Crazy Shots

[Shawnee]

I don't know anyone who has hunted very long that hasn't had something zany happen to them in the field so I'm sure there are some good tales here on THR.

One of my best ("best" because it doesn't involve one of the goofs I've made) is when my college roommate and I were hunting ducks one morning.
We were on a low ridge that separated a swamp and a large lake. Ducks would spend the night in the swamp and trade back and forth to the lake - mostly in the mornings and evenings. In moving to/from the lake they would cross the ridge at an altitude of probably only 20-25ft.

Our "blinds" were simply some brushy patches about 10 or so steps apart. It was foggy as usual with visibility no more than about 40yds. so we had to listen for them coming, get set, and shoot fast before they got passed us (and plenty got passed us).

We heard some Teal coming and the first one was in front of me and angling somewhat to my left. A little farther left were two more that would angle across in front of my partner. We shot at almost the same time - both of us connecting - and then he swung on the last bird which was about to go passed him.

Meanwhile...

Just as my pal was about to shoot the 3rd duck - the Teal I had shot plowed into the side of his head knocking him silly.

 

[41magsnub]

I was 12, my buddy was 11 and had never fired a gun before nor did he have a hunting license. My dad had us out both antelope and upland game hunting with my buddy just along for the ride. We pulled to the top of a rise and saw a stock pond full of ducks. My dad thinking he was clever thought he would tire us kids out by sending us with the shotguns the 3/4 mile downhill to the pond and back knowing that we would spook the ducks long before we got there.

We worked in on them and low crawled up a drainage ditch right to the edge of the pond and got ready. We then charged over the edge like a couple of doughboys charging the Germans. I had my dad's 870 that was far too long for my while my buddy had my youth model 20ga that at the time was plugged into a singleshot. I took a bead on a single duck and dropped it. My buddy took a single shot into the flock and dropped 4 birds. Not a one of them was dead, but they were down and on the water.

My dad was watching us through the binoculars and said it started raining ducks. He then had to walk down to us since he didn't send the dog with us.

 

[Savage Shooter]

I shot 2 doves with one shot in the air with my old nef pardner 20ga and then again with my mossberg 20ga.( I have witnesses)
Even got a triple on starlings once with the mossberg but I don't count them that because they weren't flying they were on a telephoneline.
I had a double with my little stevens crackshot on two blackbirds eating corn off a feedbunk I had to wait forever for them to line up.

 

[koja48]

Cousin shot a duck that fell on the off-side of a huge willow. He went to find it (sans dog), another mallard flock sucked-in & I folded a big Greenhead. It tumbled over the willow, hitting cuz in the hiney as he bent to pick-up his bird. Knocked him face-down in the frog-water.

Shot at a downhill Mulie buck . . . it disappeared real sudden-like. When we went to check, it was laying in the bottom of a dry wash, stone-cold dead . . . no blood, no visible indication of trauma. I checked it for dead, walked all the way around, scratched my head . . . then grabbed the near-side antler to turn it over & the skull "moved." Bullet went square in the ear & the blood was draining under the carcass. I was so far off, I was "on."

 

[justice4all]

I hip shot a flying chickadee with a 22when I was just a boy.

 

[KC0QGL]

Years ago my best friend and I were rabbit hunting with our BB guns. I jumped one and shot it in the back of the neck. It was dead. Then my best friend came around the bush and saw the rabbit twich. He emptied the mag of his CO2 BB pistol in to the rabbits head. I look at him and said "It was dead, what was that for?" "Well I saw it move." was his only reason.

 

[Jst1mr]

Had previously filled my buck tag and was looking for that perfect 'meat' doe while bowhunting. Picked one out of a passing line of deer just before twilight and let fly from my treestand...looked like a good shot, but decided to wait a couple hours to track. Back out in the woods,( with a headlight for tracking as is now completely dark) and I encounter an obvious blood trail, which quickly becomes very confusing and it feels like I'm going in circles. I decide to get off the blood and begin a series of circles to pick up the trail further on. Soon, in my headlight beam, a deer lurches to its feet and stands looking at me...obviously gutshot, and a fawn to boot. I turn off my light, sit down and contemplate what has happened...I'm nearly sick at myself for such a poor shot AND misidentifying the deer to begin with. Unwilling to let the animal suffer further, I do all I can at that point and kill it with my knife (which, believe me, doesn't make me feel any better...). I tag and dress the fawn, and begin to drag it out, feeling like total trash...my headlight beam catches a reflection off to the side, and there lies a dead doe. You got it - the arrow was a classic double lung shot on the doe, but after passing thru, the broadhead managed to slit the belly of a fawn following on the back side of her.. Lucky I had tags for both! Lesson learned - be aware of what is beyond your target - even while bowhunting.

