C'mon, fess up--Tell us about the dumbest mistake your ever made while hunting

hm1996

hm1996

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Staff member
I started a similar thread years ago that proved to be somewhat entertaining; lets give it another shot. This may not the dumbest mistake I ever made, but it's the first one that comes to mind.

My best friend, whom I have hunted, fished and shot rifle competition with/against for over 70 years; we were both pretty competitve in all of our endeavors, that's what made it so much fun. This particular morning, we set up at the intersection of two senderos to call coyotes, sitting at opposite corners of the intersection so that he was covering the north and west sendero and I had the south and east ones. Brush was heavy adjacent to the senderos, I set up the call about 35-40 yards to my east with the decoy in a bush right above the call. We got set and I started the call. When we had called for 20-25 minutes, a javelina stepped out to take a look at the decoy. When he got close enough that I thought he was going to grab the decoy, I switched the call to mountain lion in heat at maximum volume. I was really getting a kick out of watching the javelina kicking up sand in a high gear retreat, when my partner shouted, "what the **** did you do that, for?" It seems that at the very moment I hit mountain lion, a my partner had just drawn a bead on a coyote about 50 yards or so down the west sendero which made and equally spectacular escape before he could pull the trigger.

Let's hear your funny mistakes.
 
Twice I forgot to put a round in the chamber and the coyotes were just as surprised by the CLICK as I was. One my BinL killed after waiting long enough that he thought I hadn't seen it but it was standing there staring at me and I couldn't move a muscle or he would have bolted. The second one bolted but I was able to chamber a round and kill it. Then there was the time I loaded my 223 with 222 ammo and had two CLICKS and a stovepipe to clear before I got the right round in all at 28 paces.
 
Walking back to the truck and driving away without remembering to go pick up my caller was dumb enough. Have done that more than once. Driving away with my caller sitting on the fender and running it over was even dumber. Only did that one time... I've driven around not realizing my caller and seat were on the roof of my Jeep a number of times.

Call me absent minded.

- DAA
 
Been there, done all of the above, except running over my call.

Did the bolt trick once, but only drove 55 miles to the lease.

Did fire a .308 in a 3006 Garand when switching rifles in prep. for an upcoming match. Thought I had cleared all the .308 cases out of shooting jacket pocket but left one in pocket and dumped some 06 in pocket and proceeded to shoot offhand at the 200 yard gong. Surprised that the extractor held cartridge well enough to get good primer strike. Didn't hurt anything but my pride, bullet hit 2' low @ 200 and ejected a mostly strailght wall case with what looked like a bit of a roll crimp at the neck.
 
I almost lost my $3K thermal scanner the last time I hunted some state land. Drove home, couldn't find it when I unpacked my gear. Got my son to drive back to where I hunted and help me look with a flashlight. Then I walked in front of the truck for a mile with a flashlight scanning ditches all along the road and everywhere thinking it might have fallen out of the truck while my son drove slowly behind me. Couldn't find it. Eventually made it home after hours and hours of looking. My son happened to look back toward the truck as we walked into the house and he saw it on the back of the tonneau cover. Rushing to get home, I had put the black scanner on the black tonneau cover before getting in the truck and didn't remember where I put it and didn't see it camouflaged in the darkness. Don't know how it didn't bounce off with all the driving on some rough roads, but somehow it was in the middle of the bed area of that cover.

Went from being panicked and heartbroken for hours to instant relief and happiness. Someone was looking out for me and teaching me a lesson to slow down and inventory things before moving.
 
Lots of stupid stuff, mostly little things. We used to do lots of weekend hunts, usually 5-6 hr drive. Take off from home without a sleeping bag. Forget TP. A couple times forgot to grab correct ammo for the rifle I brought. Really fun when you decide to bring the 17 this weekend, open the ammo bag before a stand and see 220 Swift ammo staring at ya. Those weekends I got to practice using my .22 pistol as my calling gun.
 
Before I used a chest pack I carried everything in a back pack. I was night calling a spot that was about 500 yards from my vehicle. I finished up an uneventful set and unhooked my caller remote from my tripod and for some reason set it on top of my backpack. I walked out and picked up my caller and walked back and put the caller in my backpack and hiked out. Went to my next spot about 3 miles away, walked in a couple hundred yards. Set the caller out and waited about 10 minutes standing in the dark waiting for things to settle down. Then I realized my remote wasn’t with me and immediately remembered that I had set it on my pack. Reverse all things previously mentioned and about an hour spent trying to find a camo remote in 12” high grassy field at 2AM!
 
