Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

    
    Wess, one of my fathers cousins used to live in Oregon. He
    claims to have been asked to help drag out a "mule" deer that this
    guy had shot. As the story goes he really shot a mule. My dad's
    cousin kept a straight face, said it was a beauty helped the guy
    tie it to his car and directed him to the nearest check in station.
    This could be a crock but it was funny when he told it.
    
    years ago another guy here in MA pulled into a deer check in station 
    and pulled two tom turkeys out of his trunk and began to show them
    off. Too bad for him it wasn't turkey season, can you say BUSTED!
    
    
    Walt

    Walt,
    
    I have heard the Mule story too.  My uncle was a forest ranger in Ill
    and he said some guy from Chicago did the same thing.. I think he is
    full of it too.
    
    What about the divers repairing the dam and the huge catfish that could
    eat them, have you heard that one?
    
    Wess

    
    I've heard the mule story about a guy checking an "elk" through the
    check station near Salida, Co.  The ranger's didn't have the  heart
    to tell  him.  They just checked him on through.

    Some yahoo shot a horse out from under a rancher near Durango, Co.
    this year.  Claimed he thought it was an elk.--really happened.

    I've also heard a story about a diver in Pueblo Reservoir.  Seems
    there was this big hole about two feet wide on the bottom that the
    diver couldn't figure out what it was.  He got down and looked inside.
    Was about to put his hand in when the eyes blinked.

    My cousin _did_ pull a 50lb catfish out of the Smoky Hill river in
    Kansas.  I helped eat it.  I've also seen a picture of a 101 lb 
    catfish picked up out of a cornfield after a flood.  It was hanging
    on a pitchfork handle throught the gills across the guy's shoulders.  
    The guys were fined $1/lb for picking up the fish rather than catching 
    it.

    fred();

    
    Wess, Fred, I've heard about the giant catfish too. the story I 
    heard was that some divers were under water below the Kentucky dam
    doing some work and saw these great big catfish that could swallow
    a man whole. They claimed they wouldn't go back unless they had
    someone with a spear gun or something with them.
    
    You guys ever hear of"The Jersey Devil"? Supposed to be some kind
    of monster that roams the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. It's supposed
    to have wings and horns. The outdoor survivalist Tom Brown(?) claims
    to have seen it. he wrote a pretty good book called "The Tracker".
    He talks about growing up on the edge of the barrens.
    
    Walt

    Walt,
    
    Jersey monster nothing, that sounds just like my mother-in-law!
    
    
    Wess

    
    Geesh Wess,
    
    A couple weeks ago you were ranking on her cooking now you
    compare her to the jesey devil....
    
    
    You really care for the old gal don't you? 8')
    
    Walt

    When I was in the service, a buddy of mine, told me about rowing this
    little ten footer out just above Anderson Ranch Dam in Idaho. He was on
    his third beer when a fish head comes out from under the boat, slowly.
    It was so wide that he looks over at the other side of the boat and at
    least five foot of fish is still showing.  After the big sturgeon swam
    away, he rowed to shore and would only fish from shore for the rest of
    the day.
    
    

    Walt,
    
    We have a unique relationship, my mother-in-law and I.  We get along
    great.  Everyone else in the family is afraid of her, I treat her just
    like I do in here and she loves it.  She does wear the pants in her
    house...3 pair!
    
    Although she does look similiar to a "Far Side" comic.
    
    Good luck this weekend to everyone getting out.
    Wess

    Howdy all -
    
    I hunt, fish and back-country ski COlorado and have heard some whoppers
    in my time. A hunting buddy of mine that lives surrounded by BLM land
    tells me he keeps cats around to keep down the mice. Lack of mice keeps
    the rattlebugs away since rodents are their main food. He doesn't
    let the cats in his cabin, but whenever there's a litter, the kittens
    are always trying to get in, scratching on the door etc. One nite the
    kittens had been scratching like crazy at the door, more so than usual. 
    He's tryin to sleep and finally gets real annoyed at the kittens. Goes
    to the door with a broom to swat at them, opens the door and there's a
    young puma at the door! He says he threw the broom at the cat and
    slammed the door and went back to bed....next day nothing was left of
    the kittens but parts of fur....that's what he says...
    
    This guys brother lives in a small mountain town that I have a cabin
    just outside of...he swears he's chased local bears out of his cabin
    entrance way with a willow switch..not only chased the bear out of his
    entrance way, but all over town and the guy in his underwear!  This guy
    drinks alot....
    
    Both tell me they've seen Griz and wolves in Colo, too....as well as
    bobcat/domestic cat hybrids....
    
