reloaders topic about deer drives got me to thinking about this topic,How many hunters have had close calls?I have had several and when i hunt with a group,I always ask which way they will be from me,that way ican go the opposite direction and get away from them,plus i know which way to shoot and not to shoot.Also i wear orange in rifle season and never take it off,I want other hunters to see me,The deer have never been spooked by orange,matter of fact the whole hardwoods bottoms are orange in the fall!orange is the main color in the acorn bottoms!I have had a fellow shoot at a deer across a big field and the bulet ricochead thru the woods by me and he didnt know i was in there Or really cared,but it happened never the less,he was on his club and i was on mine,the field was the property line.
He could have shot me and never known!I say he didnt care as it was really shooting towards our whole camp!Would have been pretty bad to be sitting by the fire and take one like that!Trigger happy fools are everywhere though.......
There are a dime a dozen................
give some fools a gun and a knife and put them in the woods,Dang if they dont think there rambo................

Just wanted everyone to consider this.Could all hunters this year get together and stress safety and identify the game before the shot and there would be no accidentale shootings?Or is it some thing that will allways continue no matter what we try to teach?It would be great to hear that no one was mistaken for game in the 2005-2006 seasons!My state makes everyone take a safety course before they can hunt if they were born after a certain year..........

In the other thread, the story I described about the fiasco drive hunt, came about when a good friend asked me to hunt with this group he was going out with. The ground they were headed to was over loaded with deer, and though I knew the guy in charge of the hunt was questionable, I went anyway, shame on me. I knew this guy from high school, and really haven't had anything to do with him since, so I thought maybe he had settled down a bit, I was wrong. He put his two sons, and two nephews, ranging fron 15-19 years old, on stand. That was the first mistake. as we drove the the timber the shooting started. It was like downtaown bahgdad. My buddy, ended up hiding behind a tree until it was over. When the shooting Stopped, there were two deer on the ground, and five wounded. We recovered one wounded doe, and dad says, "we gotta get to grandma's for a Christmas dinner, if you guys find the rest, you can have 'em". I was beside myself, I have never seen anything like it. My buddy and I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon, hunting down wounded deer. He appologized to me over and over, but I just told him not to bother calling me if he was to hunt with these guys again.
When I first started hunting deer in my teens, it was always a drive hunt situation, and there was never a problem. But we were all well schooled by our dads, on the right and wrong way to hunt amd handle guns. It all really boils down to enducation, and caring about right and wrong.
Good hunting

DGK

quote:

all really boils down to enducation, and caring about right and wrong.

Unfortunally you just said a HUGE mouthful there!

At least 4 times I have heard the whiz of a bullet passing close, well before hearing the rifle shot...It is a fact we have to get used to...as parcels of land get smaller, people get busier (poor excuse, IMHO, but still a fact of life), and populations increase this is inevitable.

Yea your buddy made me think of one of mine one time,we were hunting and i was up in a stand,i caught him looking at me thru his scope!!I said something to him when i got down and he came over,he was a older fellow and according to him a deer hunter extrodnaire.He told me i was silly to worry about it,his safety was on!Needless to say we never did hunt together again!I think there are guys who are true real hunters and i think there are some fools and just folks with guns calling them selfs hunters but dont care about anyone or anything but themselves/slobs.To me I always thought of a hunter as a eagle scout with a rifle,about the best you could ever strive to be.A hunter was a master of a art form that was as old as man himself,not just something you could go out and buy.It is a skill that has to be learned and passed down.you have to pay your dues to be a hunter you just dont learn it over night.It takes time.Also in the woods there is no one there to tell you right from wrong so you have to have ethics and morals and do the right things and obey the game laws,you have to RESPECT the game,if not ,hunting really is not for you,you are in the wrong sport if you judge your success by the game bag being full or the rack size of your quarry!I have personally shot deer that didnt have a rack that was as great a hunt as any big buck could have been and i was just as proud of a doe or lesser size buck/spike as i would have been with a big old granddad buck!Any deer to me is a trophy!I have never taken one i was not proud to show and tell my friends!Hunters have really taken a bad rap the last 30years.Being a hunter is some thing to be proud of,thats one thing i really admire about Ted Nugent,i have seeen him on tv go to a school and try to teach the kids about the out doors and hunting and how to shoot a bow.How many famous people could go out of there way to help a kid be a good person?Be a hunter and protecter of the great out doors.Not many! but good old uncle ted will stand up and fight like hell for the hunters rights,and really tell it like it is,he dont hold back!I wish other famous people would take a stand like he has and take up for hunting.Who besides Ted, that is a entertainer/in the media person ,speaks out& goes out on a limb for hunters rights and the good things in nature?Teddy Rosevelt did ?Charles heston,Fred Bear,Realtree team,Wilbor Primous,knight & hale,Roger raglin,Ben lee,Dan fitzgerald.Who else?I know ive left somegreat ones out ,but they are trying to teach the new generation the ethics!Long may they run.........Cheers to my brothers! Who else is a great sportsman,that we all can thank,help me remember.Chime in with a few,we can all learn and remember folks who were not afraid to stand up for hunting as a sport?

