same thing and have him laugh at me.

While not funny at the moment I laugh about it today. We were squirrel hunting when I was 7 sitting on a dry creek bank. I had killed my first duck that morning and now was after my first squirrel that evening. As one was moving through the hedges it jumped from one limb to another as I was shooting. In my mind I had just shot a squirrel in mid air while it was jumping "Boy that was a good shot!!" Meaning while dad had to run and chase it down. I don't know how many times he hit it against a log, but it bit and clawed his hand as he was trying to finish it off swinging it over and over again. An imagine that petrified a 7 year old holding a 410g. Still to this day I take extra precaution before picking one up and nervously handle them when one is still alive and have to knock it against a tree.

 

[Pondera]

Another Hunt Talker's post about a moose tine getting shot off reminded me of my story:

My dad and I were hunting for my first deer in some timber near the Dearborn river in Montana. I had his Winchester 94 30-30. We made a big loop and were just about back to the road when a 4 point stepped out of the trees. I was as surprised as he, and I'll bet my eyes were bigger! Somehow I instinctively drew up and fired a true shot. My closest shot to this day. I knew I hit it good but dad figured if it's standing keep shooting-he popped off 4-5 shots towards it with his .357 revolver. We found it up the hill about 20 yards stone dead. One shot behind the shoulder and one tine shot clean off! I retold him the story the other day as that rack is hanging on my son's wall. 20 years ago.

 

[ZMT588]

This is a sad thread for those who never hunted with dad... lol

 

[gouch]

This happened after I was all grown up. We were hunting chukers over my GSP Jake. Jake froze into a rock solid point and my dad started in real slow. The bird wasn't in front of the dog like my dad thought but rather was a little off to the side of Jake. That bird held until my dad damn near stepped on it then flushed right in his face. That bird hadn't gone 10 ft. when BOOM! That thing exploded like it had a bomb on board. turned out that the front trigger on that old side by side double my dad used since he was young was getting a bit worn and would fire if you just looked at it real hard. As he started to raise the gun the trigger caught on a button of the old jacket my dad always wore and that's all she wrote. I was shocked and said something to the effect of " What the ---- are you doing?" fill in what ever four letter word you like, it could have been one of several. My dad just looked at me and asked " What, you mean you don't ever shoot chukers from the hip?"

 

[elkduds]

Not that funny, but memorable...

I'm 14ish years old, youngest on this family mulie hunt in the early 70's: Dad, uncles, cousin, on a big ranch in the hogbacks west of Ft. Collins. This was a public land hunting bunch, this being the only time I recall us hunting big game on private. It was a ranch managed by my cousin's high school buddy, we were the only hunters. Dad and uncles grew up on a farm 30 miles away, chasing deer and dodging rattlers in the same type terrain. We had doe tags, buck tags, a huge barn to hang and butcher, and 2 beater ranch trucks. There were 2 track roads anywhere you wanted to go. And the deer herd! Allowing for the memory adjustments over 45 years, I'm sure we saw 100 deer each day of the weekend.

Little memories: chasing the ranch manager up a slope after a big 4 pt that hopped over the hogback crest above us. He beat me by a few steps, I got to the top w Dad's model 94, just in time to watch him drop the buck w his scoped 270. It seemed like a quarter mile shot to me. Might be the 1st buck I ever helped dress. Driving w the buck in the bed of the truck, I couldn't keep balanced on the bed rail as we bounced across the scrub toward the 2 track. So I sat on the buck. All good until the brakes slammed on to miss some obstacle. Suffice to say the buck didn't stop when the truck did. Nor did I.

The big memory: Dad and I stalking a herd of does, maybe 200 yds away. Dad stays put w his open sighted model 721 in 30-06. I flank around to try for a shot w the thutty-thutty. I halve the distance, the deer get antsy. '06 goes boom, 2 does drop like dominoes. Right before my eyes, in a shot still recalled in the family oral history, usually by me. 2 deer w one shot. Unforgettable, Dad.

Good thing we had enough tags.

 

[JFish]

This is a fishing story but close enough.

My dad and I had driven to a favorite trout stream to fish an evening sulphur hatch and do some camping. After driving 4 hours we pulled up to the stream and saw trout rising. A solid hatch was under way so we were eager to start fishing. We went to the back of the vehicle to change into our fishing gear. My dad threw his wading boots on the ground next to the grass as he put his waders on. While I was getting ready I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was repeatedly jamming his foot into the wading boot over and over but it would not go in. I didn’t think much of it and continued getting ready.

Mumbling and frustration turned into cursing and swearing as he began to shove his foot harder and harder into the boot. Finally he gave up trying to get his foot in and picked the boot up. He turned it upside down and out came the flattest frog I had ever seen. After being accused of planting the frog in his boot we laughed uncontrollably and had a great trip.

 

[WyoDoug]

My best one with my dad was the day I turned 16, I bought my deer license and because prior years I went deer hunting, I was seeing elk and I knew they were elk due to the massive antlers I saw. My dad said I was seeing things. Well I bought a combination hunting/fishing license at the beginning of the year and then right before deer hunting, I bought some gear along with an elk license and a deer license which at the time was over the counter. My dad saw my elk license on my dresser and chewed me out for it saying I was wasting my money because he never saw elk in the area we were hunting (Meeker, Colorado).

Well I got my deer on the first day, so I walked up the road leading towards the quakies where I was seeing the elk the years before. Two hours into the hunt, I shot a 5x5 bull elk fairly close to a road but legal. The bull wandered about 50 feet and expired right smack in the middle of the road on the side of the hill I was on. Within minutes another hunter came by and helped me dress it and with help of his own son and a few other hunters, we loaded the bull into the back of the gentleman's pickup. I was speechless but I told the man that it was my first elk. He gave me a ride to our camp and helped me hang it on a hanging frame a welder friend made for my dad. I thanked the guy and he went on. I then sat by the camp fire and started it burning again.

My dad and uncles pulled in and I had the widest grin and pointed to the elk I had shot. My dad shook his head and told me he was never going to tell me I could not buy another hunting license and after that he let me hunt anything I wanted, especially elk. That elk fed us for a good 2 years before it ran out and we cooked the tenders at camp. So good!

This is one event I really wish I had pictures of, but as I note in my post on photography in hunting, my family never really took pictures of anything.