What is your greatest memory while hunting?

[wooly]

Best for me had to be last turkey season after I killed a bird and had this little deer show up and follow me over a mile all the way home.

 

[nyantler]

wooly is that a 10 gauge... I have one just like it but in 10 gauge... I love it.

 

[wooly]

wooly is that a 10 gauge... I have one just like it but in 10 gauge... I love it.

 

That was a single shot 12ga. I borrowed from my uncle.

Not your typical "turkey gun" by todays standards, but that bird couldn't tell the difference. 

I don't even know the model, but it's an easy gun to carry around for half a day.

[Jeremy K]

Hands down the best memory of hunting is the first time my dad took me with him , i was probably 12 and still waiting for the magic age of 14 til i could bow hunt myself. I still remember sitting in the tall grass over looking a well beaten down deer path , we didn't see a single thing that evening.

[Terry]

I love reading about everyone's best memories being with their children. My oldest is just coming of age and I can't wait to start making these memories. We get our first chance this April with the youth turkey season.

[RangerClay]

Sooo many great memories.  One that stands out was a time where I arrowed a deer on my property.  I saw the doe go down.  I called the house and had my kids come out.  I showed them the arrow and started them on the blood trail.  They found the deer.  We prayed together over the deer.  They helped me gut the deer.  They helped me drag out the deer.  They helped me hang, skin and butcher the deer.  Took me a 1/2 hour just to gut it because I took my time and answered all of their questions.  It's a day I will treasure forever.

[Woodjr55]

One of my better stories is my first year hunt I was sitting at the base of a tree and my dad was off to my left. Well he ended up kicking a deer to me and this was the first deer I've ever seen while hunting well I raise my gun and shoot a few times I can't remember how many but the deer runs out of sight. My dad saw the whole thing and a yell to him is it down and he tells me yes well I get super excited thinking I've just gotten my first deer. Well my dad sees my excitement and yells well it's not down down it ran down the hill. That was defiantly a buzz kill

[hunter49]

   So many, most of them when hunting with my father & brother.   Goose, pheasant, deer, rabbit, all of it.  All the laughs, different camps we were at & fun with friends . Some of the shots taken.  One time myself & brother empied our guns on a 8pt. running the edge of the woods we were in the open field dad says are you 2 done, he takes his 40 yd.  shot & the deer (going full speed)drops & slides into a tree dead as a door nail! Dad says there go get it!   Then as getting older learning it wasn't all about the kill but just being out in the woods all together.

[G-Man]

my first year at camp, i came up to hunt small game the year before i could deer hunt. this was to get to know the property lines and the guys. I had never hunted anything and was having a blast shooting red squirrels out of the spruce while the other 7 members deer hunted. after 6 or so i went in the cabin and talked with the owner(we all called him gramps although he wasnt relation to me) and asked what else there was to hunt. he told me partrige (ruffgrouse) and that they looked like sm brown chickens.. after a dilligent search of the property i was able to sneak up on one and shoot it off the ground. i was so proud i got one and hurried back to camp to show gramps. i asked what else i could hunt and he said there were a few rabbits around but the fox had done a number on them.. Again i lit out and sure enough found and shot a rabbit under a spruce trees low branches. The "deer "hanging tree looked strange with 6 squirrels, a grouse and a rabbit hanging from it. I was proud as i could be. gramps and i were admireing my harvest when ww3 opened up in the woods seems like everyone in camp was shooting.. we awaited their return... they had all missed a herd of deer including a nice buck (you needed 4 people on a doe tag back then). That evening at dinner gramps was chastizing his grandson,and two boys, my father and two older brothers for missing. When all of a sudden he looks at me and says"Your doinging really well shooting, if i tell you there is a big buck out there to hunt you think you can get him? these guys cant hit anything!! " .i was never so embarassed and proud at the same time!!! ps. my older brother did end up getting a small buck the next day and gramps said his peptalk/chastizing must of worked....lol

[Uncle Nicky]

Way too many to list.

Most recent was hunting with a buddy in Georgia, spring gobbler season. A good friend I met years ago in Canada, I make it a point to get together with him every year.

A little background, we usually sit together when we turkey hunt, for the last 3 years he's shot birds that have come in from his direction (usually heading towards me). It became sort of a running joke for a while.

Anyway, last year we spotted a gobbler heading in from an open field, so we quick set up about 15 yards in the woods, and just waited...he was coming in on a string, so we didn't do any calling. Once the bird hit a dip in the field, I lost sight of him, but I didn't want to move & risk spooking him.