That's one reason why I never hunt public land and I also try to hunt well on my property to avoid danger of the property line huggers we get around here. I've always felt good knowing the entire land layout as well as what lies beyond so, that when the shot opportunity arises, I can feel confident of where its going to land. It seem like some of the local yahoos think they need to put up a stand on the tree that divides the property. First time they see a buck over on your land, you can bet they are gonna sling some lead.

I've had a couple of unsuccessful attempts w/ so called deer drives. Once, we knew that a good buck had been hanging out in a 2-3 acre thicket that was surrounded by fields so, we decided to put standers on all four corners a send one driver through the middle of the thicket. Well, as luck would have it after two drives through the thicket the bruiser buck stepped out 150 yards from me. When I shouldered my rifle there was houses 1/2 mile in the background. I couldn't do it so, I let him go and waited until he cleared all but, he had made it out to about 300-400 yards by then. No deer but, at least I didn't have to worry about hurting someone.

It gets dangerous anytime you have irresponsible people behind the trigger. We have poeple get shot on our management areas every year. It's sad so few make us look bad.

Good Luck!

Reloader

We do deer drives every year without a problem, but it usually involves only 3 or 4 people total. Last year I was still hunting, in blaze orange and a dumbass shot into the little patch of timber I was in, apparently either sound shooting or thinking it would get the deer up.

When I stepped out, he ran like hell so I didn't even get to give him a piece of my mind.

I've had too many idiots check me out via their scopes and have had two shots fired my way which hit trees behind me. I wear total camo but carry a 3 foot square of bright orange nylon fabric, orange surveyors tape, and an orange hat. When I get an animal down I cover its head in the orange fabric, put on my orange hat, and then wrap orange tape around the rest of the deer/elks body. I also no longer go out hunting on opening weekend. I also now choose areas to hunt that do not have roads nearby. All my looking is done with binoculars or a spotting scope. I wish this all wasn't needed.

I was at dinner with some friends last night and one told about a guy he knew who negligently shot a hunting buddy. I always want the details, as I believe that these represent very expensive lessons, and hoefully somebody will learn something. It went something like this:

Target, in his elevated blind, shoots a deer and chambers another round. He keeps the gun loaded (1) with the safety off (2). At the end of the day, when shooter comes to pick him up, he does not check the gun (3) but holds the muzzle (4) and passes the gun to shooter who (5) apparently sees nothing amiss. Shooter takes the gun by the wrist, and puts his finger on the trigger (6).

How many do you count?

The older I get the more nervous I get, but I still have most of my teeth and all of my fingers.

Upland game hunting is good practice for deer or bear drives. We generally only invite hunters on drives that we have experience with on pheasant and grouse. Never had a problem in forty years except for some poor shooting by over excited youngsters.

I've got a very good friend who took up hunting at around the age of 30, primarily duck and pheasant. I've noticed during the few times I've hunted with him that his overall safety awareness is lacking; things like not watching where his barrel is pointing whether in the bling or walking fields. Recently, he hunted with my business partner for pheasant, along with another buddy. 2 birds got up, he shot one on one side of our buddy, swung his gun thru where said buddy was walking, and shot the second bird on the other side of him. My business partner yelled "what the f...., watch out, didnt you see so and so?" to which our friend replied "shit, I saw him" ....
I haven't hunted with this friend of mine in 2-3 years, and dont intend to again, and I have yet to confront him about his extremely dangerous habits. No one take offense, but I've found that those who don't grow up hunting or around guns do not have the ingrained and habitual respect for firearms and hunting that they should, as a rule.

Regards,
Craig Nolan

quote:

Originally posted by blackbearhunter:
...Being a hunter is some thing to be proud of,thats one thing i really admire about Ted Nugent,...

Hey BBH, Ted was just in Louisville as the Lead act for (maybe) Toby Keith. I happened to see the Review of the show in last Sundays paper. The Ultra-Liberal Radical-Leftist doing the review put three paragraphs in it about Ted's enthuastic support of firearms and how he turned his portion of the show into a political attack on the Democrats. (Speaks well for Mr. Nugent.) Only left room for one lackluster paragraph about the main act.

So, Ted Nugent's words are being heard by even the worst of the worst.
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I've been hunting for over 5 decades now and can remember a couple of times that I've felt "uncomfortable" afield. Once was on Public Land when a couple of fools, who were obviously on some kind of drug(s), came walking by me about 20 yards away. I was wedged in by a fallen tree in full camo and I feel sure they never had any idea another person was anywhere close to them. I've always carried a revolver or pistol ever since then when hunting in addition to my primary firearm.