Hunting Slang

[gouch]

I knew a guy who, whenever he shot a deer or elk, would proclaim " I nocked his pud in the mud"

 

[RobertD]

My dad always referred to shooting quail on the ground as "shady grady". I'm not sure where that one comes from, and a quick google search didn't shed any light on it.

Here in south Georgia we actively refer to Grady County and the Cairo area as "shady Grady," if there's any of my fellow Peach Staters in here

 

[NR_Hunter]

This makes little sense and really only I do this, but whenever we have geese that look like they may sail close enough to shoot at or into the decoys while out duck hunting, I always say get "Get your 84 jerseys out", to make clear that we should quickly swap our duck loads for goose killing loads. This is homage to Randy Moss when we got traded back to the Vikings and at the press conference said "Get your 84 jerseys out, I back home". Basically, I call shot sizes 1 and larger "84 jerseys"

 

[Brian in Montana]

I don't know if it's actually "slang", and maybe it's already been mentioned (didn't read the entire thread), but "running". As in "I'm running a 140 grain Accubond in my .270."

I actually find it annoying when people say that. "What ammo are you running?". Not sure why, but does annoy me.

 

[RobertD]

I grew up in England and in the south east of London there is a high use of Cockney rhyming slang.

for example: “wanna go out for a ruby?” Ruby Ruby Murray (1950’s Irish Singer) Curry (Murray rhymes with Curry) so translates to “Would you like to go out for a Curry?”

are there any outside the box slang hunting terms you have heard over the years? And slang you and friends use out in the field?

Very cool. Get on yer dog and bone and tell me more about it. Did I do it right?

For hunting slang, I'm Deep South raised so most of mine comes from here, though I have had some out of state trips expose me to new stuff. Locally we say things like:

Slicks, nannies - alternative name for "doe."
Basket rack - small buck.
Racked buck - any buck with more than two points.
Everyone has their own phrase for "big buck."

Bar (barred) hog - Wild pig that's been castrated and re-released.
Dry sow - Sow that isn't actively lactating. Somewhat rare and a real trophy.

Song dogs, scrub wolves, calf killers - all names I've heard for coyotes.

People say "cat squirrel" instead of gray squirrel, "coon" instead of raccoon, and "possum" or "grinner" instead of opossum. I'm convinced the "o" in opossum is silent, no one ever pronounces it.

"Sit a stand" - to go hunting in a more casual way, as in "Nice afternoon, believe I'll go sit a stand and listen to the Braves game on my phone."

"Pushing woods" - borrowed from the Midwest. That's what we would call driven, European style hunting.

None of this are neccesarily exclusive to the South and I could probably make a list of just animal and place names in slang that would go on ad nauseam. But here's a few for you to mull over anyways

 

[Bambistew]

We grew up calling magpies holstine chickens.
In Montana we called people who moved in 'transplants.' Usually in a derogatory sense, being that they moved in and want to change things to their liking or how they did it where they were from; see also stupid Californians. Most people in Bozeman fit this definition whether born there or not, if they move another place in MT.

In the north both Alaska and Canada, some people (usually the older generation) call 'new comers' a cheechako. I don't hear it that often, and it's sort of derogatory, as in that stupid cheechako is whining about how cold it is. Or when someone does some really stupid relating to the snow/weather. On the other side of that is an "Alaskan Sourdough," usually refers to a person who has lived here a while, i.e. a survivor. The term "old sourdough" generally congers up the image of an old man with a white beard and a beaver pelt hat driving a pack of sled dogs. When the state was originally being settled, many people came up to work in the gold fields, or what ever work they could find. Most left on the first boat out in the spring.

 

[Auriga_5WY]

Other than the general slang terms I've heard my dad use and that I've seen people on here use, like "glass" (verb, to view an area/object via binoculars or a scope) and "bust" (when your quarry sees you and runs away), not much.

Though I did get a kick out of explaining to a guy from the east coast what a speedgoat was. We were on a Discord server for discussions about an online private pilot course we were taking and I was talking about how if I had an engine failure flying from Laramie to Casper I'd have to ditch in Shirley Basin, to which he said "[Auriga]'s gonna have to land in the cow field", and I mentioned it was 50/50 of either cows or pronghorn... but I used the other term instead, which he had never heard, so I had to explain to him that here in Wyoming speedgoat = pronghorn.

