I was 7 year old, and Dad asked me if I wanted to go duck hunting with him the next morning. Completely forgetting that every time I went duck hunting with my dad on a Saturday morning I froze myself to near frostbite and cursed myself for not being home watching cartoons in my warm pajamas in the living room, I said "Sure, Dad!"
Dark and early the next morning at about 4:30, we got up. Dad was kind of slow getting started, and sent his young son out to the car. Dad always has held to the Scout Motto: "Be Prepared." To Dad, this means "take everything." Lots of stuff got carried out to the back of his 1976 Mercedes 240D, where he had told me to set everything by the trunk for him to pack. While Dad filled his Unbreakable thermos with scalding hot coffee (not cocoa, which I really wanted), I carried out his Remington M1100 in its soft leather zippered case. I placed it on the back bumper of the Mercedes and went in to tell Dad I was ready (we were in the country, where leaving a gun out for a few minutes was of no concern).
Dad came out and loaded the trunk and we got going in the pre-dawn darkness. It was about an hour and a half drive to the lease, and racing dawn, we drove fast. Just before we got there, dad snapped his fingers and said that he'd never loaded the shotgun in the car. I told him that he must have: I put it on the bumper. He winced, and muttered that he would have to use the riot gun in the trunk, and whittle a plug. We kept driving. I asked him if he was going to stop. He said that if it hadn't fallen off yet, it wouldn't later. We got there and drove over a bumpy dirt ranch road and parked and got out. Sitting on top of that back bumper under the license plate was that Remington Shotgun, no worse for wear!
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While on a walking tour of a third party's property one New Year's Day with a hunting buddy, we kept our eyes peeled for deer or turkey for the following season. Scouting, if you will. We had an enormous old pair of Bausch and Laumb 10X50's with us.
We got to a high ridge overlooking a creek valley spillway. Knowing this would be a good chance to spot some game, we eased up over the ridge slowly, and saw some forms milling around in the field down below us. I brought up the binoculars, and carefully focused them and wiped them to defog them. "What do you see?" asked my friend as I squinted at the numerous dark shapes hundreds of yards below us. "Turkey. . ." He cheered. "Buzzards." He stopped cheering.
A whole flock of 'em were spread out on the ground, exactly like a flock of turkey will do. Have never before nor since seen 'em do that. Usually they gather together over a carcass or sit in a tree if they're not gliding. But from a few hundred yards away, I defy anyone to distinguish between a flock of turkey and a flock of turkey buzzards that are spread out on the ground.
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I sighted on a nice doe with my Dad's Savage Scout. My wife was sitting next to me. Dad's Scout had yet to be blooded, and my wife had never seen me shoot a deer. The doe was about 90 yards away. I waited til she was broadside to me, and held the crosshairs just under the diagonally-leaning T-post in front of her, and sqeezed off a round of Winchester Supreme 165g. The doe looked up in alarm, and skittered off into the woods before I could rack in another round. Hunh. Well, I've seen deer seem unconcerned about a mortal wound before. I waited about 15 minutes and walked over to where I had shot at her. No blood. I looked for the fan of blood. None. The ground rose up with rocks and sand behind where she'd been standing, but I found no evidence of a bullet strike, and had seen no evidence of such at the shot.
Finally I found it. The T-post had caught the bullet! I had forgotten to account for the 2" high at one hundred yards that the rifle was sighted in for, and when I held just under the leaning T-post, the bullet rose right into it. The angled steel of the post exactly formed an open V pointing at me, and perfectly caught the bullet, without even splashing over the edge. The backside of the steel post was pushed out heavily, but blown out. That doe had run off unscathed, saved by a post not 10 yards in front of her!
Boy did I feel stoopid.
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I've stupider stories of my misdeeds, but I've either told 'em already or just can't bring myself to tell on myself any more today!