My dear friend and frequent duck hunting pard and I will sometimes meet at a designated spot on our way to a hunt locale. It's always dark when we meet, of course, usually at least an hour and often two before the sunrise.

My buddy's dog, a chocolate lab, is named Oz. Long story short: Oz LOVES me like a fat kid loves cake, as they say. I am close enough with my bud that I sometimes 'borrow' Oz to hunt with me, even. In any event, Oz knows that when I show up, it often means we're going to shoot ducks, or have some kind of big fun on the water or in the wood.

A few years ago, we planned to meet at a NH state road junction. I pulled up next to my buddy at the appointed time, and we rolled windows down to greet one another and get the plan ironed out. I hardly noticed that my bud had an extra large cup of coffee in his hand, but saw that Oz was in the back seat of the small 80s model Toyota pickup getting cranked up. As soon as Oz saw/smelled/heard me, he began his frantic squealing/whining and power circles in the back. I laughed, and still maybe a bit dopey, said to Oz without really thinking, "OZZY! We're gonna' get you some birds today boy, aren't we? Who wants to get some duckies?"

I swear it was entirely unintentional, but upon hearing my excited tone and the mention of birds, Oz totally lost it, and transformed into a canine tornado as he leapt over the seat and into the shotgun position. Despite my buddy's screaming, Oz just laid waste to the Toyota's cockpit, Tasmanian devil style. Any guesses how long it took for my bud to be wearing his extra large, light and extra sugar?

I've been tempted, but am good enough friends to have never repeated that little trick. I'll never forget the look on my bud's face though... This one was unintentional, but I have known a few waterfowlers to pull pranks on buddies. Some fake-outs with a phony leg band is always a good one for noobs, though cruel. What've you guys got?

Back in college, my best friend and I went goose hunting, we hiked into a lake point with our waders on our backs, threw out some decoys, got skunked, so after 3 or 4 hours, we proceeded to strip our waders off before the mile hike back out. He finished first, and with my waders around my ankles, he thought it would be funny to push me over. I tried hopping away but I didn't make it far. Now whenever we're taking off waders, it's a race, and it has fueled our personal "arms race" of gadgets like neoprene straps and stirrupped wader pants.

Next time you and your buddy are about to part ways, especially if he has a fair drive home, introduce Oz to the wonderful world of bean dip.

Mean tricks? Well, it wasn't exactly a trick 'cuz the lab's owner didn't know it himself (or maybe didn't know), but -

Long ago we were in a duck blind together and this one guy has a well trained black lab. Real good retriever. The dog was retrieving for all of us and its owner handed us our ducks as the dog brought them in, which each guy stacked up behind him on the floor of the blind. In between shots the lab's just sitting on the bench by his guy.

Anyway, at some point a couple of us go to count our ducks and can't figure it out because they don't add up right. No matter how you slice it up we have too few, and we can't find ones that appear missing. Eventually someone says to the dog's owner "how many do you have there?"

Clever animal. Don't know how he pulled that off without being spotted..

quote:

Originally posted by Shack:


Clever animal. Don't know how he pulled that off without being spotted..

The guy with the dog always gets the most birds and all the bands!!

That's right Chris b/c the guy w/ a good dog has buckets full of sweat/tear equity in getting the dog that you wish was yours when you watch it.

KG

It may surprise you but your story kinda comforted me - It explained the mystery of why I could like a Bosox fan! (I love dogs because -as Mark Twain said -"The more I see of men, the better I like dogs")

I once slipped an entire dead fruit bat into a pal's game bag on Arizona's Mourning Dove opener, this was sometime in early '90s. One of the kids had inadvertantly drilled it & well ...... I jus' hate to waste a perfectly good carcass.

When I lived in the UK a group of us would always go up to Scotland every year for a week of duck and goose flighting, walked up game shooting and salmon fishing.

We'd always spend at least a couple of evenings out after the inland duck (no where near the marshes!) and as is their wont, the duck would only come in right on dark..... and I'm sure it's the same in the States.

One day, just before we were due to go for the inland duck flight, I sneaked into the gun room and added a handful of emergency flare shotgun cartridges to each cartidge bag.....

When the duck came in, everyone let loose and it looked like a massive fireworks display!

It didn't take them long to suss out it was my sense of humour and as the flares all fizzled out, there was complete silence and then a voice from the darkness said, "Robinson you bastard!"

It cost me a round of drinks later but damn it made me laugh!

Turning to other kinds of "tricks" - sometime when on a group rabbit hunt - take one of your rabbits and field dress it without opening it, you know, the thing where you squeeze it from the head down. Then without saying anything dump it in the bag with the rest to be group cleaned at the end of the hunt. See if anyone (a newly minted hunter for instance) says - "hey, I found one here that doesn't have any insides!!!"

