doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Funny hunting memories.

I've been able to nicely tie together first cup of coffee with the morning ritual. Coffee first, then the other. Thus, hard as it is, I just forego the coffee and can easily make it through the morning hunt, whether for turkey or ducks.

All in the planning!

This one isn't truly a hunting story but it took place while hunting and involved the potential use of guns. Still the funniest prank any involved have ever pulled.

We were hunting our favorite area of southern Manitoba for deer and jump shooting ducks, in the Pembina River Valley. Now those familiar with the very flat plains like southern Manitoba will know that occasionally a river will cut a meandering valley that just seems to appear out of nowhere on the flat plains. The Pembina is typically about 200' feet vertical, 1 mile across at the top and 1/2' across at the bottom.

There was five of us, my brother and I and two good Winnipeg friends plus a school friend of my brother and I who had flown out from Ottawa. Scott liked hunting and had been out before but he is also a government bureaucrat and probably votes Liberal. In short, in Canada, a classic Ontario Liberal. In the previous few years in Canada there had been some violent confrontations with native bands, particularly with Mohawks in eastern Ontario and Quebec. Close to where Scott lived.

Now, in the area we hunt, which is reasonably close to a reservation, someone at some time had erected a large billboard sized sign of an Indian on horseback. This sign was perched on the top edge of the valley and depending on where you were down below, often silhouetted against the sky. But please understand, it was probably 15' high....way, way bigger than life sized.

Scott arrived at the hunting cabin the night before and we peppered the evening's conversation with "the natives are restless these days" kinds of comments, with all of us in on the joke making out-sized declarations of what we would do, guns in hand, if we ran into any "problems" the next day. Scott decided to let discretion be the better part of valour that night and kept his own tongue in his mouth but we could all see the hook was set.

The next day we were using two trucks and had Scott in the rear truck. At the appointed bend in the valley bottom road, which after rounding the silhouette became very visible, the lead truck suddenly slammed on the brakes and reversed wildly back towards the second truck, with the second truck following suit. We all jumped out, deer rifles in hand, with Scott wondering what the hell was going on. The occupants of the first truck began to tell a story of being fired upon from just up around the corner. We timed it so that Scott would have just had a fleeting moment to have his attention directed to the valley rim and see the silhouette before we all backed up to where it was hidden again. He would have briefly seen a glimpse of a "brave" on horseback. We actually used the term "brave". We all began to talk boldly while making all sorts of disparaging comments about the local native population along the lines of "well if they want a fight, they got one!!" Scott was looking like he thought he was hallucinating.

As a group, we began to creep forward, ostensibly to get a look at the horseman who had shot at us, all the while talking up the problem. Scott was pleading desperately for us not to "escalate" the problem and warning us it may be the spark for a full scale uprising. As we rounded the edge of the trees to where we could see, we kept the conversation the same but just let the reality of what that silhouette was sink in.

Whenever we are together we can't help reminiscing about it and laughing our asses off. Scott has never forgiven us.

Back about 10 years ago I was the guide for a waterfowl outfitter. I did the hunting part while a number of scouts were driving the roads finding new hunts. One of the scouts wasn't particularly good at finding the birds and was notified by the outfitter he was on his last last day if he didn't come up with something. Well, this scout was driving down the road and spots a field full of geese. All pumped up with enthusiasm he heads into the farmer's yard to ask permission and runs over the farmer's dog killing it. He goes up to the door with tears in his eyes telling the farmer his dog was dead and asking permission for if he didn't get it he would loose is job. Interestingly the farmer gave him permission and a spade, to bury the dog.

On another occasion while with the same waterfowl outfitter, one of the other guides was on a hunt with 3 elderly doctors up from Louisiana. They shot their limit of ducks and were packing up when one of the elderly fellows says he will go bring the truck down. After a while the truck didn't turn up so they all walk up to where is was parked and found the first fellow dead, apparently from a heart attack. Having no other way to take the dead fellow home the other two doctors prop him up between them in the back seat. Well the guide had never been close to a dead person before and on the drive home he keeps looking in the rearview mirror looking at the dead fellow. He was getting pretty excited and panicky and almost ran into the ditch a few times. This ordeal really spooked him and he couldn't stop talking about it for a few weeks along a few nightmares as well.

Before turkey hunting took off in this area big time, a buddy, Randy, ran his mouth about how many wild turkeys he had on his property. Another friend, Fred, was impressed and called in a personal debt and told Randy they would be even if he took an important out of town client turkey hunting and helped him kill a trophy. Randy called another friend, Jay, to help out. Unknown to Fred, Jay and Randy bought a barn yard turkey from a local farmer. The bird was big and dumb as dirt. The day before the hunt, Randy and Jay built a blind in the open swamp and set decoys out front. Jay sneaked into the woods in the dark with the turkey under his coat and hid in the underbrush about 100 yards from the blind. At dawn Randy and sport were in the blind. Randy started calling. The turkey�s head shot out of Jay�s coat and started struggling. Jay dropped the bird and it hauled ass to the decoys gobbling his crinkled-ass off, non-stop and nothing like a wild gobbler. The sport dropped the hammer. Jay sneaked away undetected. Randy slapped the sport on the back, hooped and hollered and congratulated him on the trophy. None the wiser, the sport proudly had the bird mounted. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

My brother and I were hunting Ducks on Grizzly Island back in 1973. I was using my Winchester Model 24 12GA. I took a shot at a duck flying directly overhead when the gun doubled. I missed the duck and was holding the buttstock and forend. The barrels had come off and they hit me between the eyes. My brother told me it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I traded that shotgun in on a Remington Model 1894 16GA CEO which I still have.