PING said:
I almost lost my $3K thermal scanner
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WOW, glad it was still there. Some 30 years ago I left a Buck folding hunter on the back bumper of my pickup and drove 116 miles from camp home, the first 5 miles of bumpy ranch roads, and discovered the knife.
tawnoper said:
A couple times forgot to grab correct ammo for the rifle
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Ah, the advantage of using one rifle (almost) for all your hunting.:D
hunt0168 said:
remote wasn’t with me and immediately remembered that I had set it on my pack.
Click to expand...
Remote tethered to bino pac, but did forget my call one night. Pretty easy to find in the dark, thanks to the remote.:ROFLMAO:
 
I was in the middle of no where, 30 miles from civilization hunting the Mojave Desert. It was before first light. I started calling. I saw what I thought was a coyote coming in. I shot. It was a jackrabbit. 30 seconds later, a coyote came in. Fortunately, I shot him too.

That was very dumb. Poor target identification. I have never done that since.
 
Left a pair of Swarovski 10x42 binos and sig kilo lrf in an alaskan guide pack hanging on an old stump in front of a motel in ely , NV over night.
Noticed them missing the next morning after I was an hour out of town. Turned around and they were still there when I got there.


Another time I shot a hole in the roof of my suburban while unloading in front of the house after hunting most the night. Dog tired, stiff safety and was using what I thought was the trigger guard as leverage to flip the safety off.
 
I have one more.

After an "unsuccessful" set, I walked out to the call without my rifle. As I was approaching my caller, a coyote came running in at me from the side. Without my rifle, I decided to draw my Glock that I carry CCW appendix style. I reached down quickly and removed my entire holster with the gun in it like I do every night when I take it off. In my excitement, I didn't draw the gun. I removed the holster. I did the thing I do at the end of every day. The coyote was gone. I think he was laughing his butt off : )

Moral - Now, at the end of the day, I draw my gun from the holster like I would in a defense situation. I place the gun on the table. Then, I remove the holster, put the gun in it and put it in the safe.

I'm glad it happened. I eliminated a bad habit and do more drills drawing from concealment now.
 
Dumb but made me really p*ssed at myself. Did this not once but twice while day hunting in the woods with a Marrochi combo gun. 1st time was in rabbit type thick cover and the sceond time was at a fast retreating coyote that caught me moving the gun. Pulled the front trigger which is for the .222 not the 12 gauge. After that I rigged up a piece of milk carton between the front of the trigger guard and the front trigger so I couldn't get my finger in it without effort. Then I just sold the gun and now carry my 870 for woods hunting.
 
Dumbest thing I’ve ever done was one time coming back from calling in Nevada.

Stopped to fill up my truck and had to get something out of the back seat of my truck so pulled my gun( it was in a soft gun case) out to get something and set my gun on the side of the truck bed and forgot about it. Finished filling up and headed on down the road.

Stopped again after a couple hundred miles. Got out of the truck and the gun is still sitting on the side of the truck bed. Made me sick thinking of what could have happened. Lol

Good Hunting Chad
 
Is everybody here over 60? I've done most of the dumb things already posted but just blame it on old age. Unless everyone is also old it must happen to younger guys too from what I'm reading so I feel better. Each one has made me more attentive to the process so I guess that's a good thing. I have to double and triple check things now in order to make myself confident all is good to go......but I still lose gloves like crazy.......
 
I've left enough stuff in the truck or on stand and had to go back and get, that I have developed a good habit of mental inventory before walking in or out. I've also heard the click of an empty chamber a couple of times and that has become a step in that mental inventory. It's still not FOOL proof though.
Two other stories come to mind. My son and I take an annual coyote hunting trip out West every year and have for some time. Several years ago we were on the next to last stand before dark and he had been developing a shotgun load he wanted to try. He took his shotgun on that stand and it worked out the coyote cooperated and he shot gunned that one. It was getting dark quick and we had about 8 miles to the last stand we wanted to make. We rushed to the truck and down the road. When we got to the next spot his shotgun was nowhere to be found. We realized it had gotten leaned against the side of the truck and in our rush, never made it into the truck. The trip back was considerably faster than the one there. We got back to where we had parked and there it lay on the side of the road, in full view, undamaged.