    I love these guys whoppers!!
    
    deadhead

    
    My wife's uncle (Bud) was hunting Mountain Lions with a friend near Howard,
    Co. (near Salida).  They were following the dogs, and had gotten
    separated.  Bud sat down on a rock to rest a bit.  As he sat there,
    something big hit him in the back, and something wet against the back
    of his ear.  Being an old marine he spun around with the rifle butt
    and...

    

    knocked the old dog stone cold rolling on the ground.  

    He thought he had killed the old dog, but it came to after a bit and
    did not seem to suffer any ill effects other than it pretty well
    kept its distance from him the rest of the trip.

    fred();

    
    A friend of mine and his wife were hunting up west of Bulah, Co
    (west of Pueblo).  They had gotten to the area before daylight and
    had separated  to set up watch over different areas.  She had been
    sitting for about 1/2 hour and it was just getting daylight when
    she felt something nuzzle the back of her neck.  She turned around
    to....

    


    literally nose to nose with a young mountain lion.  

    She pulled up her rifle and fired over its head to scare it away and...
    hit it right in the ear, killing it stone dead.

    Although Colorado has a hefty fine for shooting Mountain Lion out of
    season, they thought they should notify the authorities in case it
    had rabies or something to get so close.

    The game warden checked out the situation and found that there were no
    rabies,  the young cat was just curious (and curiosity literally 
    killed the cat).  There was no fine because the game warden said
    he'd probably have done the same thing under the circumstance, but
    he probably wouldn't have hit the cat it a hundred tries under the
    conditions.

    fred();

    
    About 30 years ago my brother sent off to one of those mail-order
    places and bought a .303 for the grand sum of $11.  The first time
    he fired the rifle was at a 5-point (10 pt. eastern) buck.  It
    dropped like a rock.

    As they were skinning the buck they noticed something odd...no
    bullet hole.  They even skinned the head...still no hole.  The
    rack still hangs in our shed, along with a couple others killed
    by my dad, but never did figure what killed that buck???

    fred();

Years ago, my Dad killed a deer with one of those magic bullets.  He
was hunting Texas mulies just oustide of Van Horn.  It was late in the
day of a one day hunt, and he had sat down at the foot of a small mountain
to rest.  While he was resting, a small herd of deer broke cover and
started angling up the mountain.

As they were running up the mountain, he scoped them but couldn't find
horns.  When they got to the top, they turned so that they were running
directly from him, and he was watching in his scope as they did this.
As the last deer cleared the top, he got a sillouhette look at the head,
and saw that it was a spike.  According to him, the gun just went off
when he saw the horns.  In other words, the shot was more of a reflex
action than a planned shot.

Anyway, after the shot, he saw the deer's head bob up over the horizon
a few times, so he thought he might have hit it.  He waited a few minutes,
and went to check.  Once on top, he couldn't find anything.  He searched
until it was almost dark, and started walking to the road.  As he did,
he passed a small draw and heard a noise.

It was the buck, pulling itself with only its front feet.  It's back legs
were spread eagled and useless.  He dispatched it with a quick shot to
the neck, dressed it out, and drug it to the road.  While dressing it,
he noticed that the only bullet hole in the deer was the one made with
the killing neck shot.

When the deer was butchered, a slug was found in the buck's left shoulder.
It was a fresh wound, so we figured it was the 'magic' bullet.  Apparently,
the bullet entered the rectum, split the pelvic bone, and lodged in
the shoulder.

Jerry

    no whopper....I have the pelt.  
    
    Mike Hohwy, not to be out done by my three point (western) muley on
    Thursday morning, takes aim at a large four point (also western) Muley
    that evening, (after he spook a five point elk and got no shot). Anyway
    the big boy was a long way off, about 330+ yards. Mike was carrying his
    300win mag, so he figured he had a shot. It was down slope, as it can
    be in the Galatins of Montana. About 45deg downslope. Mike did not have
    a table for that degree of incline, so he did not know precisely how
    much or litle hold over he needed for his M70 which was sighted for
    200yds. 
    
    He decided that it will shoot pretty flat so He aims at the deer's
    nose and lets fly. The buck went down like a sack of sand in it own
    tracks. Not a mark on it. The 200 gr bullet, (an elk load) went right
    down the throat and, after plowing into the #2 cervical vertibre,
    blowing up the buck's nervous system, deflected into the innards and
    pretty much messed them up.
    
    Unfortunately, the deer lay there twitching. As Mike did not know where
    he hit it, He layed another one in on the shoulder. He hit the shoulder
    blade, that bullet blew up. It was a Nosler too. I did the butchering
    and the shoulder was a writeoff. Looked like a bunch of red dental
    floss instead of meat. The back end of the Partition did get through the
    ribs, barely. 
    
    Nice rack, that 4x4. Out here, we would have called it a ten point. But
    the western guys don't count the eye guards. 