After a LOOONNNGGG wait, I looked over & saw my buddy raising his shotgun...I got this sinking feeling he was going to shoot another one out from under me. I slowly raised my gun also, looked through the scope...and suddenly saw big red turkey head staring at me. A second before I pulled the trigger, I heard my friend's safety click off.

When I got up to look at my prize, I realized I'd just shot my biggest Eastern...1 1/4 spurs, unfortunately at that close range I shot most of the bird's beard off. I don't know what was sweeter...the trophy or shooting one out from under Robby.

[Cory]

easy..... opening day gun 2000! I was 18 shot my first buck! The sun just came up the fog burned off I hear a snap from behind a down tree and a big spike walked 15 yards broad side. I put my 50. Cal blackpowder round ball right through his heart. he ran 30 yards dropped and I watched the death kick. All full if adrenaline I ran over to my old mans tree stand told him I got one he said cool go back sit there and wait for a doe....lol.... 4 hours later he came with my 2 uncles as they watched me gut it and when I finished gutting my uncle from Colorado threw my his rope and said have fun dragging..... Can't wait for my sons to start hunting I swear i won't do that to them! YEAH RIGHT

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[thphm]

My son and his best friend first year deer hunting both got a deer the same day.

[Merlot]

memory of watching the sun set over the trees and experiencing the calm over the meadow and the chill in the air after another successful afternoon of bow hunting deer....sometimes I would just wait until dark before walking out just to soak in the calmness of the moment...no worries about the problems of the world....just the calmness ...nice memory.

[cdmckane]

Greatest memory, for sure, is the first deer I shot.  Took it with my .30-06 behind my house, with the wife watching from the window (last time she ever did that) at around 120 yds.  I started to gut it, but was so nervous about screwing it up and spilling the guts, I had to call my brother in law to walk me through it.  Damn it, if he didn't laugh and chuckle the entire time, I almost gave up right there.  If it weren't for my desire to prove I could do it myself, I probably wouldn't have gone and taken a second deer a week later, dressing it entirely on my own. 

 

I still call him from time to time.  Mostly to piss him off, but occasionally, to hold my light when I take shots at the end of legal light.  I can't wait to get my daughter's hands inside a deer so that, by the time she's ready to hunt, it's second nature to her, unlike it was for me. 

[Doc]

You know, even today I often walk through a stretch of woods at the end of the day and spot something that brings back memories of 20, 30, 40 years or more ago. It may not have anything to do with a kill, just a recollection of a time long ago that I walked the same trail out. It is weird, just kind of a flash-back to a younger age. Of course I have lived and hunted this same valley since I was 11 years old, so there are a lot of memories here. But great memories in the woods are not always linked to a kill.

 

There is an old beech tree that never fails to bring back great memories when I see it. About 55 years ago, I carved the initials of my wife and myself in that old tree. That was long before we were even married. They are still there. It is amazing, something in the woods that can instantly take me back to age 15 everytime I stumble across it while hunting.

[Fantail]

The day I called in my son's first Turkey is right at the top of the list.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Fantail

[DeerStalker22]

You know, even today I often walk through a stretch of woods at the end of the day and spot something that brings back memories of 20, 30, 40 years or more ago. It may not have anything to do with a kill, just a recollection of a time long ago that I walked the same trail out. It is weird, just kind of a flash-back to a younger age. Of course I have lived and hunted this same valley since I was 11 years old, so there are a lot of memories here. But great memories in the woods are not always linked to a kill.

 

There is an old beech tree that never fails to bring back great memories when I see it. About 55 years ago, I carved the initials of my wife and myself in that old tree. That was long before we were even married. They are still there. It is amazing, something in the woods that can instantly take me back to age 15 everytime I stumble across it while hunting.

Doc, this reminds me of the first time i hunted with my grandfather.  I was to young to deer hunt, so i carried a 20 gauge with birdshot.  As we walked through the woods which happened to be the same woods that my father and uncles had grown up hunting, my grandfather was able to point out spots where he shot deer, where my dad, and uncles had shot deer, and other events.  I was amazed at this that he remembered all the specific spots were deer and other events had happened up to the exact tree after all those years.  There had to of been a hundred different specific locations that he showed me as we walked through the woods.  

[Tughill]

The day in my early 50's I was sitting on the sunny side of a mountain in the Adirondacks, miles from the nearest road and realized after all these years, it was the hunt not the harvest that kept me coming back to the Big Woods..