The next started with another hunt with my son. At the time he lived a couple of hours away and had a dairy owner that called and wanted him to come hunt every time they saw a coyote. He called the night before and asked if I wanted to go. Heck Yeah! Only hitch was a forecast for heavy snow mid morning so we were only going to get in a couple of stands before I needed to head home and not get snowed out.
On the second stand about halfway through it started snowing heavy. Big flakes falling straight down. We rarely get a snow with no wind, our snow usually comes sideways. Within just a few minutes our guns, scopes gear and us had snow stacking up on them. I've made so many stands over the years that a lot of them run together but I remember this one distinctly because I was playing woodpecker distress and a bunch of woodpeckers were circling overhead, chattering and looking for their buddy, in the middle of a snowstorm. I was so distracted that I almost missed seeing the coyote coming in. My son put him down . I kinda blew the snow off my gun and headed home.

On the way home I was listening to the forecast and the snow was set to end late afternoon. I thought great, I'll have time for a stand or two before dark if we didn't get to much snow. I left all my gear in the truck. I already had a spot picked on the backside of the section from my house. All day and 6" of snow later I put the truck in 4wd, got there, walked about 300 yards in, cleared a spot to set and started calling. Shortly, I had a coyote headed in, when he got to about 50 yds. he stopped and I pulled the trigger. Nothing, no click nothing. I was confused but I cycled a round and tried again. Nothing! What the @#$%. Then it dawned on me that I didn't get all the snow off my bolt that morning and it melted on the ride home then refroze sitting in the truck all day. The firing pin was frozen. The coyote had just been standing there watching me cycle rounds but finally started to trot off. I exercised the bolt several times before chambering the last round. The coyote had made it to about 150 yards when I tried the last round. It fired. Dead coyote and valuable lesson learned.
 
Once while hunting with my dad I left my rifle leaning against a tree and drove off without it. Dad was in his early seventies and though his health was generally good, this morning he wasn't feeling well. And he began to worsen. I was worried about getting him home and taking care of him. We cut the hunt short and headed back to the truck. When we got back to the truck I set my rifle against a tree nearby and went around to Dad's side and helped him get his gear and his gun unloaded and in the truck. Dad was beginning to vomit, as it turned out he had a nasty stomach bug that lasted a couple of days. I got Dad sorted out jumped in the truck and started for home. We had about an hour drive and I was worried about Dad. Fortunately, we had only been on the road about ten minutes when it hit me, I had forgotten my rifle. We were still on a gravel Forest Service road with no traffic so I did a U-turn and went back to recover my gun. It was fine, but I am thankful I remembered it when I did.
 
This isn't predator hunting but it still makes me wonder how dumb I can be at times. This happened a long time ago, I was very young and had just started bowhunting deer.

Someone I know... was walking out from his hunting area in the national forest back to the truck in the dark with his climbing treestand on his back when he realized something was following him. He could hear it shuffling in the leaves behind him. This thing was trailing him. This was way back in the day when the Mini Maglight was high-tech but in reality, only offered about as much light as a birthday candle. This person I know stopped and spun around shining the little flashlight through the woods trying to see what sort of creature was trailing him through the darkness. Not seeing anything he set out again listening intently for this critter following. Sure enough there it was again, right behind him! The sound of the crisp fall leaves being disturbed by this demon of the night was as clear as Sunday church bells. Now a quick spin and shine with the light revealed nothing... nothing at all. Spooky... He stepped more quickly trying to outpace this thing that was stalking him so adeptly. There it is again! This time the hunter tried an athletic stop-and-spin move and quick thrust of the mini light beam! And finally, there it was! The source of the sound was revealed - about 10' of camo cord used to pull the bow up after the climber was set was slithering out of a pocket on his pack and trailed out behind him rustling in the dry leaves like a gang of hellhounds attacking. Dang, I felt foolish, errrr... I mean this other guy felt foolish!!!
;)
 
LOL, Gary, reminds me of this one.

The story of a 2nd uncle of mine was told to me when I was a youth, but I still remember it vividly.

My uncle was in the woods near Big Bear, CA when he stumbled across.......a big bear. Even tho he knew you could not outrun a bear, it was just 2nd nature to try, and try he did. The bear started in his direction and he ran, and ran, afraid to look back because he could hear the bears footsteps. The farther he ran, he could tell by those footseps, the closer the bear was getting to catching him. Finally in total exhaustion, he fell to the ground and closed his eyes awaiting his fate and the footsteps kept coming, and coming and.......he finally opened his eyes, and surprisingly there was no bear, but the footsteps continued. Then he realized the footsteps were his heart pounding.
 
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