We all hunt for a variety of moments and memories. Lets not talk about dead things but about the other reasons to hunt.

What is your best non-shooting memory of a hunting trip?

My favorite memory, tonight, is of a Moose trip North of the Artic Circle in Alaska. There were four of us, all good friends, and we were having a great hunt. Anyway we were camped out on a ridge that looked North over a valley and we were sitting by a nice, tight fire with the stars shinning as only they can a hundred miles from electricity. Someone produced a bottle of Crown Royal and another a box of Cubans. After a couple of stories, all of which we had heard before and all true, the Northern Lights lit up the sky with blues and greens beyond belief. A comment 'that the only thing missing was a wolf howling' and within five minutes we were listening to a symphony from three directions.

Here's to Good memories and Better friends.

Neat Story.

In 96' my then 68 year old dad & I went to AK for dall sheep. On the fourth day we killed his sheep just before dusk and by the time we had it butchered and caped it was pitch dark and we couldn't locate the horses.
Dad, the guide & I spent a miserable night on a rocky slope, in a cold drizzle. Dad was dang near hypothermic and we were all cold wet and hungry.
Finally at first light we were able to traverse the rocks safely, shortly located the horses, hustled down to timber and got a nice fire going to warm us up. Although we were all whipped out, after a little snack and getting warmed up, life was good.

Somewhere I read something to the effect that ... The more hardships encountered on a hunt, makes one appreciate the trophy much more.
I'd agree. It will be hard to top that one.

Incidently ... Every time Dad tells that story the conditions get worse, temperature is colder, mountain is steeper, etc.

Back around '68, six of us young bucks were camped about 10 miles in from the nearest road on paper company land in northern Maine. Well we got back in camp at the end of day 6 or so and discovered we were out of food. It was a long cold night and we woke the next morning to 18" of fresh snow. There would be no food run this day, for sure. About 9 a.m., one of the guys remembered a big doe some hunters had eaten the week prior so we scouted around for it, dragged it over the hill and threw it on the fire. An hour later there we were in deep snow, perched on rocks surrounding a blazing fire, tearing off big beautiful greasy ribs with our bare hands like Neandertahls and having the time of our lives!

[ 11-13-2002, 08:26: Message edited by: Nickudu ]

Both great memories. The kind that make you feel left out because you weren't there.

No question..... about '90 or '91, my late father and I in a duck blind in early November. It was unusually warm, in the mid-70s in southern Ontario! So we'd shed a lot of clothes, winds are calm, not much moving duckwise. Kind of just standing there with our thumbs fully inserted.

Well, as we're standing there talking, I see my father's gaze move from my eyes to just over my shoulder, and the whispered "Oh shit" confirmed my fears. About 2 dozen canvasbacks, in classic fashion were bearing down on us. They decoyed beautifully and we each took one. My father had them mounted in a "dead mount", hanging from a mule-deer leather strap by the neck, and hung them beside the fireplace in his den. Since his death, they have hung in my study, where I can see them every day and remember what a great old fart he was.

Gator1
There are few sounds in the world more exciting than a wolf pack howling.

Except a 180 np ripping through one...

I got laid off from a large oil company on 8/30/94. the next day three of my Hunting buddies drug me off to Colorado Rockies for Bowhunting Elk and Mule Deer. We spent the next two weeks in the high country hunting hard during the day and spending many a memorable evening's by the camp fire reflecting on the day's hunt. We did not harvest an Elk but came close a time a few times.
I guess why this hunt is so special to me is that not only did I have the bugles of Elk and the mountains to help me get my head screwed back on straight but I had 3 good friends giving me allot of support. It must have worked because I got a better job about a week after I returned home. To this day I thank the guys for making me go with them on that hunt. Since then we have made several sucessful hunts together but none as sucessful (to me) than the one they forced me to go on. Great friends, It does'nt get any better.

Too many to pick just one, but every one of them involves time spent in the field with my father...

Cold Bore - Amen - Memories of hunting with my Dad are best. He was a bird hunter, so I had to learn all the other stuff on my own. But what I remember most about hunting with my Dad were the things he taught me about life...not hunting.

One duck hunt we were driving thru some thick salt cedar brush. I had my arm dangling out the window, casually grabbing each branch as it came by, gripping it and stripping off all the leaves.

After I did a few of these, my dad looked at me and said, "You better stop doing that."

I gave him my smart-ass teenager look of "What do you know" and kept doing it.

But the next branch I grabbed hold of, I apparently grabbed just a little too firmly and before I could strip the leaves off and LET GO...the motion of the truck moving by just about ripped me out of the truck and before I could make myself let go of the damn branch it had just about jerked my arm out of the socket.

I don't know if my explanation makes sense to anyone and the whole thing lasted maybe a second before I was back fully in my seat inside the truck, rubbing my hurt shoulder and my eyes wide open at what almost happened to me.

Timidly I glanced over at my Dad to see if he had noticed the fruits of my stupidity. He was trying hard to pretend he didn't notice but I could tell by the little twitch at his lips that he was having a hard time not laughing at his dumbass #2 son.

My Dad didn't talk a lot, but he didn't fire any blanks. When he told me something, if I was smart...I listened. The older I get, the wiser his words become in my little brain.

