Let’s hear your favorite and most memorable hunting stories y’all

Maybe not favorites, but funny -

Many years ago a group of friends went to hunt quail on a ranch a couple of hours from OKC. Unbeknownst to us, they were short on birds so the day before released a bunch of pen raised birds. The ranch manager would say things like, "I don't know for sure, but I bet if you walk to that tree over there you will flush a covey." Of course he knew, he had put them there the day before. We split up and started walking and one of the new (first time) hunters in the group was shooting away. We got back to camp and he had a handful of birds, but none of the rest of us had shot - because the birds wouldn't fly!!! He stated that he thought quail hunting would be harder, but since all you do is shoot birds running along the ground, there wasn't much sport.

Another one that comes to mind, back in high school a bunch of us were invited to dove hunt a field south of my hometown. Again, one of the group had never hunted, but grabbed his dad's 12 gauge and came along. HE LOVED IT and spent most of the hunt chasing after birds that had flown by, all the time whooping and hollering. This went on for a pretty good while and an old-timer in a group nearby yelled, "If that boy is so hungry, I'll buy him lunch."

8 year old granddaughter's first deer.

She wakes me up to tell me that her daddy said she was hunting with me. I asked her what time it was and she says its 4:30. I told the stand was 15 minutes away and the feeder won't go off until 8:15. This opening of bow season now. I tell her to go lay back down but she says she can't sleep. I get up put some coffee on and cook us some breakfast. I hear my son hollering "leave Popmpaw alone and go back to bed." I told her to go bang on his door until he gets up. LOL... All 3 of us are up talking about the blown hunts my son and I had the day before. Now we're all full and suited up to go hunt. We're in the blind at about 7:00 the camera shows the deer coming in between 7:45 and 8:00 all week. Here come 2 bucks at 7:47 and since we are on my buddy's place (he said take any legal deer we see because he will high fence and bring in exotics) I told her to pick one. A 13" 10 and a 15" 9 came in. She wanted the fat one which was the 9 and he was only 17 yards away broadside. She started shaking and said she didn't know if she could shoot. I told her to breathe deep and slow then hold her breathe and shoot. After about 4 breathes Whack! right behind the shoulder and out the other side. I saw the deer jump and both took off the same way they came in. The 10 just stood at the tree line and walked off. Just as I stepped out of the blind the feeder went off and deer were coming in from all directions. I eased back in the blind about 5 minutes later all the deer were looking in the direction of the most beautiful crash and gurgle I ever heard. We waited about 45 minutes until all the deer were out of sight. We got out and found the blood soaked bolt. We went up to the truck and let the pup out to do his do and he followed us back to the shot. I told her to let the dog sniff the arrow then follow him. 45 yard walk in almost a full circle back to the feeder there her deer was not 40 yards from the feeder and 50 yards from the stand. She was running behind the dog and I was walking checking for sign when I hear "Pompaw is that my deer." Then the victory dance commenced. We were both hopping around in circles and flying like airplanes. She slept until supper time lol...

This past dove season....

My brother and I were dove hunting with my 9 year old nephew. There weren't really any birds to speak of so we were just sitting in the mule BS'ing. One bird did come and and my brother and I pretty much shot at the same time. My brother being the competitive [censored] that he is, immediately claimed it. A slight argument ensued and I claimed a victory when my nephew sided with me. My brother stomped over and got the bird. While he did, I broke open his O/U and pulled his shells out. About 30 minutes later, another solo came in and he dang near tripped over himself trying to shoot it....CLICK. Of course, I shot that one too, without controversy this time. The look on his face was priceless. He finally realized what happened when I was darn near rolling on the ground with laughter. The nephew and I had a good time with that the rest of the weekend.

Another one involving my brother (see a pattern?)...