    I worked with a guy a few years ago who said his uncle was hunting deer
    with a muzzleloader on the edge of a 30ft cliff when a nice 8 pt came
    along the edge just about dark.  He said his uncle couldn't see the
    sights very well but fired at the deer and the deer turned and
    bolted... right over the edge.  It turns out the deer was never hit but
    evidently broke his neck in the fall.  He swore it was true.
    
    Fish story that did happen...to me.
    
    I took a few friends catfishing at a local pond that held a bunch of 3
    to 4lb channel cats.  I told my friends to hold their rods because the
    fish didn't nibble, they grabbed the bait and ran, pulling your rod in
    if you weren't careful.  
    
    We hadn't had our lines in for 5 minutes when my buddies rod banked off
    of his tacklebox and was dragged into the pond.  He looked at me and
    screamed, the rod was new and $50.  Just then my rod bobbed and I set
    the hook.  The fish had swam across my line and we retrieved his new
    rod with the 4lb cat still attached.  
    
    About 10 minutes later I was doing a "I told you so", and my rod went
    dragging down the hill and ker-plunk, right into the pond.  I ran down
    to the edge of the pond and dove in, my hands stretched out.  Believe
    it or not I grabbed the rod somehow, stood up in the waist deep water
    and reeled the 3-4lb catfish in.  My buddies stood there in the
    darkness and clapped, laughing their asses off.
    
    That was probably the best one that I have been involved in.
    
    Wess

    Regarding the 'magic bullets', we had a similiar incident about three
    years back.  It was deer season here in Ontario, Canada and one of our
    gang we call Kojak, (for obvious reasons), had never bagged a deer,
    although he'd shot at plenty.  This particular time he took a shot at a
    running six point buck and dropped him stone dead in his tracks!  We
    looked while we were still in the bush, but no one could find the
    bullet hole.  Even after we hung him and skinned him out a week later
    we still couldn't find where he had hit the deer.  I'd really like to
    buy some more of those magic bullets if anyone knows where I can get
    them; they sure don't mess up much meat!
    
    Rick
    
    

    
    Ever hear the story about the guy who shot a deer and couldn't
    find the bullet hole? He put his rifle on the rack and asked his
    buddy to take a picture. The deer, who had been knocked unconscious
    from the force of the bullet hitting his antlers, woke up and ran
    off into the brush with the gun still on his head. Neither gun
    nor deer were ever found.
    
   Walt
    

RE:   -< make sure they're dead >-
    
truer words were never spoken...  I have a friend that this almost happened to
this year...

He shot a beautiful #190 8 pointer with an 18" spread... walked up to the deer,
couldn't find blood or an entry/exit wound, was preparing to start gutting
it out, when it started kicking and getting up...  seems he hit the deer in
the top of the head next to the antler.  The slug never even broke the skin.
knocked the deer out cold...  he grabbed his shotgun and quickly dispatched it 
before it took off...

He said if he had a camera with him, he would have done exactly what Walt 
mentioned earlier.  

FWIW, Fra

    When I shot my first (and only, to this point) deer, I walked slowly up
    to the thing, half expecing it to jump up and make a break for it. I
    couldn't see a hole in it anywhere near where I'd aimed, and I was
    using a slug, so it should have been a significant hole. I knew I
    hadn't just scared it to the ground- and its eyes were glazing over so
    I knew it was dying. Finally I saw a tiny little tuft of hair out of
    place. That was it. Sometimes it's not so easy to find the hole (ooh,
    er!)

    
    I read this story awhile back and thought it was funny.
    
    It seems there was this small group of guys who liked to hunt
    a private swamp on opening day of duck season. They'd get in
    while still dark, shoot thier limit then run back to public land
    before anyone caught them. This went on for a couple years, the
    game warden was unable to catch them as they only did it on
    opening day and changed locations inthe swamp every year.
    So one year the game warden decides he's going to catch them for
    sure. He parks about a mile from their cabin, walks thru the woods
    and hides behind some bushes in the front yard. He looks at his watch
    and it says 2:30 A.M. He figures for sure he'll get them now. All he'll
    have to do is follow them right into the swamp and he's got them!
    About 3 a.m. it starts to rain, then the temps drop, he cold, wet
    and miserable. Finally at 4:30 the door opens and a figure walks out
    onto the porch. he says to himself, "THis is it i'm gonna get them
    now". The figure on the porch yells out into the darkness, "hey warden,
    it's awfully cold and miserable out there, why dont you come in and
    join us for breakfast?" Feeling dejected, and being half froze he got
    up and went inside. As they were sitting around eating a huge hardy
    meal the warden asks they guy how he knew he was waiting for them
    outside. They guy says.
    
    
    Well to be truthful I really didnt know you were out there. But I've 
    been calling you in for breakfast every opening day just in case
    you were.
    
    
    
    Walt