Personally I prefer the term speedgoat, it sounds hilarious but is also very fitting.

 

[Ben_BlueOx]

Very cool. Get on yer dog and bone and tell me more about it. Did I do it right?

For hunting slang, I'm Deep South raised so most of mine comes from here, though I have had some out of state trips expose me to new stuff. Locally we say things like:

Slicks, nannies - alternative name for "doe."
Basket rack - small buck.
Racked buck - any buck with more than two points.
Everyone has their own phrase for "big buck."

Bar (barred) hog - Wild pig that's been castrated and re-released.
Dry sow - Sow that isn't actively lactating. Somewhat rare and a real trophy.

Song dogs, scrub wolves, calf killers - all names I've heard for coyotes.

People say "cat squirrel" instead of gray squirrel, "coon" instead of raccoon, and "possum" or "grinner" instead of opossum. I'm convinced the "o" in opossum is silent, no one ever pronounces it.

"Sit a stand" - to go hunting in a more casual way, as in "Nice afternoon, believe I'll go sit a stand and listen to the Braves game on my phone."

"Pushing woods" - borrowed from the Midwest. That's what we would call driven, European style hunting.

None of this are neccesarily exclusive to the South and I could probably make a list of just animal and place names in slang that would go on ad nauseam. But here's a few for you to mull over anyways

LOL sentence might of been a little bit off but I knew exactly what you meant.

I love the "Big Buck" names people throw out. Definitely a fan of "slick" and "Nannies"

 

[Ben_BlueOx]

Other than the general slang terms I've heard my dad use and that I've seen people on here use, like "glass" (verb, to view an area/object via binoculars or a scope) and "bust" (when your quarry sees you and runs away), not much.

Though I did get a kick out of explaining to a guy from the east coast what a speedgoat was. We were on a Discord server for discussions about an online private pilot course we were taking and I was talking about how if I had an engine failure flying from Laramie to Casper I'd have to ditch in Shirley Basin, to which he said "[Auriga]'s gonna have to land in the cow field", and I mentioned it was 50/50 of either cows or pronghorn... but I used the other term instead, which he had never heard, so I had to explain to him that here in Wyoming speedgoat = pronghorn.

Personally I prefer the term speedgoat, it sounds hilarious but is also very fitting.

Speedgoat has a ring to it.

 

[88man]

any Hutterites on this board?? If so you would know what we call em

 

[geetar]

In the south these are common phrases you will hear.

In reference to making a good shot. “ I put the smack down on him! “

In reference to a future good shot. “ If I see that big buck Saturday I’m gonna drop the hammer on him. “

Wood ducks are called “ Swamp Chickens “

“ black powder season “ is muzzleloader season.

A buck fawn is a “ knothead “


and my favorite of all time. A hunter sitting in a blind or tree stand overlooking a pipeline or power line right of way is “ pipeline sniper “ or “power line sniper. “

 

[DouglasR]

Coming out heavy bro

 

[N2TRKYS]

Thank goodness I don’t hunt/hangout with folks that say crazy stuff like this.

 

[Ben_BlueOx]

In the south these are common phrases you will hear.

In reference to making a good shot. “ I put the smack down on him! “

In reference to a future good shot. “ If I see that big buck Saturday I’m gonna drop the hammer on him. “

Wood ducks are called “ Swamp Chickens “

“ black powder season “ is muzzleloader season.

A buck fawn is a “ knothead “


and my favorite of all time. A hunter sitting in a blind or tree stand overlooking a pipeline or power line right of way is “ pipeline sniper “ or “power line sniper. “

Knothead is great! It says exactly what it is, but if you don't know, you don't know.

 

[406LIFE]

Nimrod is a moniker for hunters until it turned into a derogatory word, ie "idiot" about 100 years ago in thanks to it's usage by the Looney Tunes crew. It stopped being used to refer to hunters around 50 years ago. It's origin is from Genesis and refers to a man who was actually a great hunter...of men.

 

[JLS]

The mentors i came up with called it:


"Arkansasing" them.


As in "you can't can't Arkansas them boy, you got to let them fly first".

Arkansas wingshot.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

In Az. we refer to " winter visitors" as "Snowbirds"
Best to avoid them while driving...