Another time I was deer hunting in Siskiyou County. We had parked our truck and I had to take a crap. There was frost on the ground and it was still dark so I found a near by tree to go behind and did my business. I heard a buzzing and discovered I had chosen a yellow jacket nest to do my business on. I was sure glad it was cold out. I got stung once and my buddy got stung twice just for knowing me. We returned to the truck that afternoon and they were still swarming around looking for revenge.

A pretty bad oopsie, happened down in Texas on a goose lease. A buddy and I were bored silly, the birds kept dumping into the next field and couldn't care less about our sorry looking rag spread. At lunch, a few singles were still landing in the field, so we thought why not, let's take a walk down there and see what's going on.

We stayed out of sight behind a dike and figured we'll pop up over the edge and maybe get a shot at a single that was a little too close to the edge. We were about twenty yards apart and went over the top together. The field was wall to wall geese and they were completely surprised. For a split second, they just looked at us, then they started to lift in one big sheet, very noisy and geese completely filled my peripheral vision.

We started shooting, and I realized when my buddy shot to my right, the lead bird couldn't have been fifteen yards out, but a long string of geese fell behind it. I yelled to him, too many, but we both emptied out. The main body of geese were still only about thirty yards off the ground, but we had way too many on the ground. We grabbed seven each of the closest birds, and our story was going to be that the cripples got away.

Duck,duck, goose. Many years ago I was hunting outside the flooded impoundment area near Deale Island MD, in a john boat with a blind on it. About ten minutes after first light my buddy shot a mallard incomer which crashed into the side of the blind and nearly took my head off. An hour later I shot a teal that was buzzing the reed line at about 800 mph and it impacted the blind and hit my buddy in the upper back. When we hunted the same area about a month later we shot three geese that were passing directly over our blind at very low altitude. The first landed about ten yards in front of the decoys and the second landed right in the blind while the third landed about twenty yards past us in the marsh.

At that point Jack and I both agreed this game was getting to dangerous and declared a cease fire in dropping birds into the blind. Incoming ducks were funny in hind sight but incoming geese are scary as heck. I miss Jack and that old John boat with the blind. I can buy another John boat but not another hunting partner like Jack.

I love these old stories and to find out that not only am I not the only one but that others may have done better or worse things while having fun.

Although the main character, of this story and a good friend of mine didn't think it was too funny at the time, we laugh about it still to this day.

We'd gotten home for Christmas break from college and decided to head out scouting for geese. There was some good ice on the lakes, but figured we might find some open water that drew the geese in that we could set up on.

At the time there was a turning trestle on the lower end of the St Joe River, which flowed between a couple of lakes and then dumped into Coeur d'Alene Lake. Sure enough just south of the turning trestle there was a good pothole of open water. It was toward evening and the geese started coming in from CDA lake and dropping into the open pot hole, flying low over the trestle.

Next day we were set up at daylight around the open water with the intention of staying all day if need be, to catch the evening flight. I suppose around 2:30-3:00 pm we could hear the geese coming from CDA lake. Making sure that everything was in order, we prepared for the first flight.

The one good friend mentioned earlier shot a 10 ga Marlin bolt action, with another friend along on the hunt shooting an Ithaca Mag 10. We were all calling, with me designated to call the shot, since I had a white full face stocking cap with eye holes, they covered with sheets.

As the first flight dropped in with lowered legs, I yelled "take em" and at the shot I heard a string of obscenities with ouch etc mixed in. I initially thought that one of my hunting buddies had perhaps shot himself and turned to see what the fuss was. My friend in the middle shooting the Marlin turned toward me and said in an excited voice, "I just busted my f*&^ing teeth out" At that, I'm sorry, but I couldn't hold back and started laughing, which caused the other friend with us to start laughing also. When he opened his mouth it was covered in blood, so I told him I can't tell how many you broke, your mouth is too bloody. "What happened", I asked? It turned out he was calling and when he raised up to shoot, he didn't let the call drop from his mouth and when he took the shot, the bolt on the Marlin slammed into the call and jammed it back into his mouth, breaking out one of his front teeth. A bit later he had a perfectly circular bruise on his upper and lower front gums. Of course we razzed him about getting the bruise in an entirely different manner than from his goose call!

I thought I could contribute a couple really funny stories. As I scrolled up, I said to myself none of mine is as funny as these. I leave totally intimidated and wonderfully entertained. Thank you.