 

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

jst1mr's story reminds me - I wish my buddy was on this site to tell about his "deer murder" - not a shot, really - well, it followed a bad shot with a rifle that didn't cleanly kill the deer, and he jumped on its back and rode it like a bronco while slitting its throat. I wasn't there, but it's funny when he tells it. Poor little bambi. Yeah, shawnee, gotta watch out for those flying waterfowl - just ask Fabio.

 

[kmrcstintn]

a hunting buddy was picking off some rabid squirrels & we found a beheaded carcass lying on the ground; he gave me the go ahead to 'finish it off' with my shotgun; the bulk of my shot hit the ground underneath and made the carcass jump up @ 2 feet off the ground; too bad he didn't have another shotgun so he could shoot it in the air and send it flying

 

[Newt]

Everyday when I got off the bus, I ran as hard as I could to drop off my bag, grab the .22 and hit the woods to squirrel hunt until dark. On one of these such days while out in the woods, I heard a squirrel bark and headed toward it. After looking for a while, I finally found it at the tip top of a fully grown pine (why it was there, I still wonder). I pulled up, almost straight up, and touched one off. It didn't even flinch, and fell the whole way down bouncing from limb to limb and landed right at my feet as if I'd intended it to happen. After further inspection, I found one in/out hole between the eye and ear. I was stepping high to tell Dad when I got back.

 

[Maplicito]

My cousin and I were out hunting ground squirrels. He was using my Ruger 10/22, and I was using my old Lakefield Mossberg 500 - I always new .22LR was fun for gopher hunting, but I never realized how much fun a 12 gauge would be until I tried it!

Anyhow, I see one about 25 feet away from us, and take a quick shot. The blast sends it about a foot off the ground, and when it dropped, it completely disappeared from sight. We quickly go over to see what happened to it. Turns out it landed in an old badger hole. To this day, my cousin still calls it "Bryan's 3 point shot."

Another time, him and I are out hunting again, only this time he has the shotgun. He sees a ground squirrel, and takes a quick shot at it. It falls back into its hole, so he decides to go over and have a look. Turns out there were 2 others behind the one he shot, and he got a 3 in 1 shot without realizing it.

 

[wankerjake]

i shot a dove one time one handed while talking on my cell phone to my buddy, telling him to hurry up and get here because the hunting was great! The best part was that the dove landed directly at my feet. All i had to do was bend over and pick it up.

 

[jordan1948]

PremiumSauces, I've hear that same story from my "uncle". If it were the same guy I wonder what the chances are.

 

[dagger dog]

Crazy shots!

While visiting my brother in laws wifes parents we got to talking guns, and A.D. brought out his prized Super Black Hawk for me to inspect.
I told him that was an odd coincidence because I had my Black Hawk with me, it's little brother.

He asked me if I would like to shoot a couple rounds and I agreed.

Now A.D.'s place is in rural western Arkansas, so all we had to do is walk out the front door and let fly.

He hands me a couple of those finger size loads and as I flip open the loading gate and shove them into the cylinder , he's asking me if I can see the tin can stuck on the limb of a tree, across the dirt road in front of his house.

I look in the general direction of where his gaze is falling and pick up the target in my veiw. Then he says take a shot at it. Well it was a little farther than I'm used to shooting a hand gun , but you know how it is, and I let one fly, and was pleased with the results of that can vibrating from the impact of the bullet. A.D says don't think you hit it take another and I obliged him and did, same results can shook again. Don't think you hit it that time either.

So to prove my prowess with the big boomer, I said lets go have a
look , and we started walking for the can in the trees on the other side of the road. Well as we walked to the road it was evident we weren't looking at the same target after about 40 yds I wound up in front of A.D.'s rusty dented mail box with 2 .44 caliber holes through the lid, and he was about 15 feet to the right holding a quart oil can

I tried my best to make good a new mailbox but A.D. would have none of that kind of talk.