Or, someone who really can't call ducks worth a damn, insists on blasting away all morning with the call and after the hunt has enough nerve to say "did you hear me over there on my new call??" You can fill in your own responses. Mine was, "Calling? No. I didn't hear anyone calling ducks. Now, I did hear someone trying to call hogs.."

Then there's playing tricks on pheasants. There's this rooster 50 yds away in the open watching me. We're just looking at each other. Starting where I am there's a low dike that runs his way separating two fields. He's on the other side. Anyway, I wave at him. He still does nothing. Then I slowly kneel down so he can't see me over the dike, and I duck walk real low counting off 50 steps. Then I go another ten, then put the safety off and REAL slow begin standing up.

And there he is, now about 10 or so yards away and still standing right where he was and still looking at where he last saw me. I stand up straight, take my time, shoulder the 12 ga, take careful aim and then holler, "got you, you %&#@&!"

That head jerked instantly around and he looked right at me and at that moment I knew exactly what he must be thinking. You can guess the rest..

Been a victim of the old band trick...ofcourse the band had "F**k You" engraved on it

quote:

Originally posted by collector:
Been a victim of the old band trick...ofcourse the band had "F**k You" engraved on it

Solid gold, that one!

Deer hunting a few years back in the Northeast Kingdom(Vermont) on a friend's property.....he allowed too many people to hunt IMO and no one practiced being selective sooooo......one clown had already shot 2 spikes and commented "I'm hunting for back straps".....well, since he really didn't know his ass from his elbow when it came to hunting, we decided to have a bit of fun with him....

Found a wooden duck call in the drawer, steamed off the labels and told him it was a doe bleat.....off he went the next morning with the call in hand and proceeded to blow it all day long(we reinforced in the morning before he left that the best technique is to blow it as loud and as often as you can)......we confirmed he was doing it by quietly sneaking within quacking distance later in the morning.

When he got back that night he commented that he hadn't seen a thing all day long....someone said to blow it just to make sure he was doing it correctly.......that was too much for us and everyone burst out into hysterics and came clean.

The color of his face was priceless......

quote:

Originally posted by Norton:
Deer hunting a few years back in the Northeast Kingdom(Vermont) on a friend's property.....he allowed too many people to hunt IMO and no one practiced being selective sooooo......one clown had already shot 2 spikes and commented "I'm hunting for back straps".....well, since he really didn't know his ass from his elbow when it came to hunting, we decided to have a bit of fun with him....

Found a wooden duck call in the drawer, steamed off the labels and told him it was a doe bleat.....off he went the next morning with the call in hand and proceeded to blow it all day long(we reinforced in the morning before he left that the best technique is to blow it as loud and as often as you can)......we confirmed he was doing it by quietly sneaking within quacking distance later in the morning.

When he got back that night he commented that he hadn't seen a thing all day long....someone said to blow it just to make sure he was doing it correctly.......that was too much for us and everyone burst out into hysterics and came clean.

The color of his face was priceless......

Damn, that's funny!

quote:

Originally posted by collector:
Been a victim of the old band trick...ofcourse the band had "F**k You" engraved on it

I've only seen the ones with "Sucker" on 'em.

One of the best laughs I've had duck hunting was an unintentional trick on the dog. Slider was sent out to retrieve a spec that fell behind the levee blind (rice field hunt). Guide had us go out to rearrange the decoys. Meanwhile Slider sees us all getting out of the blind and figures the hunt is over, so he takes the spec and heads for the Polaris. The he just sits there waiting for the rest of us to come in.

Back when I used to pipeline offshore, all the barge offices had hanging on the wall the new duck call from Cabela's. A stainless steel piece of tubing shaped like a small saxaphone.
Any time a FNG would ask what was that, some one would say the new call from Cabela's, but damn if they could get it to work, here you try it.
They would puff out there cheeks and blow as hard as they could.
The bottom of the tube was pointed right at their face and the call was full of water.
And yes I tried it.
One time on a snow goose hunt in South Texas, we was blasting the hell out of them.
One sailed over the levee into the next field.
During a lull I took my Pete to go pick up cripples. Walked over the levee and saw what I thought was a snow all the way across the field about 1,000 yards.
Pete's one hell of a dog but couldn't get him to go back more than half way.
So I take off to the bird. About half way I got Pete to back all the way to the bird. Moved the bird with his nose and then blinked on the bird. Boy was I pissed. He had never blinked before.
So I take off to the other end of the field. It was half of a white five gallon bucket.
The guide was laughfing his ass off but wouldn't admit he did it.

It's kinda fun when on a duck hunt with your buddy to unload his gun when he's out adjusting the decoys or "taking care of business".

It's more fun when you call in a pack of mallards, watch them circle and cup, and you get to do all the shooting while your buddy wonders what's wrong wrong with his gun.

Yes, it's been done to me.....I'll never forget the bastard...