Ever mess up someone's hunt?

[sbhunter]

I messed a guy up on a good 4x4 Mule deer during the archery hunt. Pulled the "oh s**t sorry guy" started talking to him and his brother & 16 years later we still hunt together!

[GWHunter]

Really funny to hear that I'm not alone..... First off, I love to help hunters in the field. I do a lot of scouting and as I meet folks, I usually ask them if they are meat hunting or horn hunting? If they are meat hunting, I will ask them for their phone number and tell them that if I see anything i will text them and give them a heads up. With that said, there are some folks that are just dumb as a stump and are beyond help. Last year, I was hunting a ridge I like. For a few days I had noticed another hunter on a parallel ridge to the east. He spent the majority of his morning and afternoons standing in the middle of the road on the ridge and only glassed the tops of the opposite ridges... don't know why, if he did see a nice buck, it would have been a 1000 yrd shot. One day a really nice buck busted out on us and headed into a wooded area on the slope away from where this guy was. After some time, we expected that this wise ole fella could have doubled back and headed down the west face of the ridge we were on. To cut him off, we headed up to where this guy usually stood around. We had not seen him, and thought he wasn't there that afternoon. Unfortnately he was there... so when we got to the top of the ridge, we went the opposite way from where he was to see if we could catch this ole crafty buck moving.... we didn't. We decided to go over to where this guy was and appologize for coming up on him. He was not a nice fella and when we asked how he was doing, he told us "Not all that good, you guys spooked off a big 5x5 I was watching all morning... I was like really? I have seen you up here for several days and all you do is stand around or sleep on your quad? How you see that so called 5x5.... anyway, we left. The following morning, I went back to my ridge.. this guy was in the same spot.... around 1 pm, I saw a really nice 3x4 (no including eye-guards) about 100 yrs below him. I headed up the ridge I was on to get a better look at him. When I decided he was a shooter, I was like I cant shoot him with this baffoon there. So I stood in the open on a big rock.... glassed him and when we looked my way, I started waving at him. He got PO'd, got on his quad and left. I moved down my slope facing and took my buck at 275 yards.

[firstcoueswas80]

Scouting for JimmyC's December hunt last year, we were driving down Summit Motorway and came across a slow moving (road hunting) truck with a young girl on one of her first deer hunts.... Dad let us pass, and not 100 yards down the road stood a little buck at a waterhole that looked at us. I waved them up and by the time they got there the buck was gone.

 

 

Kicked out an alleged 115" buck to a guy while I was packing out a buck I killed several years ago... Course, he missed, but probably would not have have seen him if we were walking that ridge.

[Flatlander]

I have had the same guy ruin probably a dozen of my hunts. Sneezing in the middle of stalks, getting the wind wrong, walking loud, missing shots. If anybody sees a 30 yr old fat dude in a white F150 give him a piece of my mind . . . he looks just like the dude in my avatar.

[Workman]

I have had the same guy ruin probably a dozen of my hunts. Sneezing in the middle of stalks, getting the wind wrong, walking loud, missing shots. If anybody sees a 30 yr old fat dude in a white F150 give him a piece of my mind . . . he looks just like the dude in my avatar.

 

 

 

That's funny stuff right there.

[4Falls]

I have had the same guy ruin probably a dozen of my hunts. Sneezing in the middle of stalks, getting the wind wrong, walking loud, missing shots. If anybody sees a 30 yr old fat dude in a white F150 give him a piece of my mind . . . he looks just like the dude in my avatar.

 

That guy has been a thorn in my side as well. But the guy I'm talking about drives a white F-150, hes more like 45 and looks like me.

[mp_moody]

I was out scouting for javelina on Jan 1 a few years ago for my upcoming rifle hunt. Sat down in a good spot on a ridge and started glassing. Had a herd of stink pigs jump in front of me and run into the valley below, a few minutes later a pair of archery hunters came from the same direction the pigs had come from. I had set up maybe fifty yards from where they were beginning their stalk. Back at the truck I apologized and let them know where I'd seen other javelina in the area.

[2 Full Curls]

I messed one up one time....or at least the other guy thought so.

 

A few years ago, I was scouting a new unit for an upcoming hunt. I was checking all roads and having a blast. As I was cruising through the pines on a marked forest road (not two-track), I pulled over to take a leak. After I finished, I noticed some recent monsoon rain water had collected in a (what I would call) soon-to-be-dry retention puddle in the middle of the road. As I walked up to it, I heard a 'hey' and looked up to see a guy sitting a tree stand directly above it. The only reason I didn't see him, was because its the last place I thought I'd see someone....on the side of the road in a pine. Anyways, I waved apologetically, but he continued to swing his feet in disgust. I would be surprised if he shot a deer that archery season.

 

I have another story but I'm not sure what category to put it under...

 

In the same unit a couple of years later, I was archery deer, turkey, and bear hunting. There was a very old two-track loggin' road that went for about a mile into a deep canyon behind my camp. For two days I walked that road and the neighboring ridges, without any other hunters. I saw a lot of game, and chased turkeys everywhere. Well on the last morning, I left camp decked out in my usual face-paint (gotta go marine when archery turkey hunting) and started my hunt. About 15 minutes down into the canyon, I hear the 'put-put' of a car idling down the road that I had walked in on. Through the trees I could see it was an old CJ-5 jeep with 6! guys in it. They all had bows in their hands, and personified the term 'road hunter'. I decided to mess with them, so I stalked my way back up to the edge of the road, from the canyon ledge I had been working. I stood, statuesque, next to some 6' jackpines right on the roads edge and waited for the jeep. As it rolled by me at less than 3 feet, the driver and front passenger did not see me....but one of the guys on the back sure did. I still laugh to this day at the scared reaction he let out

[muledeerarea33?]