Talk about feeling like a turd

 

[HunterGirl]

Had previously filled my buck tag and was looking for that perfect 'meat' doe while bowhunting. Picked one out of a passing line of deer just before twilight and let fly from my treestand...looked like a good shot, but decided to wait a couple hours to track. Back out in the woods,( with a headlight for tracking as is now completely dark) and I encounter an obvious blood trail, which quickly becomes very confusing and it feels like I'm going in circles. I decide to get off the blood and begin a series of circles to pick up the trail further on. Soon, in my headlight beam, a deer lurches to its feet and stands looking at me...obviously gutshot, and a fawn to boot. I turn off my light, sit down and contemplate what has happened...I'm nearly sick at myself for such a poor shot AND misidentifying the deer to begin with. Unwilling to let the animal suffer further, I do all I can at that point and kill it with my knife (which, believe me, doesn't make me feel any better...). I tag and dress the fawn, and begin to drag it out, feeling like total trash...my headlight beam catches a reflection off to the side, and there lies a dead doe. You got it - the arrow was a classic double lung shot on the doe, but after passing thru, the broadhead managed to slit the belly of a fawn following on the back side of her.. Lucky I had tags for both! Lesson learned - be aware of what is beyond your target - even while bowhunting.

bowhunting can be so hard sometimes.....

 

[308win]

Last day of duck season. Below zero but no wind. Hunting buddy and I are on a cooling lake. To set up we just pulled the john boat up in the shallow water parallel to the shore and set up a net blind. Threw out the decoys and as soon as it was light to see a flock of mallards started working our decoys. We both shot and I was pulling down on another when the boat started rocking and I hear monosyllabic words from the rear of the boat followed by a 'whump', more rocking, and a splash. Duck my buddy shot hit him square in the chest and knocked him out of the boat into soupy mud and water. He was pretty cold by the time we got the decoys gathered and made it back to the ramp.

 

[Grumulkin]

I had a Benjamin .177 caliber air pistol when in high school in addition to some real guns. My mother told me not to shoot anything with the air pistol. There was an apple tree about 50 yards from an open window upon which a blue jay alighted. I shot and it dropped as if struck by lightning. It got caught up in the tree so I couldn't retrieve it. About 2 weeks later, my mother found the blue jay skull on the ground with a neat hole in it; she was very disappointed.

 

[qajaq59]

Just as my pal was about to shoot the 3rd duck - the Teal I had shot plowed into the side of his head knocking him silly.

I did that to my brother, except it was a mallard drake and it knocked him face first into the mud. And to add insult to injury, my dog pounced on him to grab the bird. It's 20 years later and I'm still busting him about it.

 

[achildofthesky]

While shooting skwerlz last year, I'd pop one and retrieve it and usually give it a head squish to assure it isn't still alive.

All was fine and wonderful and I was about 1/2 way to my limit. The dead critters would get tossed in a walmart bag and then in my small pack and I'd move onward.

Came across a timber rattler, played with it for a while, watched some deer and finally settled about 3/4 the way up a not so high wooded ridge. I sat still for about 10 minutes shooting yet another bushytail and sat still some more.

I was not paying too close attention to anything just listening when I felt a poke in the back and then a rapidly increasing flurry of activity from behind...

I whipped around and the activity was still behind me. I tossed off the back pack and the head of one VERY aggrivated skwerl was prying its way out my pack and making kujo type growlie/squealy sounds. Not wanting to lose a morsel to escape I proceeded to try and grab the varmint through the pack and bags and try to 'rassel it into submission.

That little demon was intent on inflicting pain as it was hissing and making noises I'd never heard from one of the little furrie's before. After an excessive interval, I gained the upper hand so to speak, and after getting a few tiny scratches from those little fingernails I was able to pin the little devil to the ground and unceremoniously finish the critter off with a swift hammer fist.

It seemed like minutes of struggle but was likely just 10's of seconds and I bet that if anyone else would have seen that would have had a good belly laugh at my expense...

I never would have thought that skwerl hunting was a hand to paw combat sport! Dang....

Be safe

Patty

 

[koja48]

Patty ~

Sounds as if you encountered one of the highly-evolved Ninja Skwerlz. Glad you recovered without serious harm (and I do regret the fact that this wasn't captured on video . . . ). Puts me in mind of the time during a late Montana '60s duck season (read: COLD!) when I returned home after a quick jump-shooting trip before work, opened the trunk on my faithful old '51 Chevy sedan/all-purpose "Jeep" and a mallard flew out . . . never did find that bird again.

 

[Wildfire]

Yep.

Hey There;
Years ago I took my younger brother Pheasant hunting. I had already taught him how to shoot clays and he got pretty good.
We split up a little in a rather large field of tall grass. Lots of birds back then.
He sure was shooting a lot. We met at the end of the field and I asked him what the heck he was shootin.
He said Pheasants and show'd me all 5 of them. All hens. Guess I forgot to mention any thing about that part.