What I wouldn't give to hunt with him one more time!

One of two.

First was when I was 15, hunting the Kofa Game range with my dad, a friend and his dad. We'd drive some of the most beautiful desert in the world looking for quail. When we'd find a covey we'd go after them. We'd clean the catch right there and that night ate steaks, quail and onions right off the grill.

The second has to be our deer hunt three weeks ago. It wasn't that rough, where we were hunting was 45 minutes from home, so we'd drive out in the morning. But I spent three days with my dad, brother-in-law and some old friends hunting the area I grew up in. On the morning of the last day my dad helped my spot a spike for my first deer ever. After all the years of shooting with him, it wouldn't have been the same if he hadn't been right there. Then I got to stop by my mom's house and show my new wife and step-daughter my buck on the way to the butcher's.

One of my earliest was first time deer hunting with my father when I about 12. My father flushed a moose right at me it passed within 20 feet of me, nice bull with a decent rack. I was too stunned to even think of raising the 30-30 I was carrying.

My most memorable trip was caused by a very bad turn in the weather. In Oct of 1984 my brother and some friends headed up to ur favorite elk camp south of Silt Colo. God elk country, but rougher than heck to get into. Due to the way the road twisted the only vehicles you could get in were the Jeeps and old broncos or land cruisers available then. Remember this was in 1984.The camp was about 17 miles into the back country.

Opening day which was a saturday, we took a fair bull, but that isn't the real memorable part. It started to snow late sunday evening. This was an early season storm, which usually don't amount to much so we weren't to concerned. Problem was that it didn't quit snowing for 3 days. Total whiteout conditions. If you are an avid football fan you may remember a Monday night football game between the Broncos and Packers that was played in a blizzard. Well, this was the same storm. By the time it quit snowing, we had a little over 40 inches on the ground. The snow was level with the headlights on my 1976 CJ-5. This was before anybody carried cell phones. We had a major problem on our hands. Anyway, we were left with 2 options, winter where we were or try to get out. We opted for getting out.

Since it had taken us 2 trips to get all the camp equipment in, we had to take stock of what we really needed and cached the rest until spring. Since the snow was so deep, in mandated that we had to dig and break trails before we could drive out. Here were 5 young men digging very deep snow for a couple of hundred yards and then moving the vehicles up. This went on for days. We set up camp when the sun set and camp basically consisted of a couple of tarps thrown on the snow and sleeping bags. We melted snow for water and were reuced to eting raw elk (had to conserve propane) and whatever else we had. After 7 days we finaly got to where we didn't have to dig anymore and could just drive out. It was without a doubt the hardest elk hunt I ever went on. The state of Colorado had to airlift over 300 stranded hunters out of the woods that hunting season.

Looking back on it, I'm scared to death to think of how easy it would have been to get someone killed o that trip.

Mac

2001 - june - the Okavango delta in Botswana. Sitting around the campfire with my two sons. They had taken their first trophys that day, we looked at the southern cross, listened to the lions roar and the elephant trumpet And sipped a beverage. For the first time I saw them as men not kids. It's a memory all fathers should have.

One of my favorite memories was a day in July,1988 while on my first Botswana Safari.My PH,John Northcote and I were taking a break from hunting buffalo by working the riverine bush along the Linyanti marsh,looking for a good red lechwe when we spied a pair of cheetah stalking a lone lechwe ram.Time was short and John wanted us to move on,however,Idont get to see a sight like that every day,so I elected to sit and watch for almost an hour until the stalk played out to an unsuccessful end.I didnt feel our time was wasted at all.

Bravo

We were in the northere Canadian wilderness. We were so far in that we were probably on our way out without knowing about it. We had hunted all day and after dinner we were sitting around the camp fire pouring down some brewskies when it came to our attention that the Northern Lights were running wild over our heads. Well we moved our chairs out into the two track and just sat there looking up at the formations being formed that night. It was wonderful to see those greens, purples, blues and reds in the sky that looked like ribbon candy floating and moving all the time. I don't know what time it was when we got "tired" of looking, but morning came real early that next day.
Also the first year that I went bear hunting, and not knowing anything about it. I was positioned overlooking a valley sitting behind a large tree stump minding mine one business, reading a paperback book and watching the bait. I was about 75 yards away looking down the side of a hill at the time and all was quiet as it is in those woods. From behind me all I heard was three growls that at the time seemed about one foot behind me. Needless to say the hair on my entire body came to attention. My heart wanted to jump from my chest. I did not know whether to shit or go blind. My heart was beating so fast that I thought that my chest would burst. I knew better than to try to get up and run, as there was no place to run to. I just sat there for about twenty minutes and then slowly got up and left the area. It was over a mile back to the camp but I walked it right down the center of the two track road. When the guide came in that night he asked who had been walking down the road. I said it was me. He said to go back down the road and look at my tracks. I asked why. He said that a wolf had followed me back to camp and had walked in my tracks. Oh shit!!!

I have alot of fond memories of hunting and fishing trips and most of them are with my dad who past away in 1976 and my kids. But two that stick out are the ones when my dad took me squirrel hunting back in the early 60's when I was a kid and one more recent when my youngest son shot his first deer which happened to be a fairly nice 8pt.