Hey 25-06, you should tell the the story about you and I!! About how shot gun pellets rained down on me while I sat a pond archery hunting. The way I found out about this website in 05ish (I think) was the coueswhitetail.com sticker on the back of the bronco he used to drive. Haha we've actually become good friends since that but I was a mad sum biotch that day!!!

[firstcoueswas80]

I have had the same guy ruin probably a dozen of my hunts. Sneezing in the middle of stalks, getting the wind wrong, walking loud, missing shots. If anybody sees a 30 yr old fat dude in a white F150 give him a piece of my mind . . . he looks just like the dude in my avatar.

 

 

Had me thinking you were talking about me there for a second, minus the 30 years old (im 28) and the F150 part!

[sherman]

I didn't mean to but it happened. I had taken my daughter out to bust some yotes it was Dec 31 pull up on a ridge and there are some archery deer hunters glassing. T figure i will just turn around and go some place else home. When I back up I notice a small 3x3 mulie 65 yards or so right behind them so I park and go up on foot and let him know the while deer is eatting. He was in shock that he didn't see it. but turned around and said oh it is not the monster. The lady he was tring to show how to hunt got mad and said why the hello are we out here then. I did remind him it was the last day to hunt on his tag and left him alone and lol all the way

[Scooter]

I've ruined a few duck hunts out here in AZ. There's not a lot of water down here... I always try to get to know the guys no matter how mad and nasty they are to me and find out what days and what water they're setting up on.

[bonecollector]

I was on my way to help some friends on an elk hunt I got up there just after day light and they were out hunting ready. I decided to head for an area that I knew held elk to scout it out. Well on my way there a bunch of elk crossed in front of me so I pulled over to just watch them for a while. After a while some other guys come driving up and see them. They hop out and go after the cows. Meanwhile my buddy texts me saying they are waiting for me. I sit there a while watching these guys and not wanting to start my truck and spook the elk but after them missing twice and my buddies waiting on me I decided I needed to leave. I started my truck and the elk took off. Sorry if that was someone on here.

[Coach]

A lot of great stories out here on this thread, which is a GREAT thread btw. I just want to commend you CWT members on how you have conducted yourselves when these situations arise. As much time as I've spent out there, I'm sure I have stepped on someone's toes, but never on purpose. If I accidentally messed up somebody's stalk and got confronted for it I will look back on these stories as an example of how to be patient and apologetic.

 

The one story I have where I, along with a buddy actually got yelled at for ruining a hunt is kinda funny, but probably pretty common. My friend and I set up for turkey along an old logging road well before first light. It was his tag and I was just there to tag along. We had a gobbler going but when light hit, he went the opposite direction. We followed that logging road down to the Black River calling occasionally and saw some birds fly out of the roost down to the river. We stopped calling and just stalked down to them using their normal sounds to get on them. My buddy sneaks over a break, locates the Tom and puts a nice one-shot kill on him.

 

So now it's getting late in the morning and as we are hiking out, the bird over my buddy's shoulder we're talking and laughing and just recounting the hunt. We follow the trail up to the logging road we started out on and close to the main road we see a blind that clearly wasn't there when we started, and this guy gets out (It's now like 8:30) and looks at us kind of disgusted. I ask how things are going and he replies "Good until you guys showed up".

 

So, this guy basically parked right next to us, followed the most obvious path and set up a couple hours too late, and blamed us for ruining his hunt. All we could do is keep walking back to the truck and chuckling about what a knot-head this guy was. #1, you can't sleep in when turkey hunting, and #2, if you park next to someone's truck, there's a reasonable chance that they are hunting in that area. LOL.

 

 

I've been on the receiving end more than once, but probably only one guy I would consider an absolute jerk. This guy parked right next to us, hiked up to the glassing area we were on, said "hi" on his way through and proceeded to walk through the area we were clearly glassing. Accidents happen, and usually people are pretty considerate and avoid stepping on each other but this guy flat out didn't care, so gets to be called out as a jerk. I have a better term but since this is a family-oriented site, let's just call it a "shmoosh shmag".

[muledeerarea33?]

Growing up huntin and living in 27/28 and lots of time in unit 1 I never really ran into people, ever. Occasionally we saw someone we knew locally but that was on the main road after a day of hunting. When I lived in Wyoming it was the same, freedom, no people, and quite. It wasn't until I moved to Tucson about 10 yrs ago that I had a culture shock!! The amount of people in the units around Tucson was insane. It took awhile, years, but I got used to hunting ponds for dove and duck with absalute strangers, running into people on a high ridge while deer hunting, etc. since I've moved to the benson area. It is better but not much. I'll go up and hunt with family in 27/28 when I can but even then the pressure is high these days. It's good to have a bigger hunting population now as opposed to 10-20 yrs ago but I'm still, after all these years, trying to get used to it.