I had a great aunt that passed away and I was given an Ithaca Model 37, nothing special, but I was glad to have it. My brother (fairly young at the time) got somewhat butthurt that he didn't get a gun. My folks were telling this story to another great aunt in the family. Well, I guess she felt sorry for him and gifted him a Ithaca Model 900 (I think). Very nice shotgun. Anyway, this was imported by SKB from Japan. Of course I had to give him a hard time for that. I know how to push his buttons.

Shortly after this, we went on a guided pheasant hunt. Before we left, I had my wife make a Kamikaze head band, Rising Sun and all. I pulled the guide aside before the hunt and told him to ask my brother about his shotgun. I explained that when he asked, he would tell the story about how he acquired the fine weapon. I then asked the guide to give him the headband because it was a matching set. I know my brother well and it worked just like I planned.

So in the off season take the shot out of a few shotshells and replace them with feathers. When your bro isn't looking throw a few in his bag. Thank me later.

I’ve mentioned it before, but my favorite is about the California quail. At the south Texas corporate hunting camp, back in the 80’s, the guys from the Los Angeles office brought customers to quail hunt. The 50,000 acre ranch was divided into hunting zones of colors - red zone, yellow zone, and such as that. Naturally, we sent the clueless city boys from LA into the zone with the fewest quail, while we knowledgeable Texas office boys and our customers went to the good zones. But...not many quail in the good zones. All the Jeeps had radios, so we could talk to the guys in the other zones to see if they were having any luck. Well...nobody was except for the California guys. They limited out. We drove back to the ranch house, feeling pretty down to be shown up by the LA guys, only to find that ALL of their birds were Meadowlarks. The Meadowlarks were henceforth “California Quail”.

Much beer was consumed, and the good natured ribbing went on for hours.

The Tequila thread reminded me of a fun hunt a buddy and I had when we were in high school. We were dove hunting in Mccamey over a water hole.It was one of those hunts where the dove were coming in so fast it was hard to keep a gun loaded fast enough. We killed dove until we ran out of shells. We were sitting around cleaning birds and drinking cold beer when that Tim McGraw song, “Refried Dreams,” came on. C.J., said, Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I said, “Lets go!” We inventoried what we had for the Cuna trip. I had a $20 bill and he had his dads Exxon gas card. We still had half a case of Busch tall boys. We stuffed our bag of birds in the cooler and started heading south. We got to the border dry from running out of beer, parked his Broncho at the border and made the long walk across. Back then a bottle of tequila was less than 5 bucks American. We bought a bottle and smuggled it into the Corona Club. Our plan was to find some Gringa college girls with a motel in DelRio to stay with, but hardly anyone was in the Corona. We met some old cowboys that had driven over there and jumped in with them to go to Boys Town. We had as much fun as two young men can have with limited funds watching the shows and sipping on our smuggled bottle and chasing with an occasional beer. We had them drop us off back in Cuna when they were crossing back to the US. We thought we might be able to pick up some girls at Crosby’s or Corona but it was dead. We had to walk back across the border. My buddy was hammered and I was holding him by the shirt while he walked in front of me on the bridge. I woke up the next morning using a high lift jack for a pillow in the back of the Broncho. We headed back to Odessa and I still had $5 In my pocket. Growing up in Odessa, there wasn’t much to do when you weren’t under the Friday night lights. There was a lot of road trips.

My most memorable was my Grandson at 7 YOA killing his first deer. His Mom wouldn't let him shoot a deer until he turned 7 He is now 22. It was a runty 5 point and he was using Grandma's, now his, 222. It went down, he dropped the gun, and lit out towards it. It died quickly and he was dancing all around the pasture. Then he grabbed my phone and called Grandma. He told her he had killed a big buck and hurry to come see it. Then I told him he ought to call his parents. I dialed the number and he told them what he had done.

Now, he and his best buddy load and bring the old guys deer to the house, skin and gut it.

Scalebuster, I remember Ciudad Acuna (Cuna) a LONG time ago. That would have been in the early 60's in my teens. Damn sure different than Muleshoe. I got tossed in jail there for a fight in a beer joint/whore house. The other guys pooled all of their money to get me out.