This is a very good thread. i don't have any stories but these are very interesting. Expesially the old artifacts and burial sites. Keep em' going.

Randall

A blast from the past. Interesting reading and a good thread to add your stories.

We use to see these painted bunting birds frequently on a lease near Granite Shoals, Tx. Very colorful.

Yes, very interesting thread. I was only a lurker back then. Seems like a lot of stuff was going on around Bronte.

I was walking the woods one fine day and found a wood shafted arrow sticking out of a tree. It had an old fashioned metal broadhead, and had been in the tree so long that the shaft had bent downward. Back then, the 70’s I think, nobody that I knew of bowhunted. It was family land.

My only contribution to the discussion is a piece of roof flashing that most likely came from a tornado that hit a small town about 30 miles away. I was hunting a stand in a remote area and know for sure it wasn't there the last time I hunted the stand.

I suspect we may have an East Texas hunter or two here who found parts of the doomed Space Shuttle.

On a ranch we hunted in central Oklahoma, we found a very old headstone in the middle of a pasture which says nothing but "Pioneer Man". Guessing it is still laying in the same place. This is the same ranch where I walked in on two guys cooking meth. I backed out and called the ranch manager and he called the law, but unfortunately they were packed up and gone by the time the deputy arrived.

Hunted a family place on the Llano River, just east of Junction for years and years. Found a flat bottomed boat and an ice chest with a bottle of cheap wine in it close to one of of deer blinds by the river. Was always on the lookout for the people that drowned during the flooding of the river that caught them camping out under the bridge on the east end of town. One body was never recovered and another was recovered in Lake LBJ. It had to float right in front of our old cabin. Strange thought that you could happen upon a body in that situation. Luckily it never happened.

Found a (purportedly) non-Chinese balloon last year on a property I hunt in Montague County. It had some labels that said NOAA and SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS on it, but it was probably Chinese.

Wow, somebody dusted off a 16y/o thread. Cool!

I found this 3-1/2" medallion under the root ball of a large oak tree that had fallen over on family land.

https://i.ibb.co/bNszHRD/B07-BAF99-CF50-4-B38-BE7-A-031-D6-D69-D837.jpg

Almost found a dead guy one year elk hunting.
Went up to set camp and noticed a back East, small linear sedan parked along the road.
It was there for days not moved. I went by a second time to go to town for some supplies, still parked there.
Few days later spouse and I both were coming to town and when we went by the car there was dead smell.
We thought dead animal and thankfully did not go investigate, spouse likes to do that and find deadheads sometimes.
Got back in the mountains, still a parked car and finally came out after our hunt to search and rescue teams standing around the car.
A 20 something yr old guy drove from Florida and shot himself with a shotgun on the ridge just down from his car.
Glad we did not find him but were able to give a timeline to the authorities.

Still an older man missing in another part of the forest we hunt. He simple walked away from their campfire and disappeared from camp.

Found arrowheads and an old grinding bowl/stone at the place I hunted in high school. Also a bulldozer that was left up on top of one of the hills when they tried cutting cedar in the 1940s. It apparently wasn't worth taking apart to get it back down after a rain washed out all the creek crossings.

On the place I hunt now, which has been in the owner's family since about 1907, I found a couple of steel wheels, one smaller than the other, half buried in the ground From a plow, perhaps?

I've now spent the last two hours on a Wikipedia rabbit rail, reading about Sam Bass, Soapy Smith (who supposedly saw Sam Bass get shot), the "prize soap racket" (which gave Soapy his nickname), the Shootout on Juneau Wharf (where Soapy met his own demise), three-card monte (the confidence game scam Soapy liked to use on unsuspecting marks), and lots of other useless nonsense that merely adds to my Trivial Pursuit skills.

I digress.

I was hunting in South Texas near Leaky and found an old rusted rifle in a creek. If only that rifle could speak the stories it could tell

Sitting in a box stand on the Pecos River near Comstock, I kept noticing a silver flash off in the brush a couple hundred yards away. Finally, I couldn't stand it and off I went to find a deflated weather balloon. This was in 2001, so no Chinese stuff. It had an "If found" return address and free shipping label on it. They did send me a letter explaining their research.

My land in Montague County has some history. My front gate is about 200 yards from the main road but the road is named on the County map. Other than that, it’s land locked. About 25 years ago, I got a call from guy who was a member of the Montague County Historical group. He wanted to look around on my place. I said ok.

He told me that my front gate, off the main road, wasn’t always there. At one time the road was the main road to Bowie. However, the owner, got mad at neighbors and put in a locked gate. Thus, the gravel road takes a 90 degree turn about 200 yards from my property. I found what looks like a grave about 100 yards from the front gate and a pile of big rocks about 25 ft away. He, the historian, said that the clearing where I put my trailer house,shops, etc is where the stage relay station was with corrals for horses. No doubt in his mind that it was an old grave and the rocks would be breastworks to fire at attacking Comanches. Found some old, square, blacksmith made nails; one in my 4 wheeler tire.

About 1/2 mile away, I found some busted crockery and other junk back in the woods. He looked at it and said it was an old moonshine operation and the hill was called whiskey hill in the 1940’s.

Found an old hand dug well back in the woods when I noticed some odd rocks and found that they were concreted together. The well is about 25 ft deep and between 2 low area where water runs off. Across the fence is an old house foundation made of naturally rectangular and square rocks.

In western NJ, while leaving my tree stand on an archery hunt in 1970 I happened across another archery hunter who was still hunting nearby. We introduced our selves and made some small talk about our experiences in the area.

After a few minutes when I explained how long I had hunted this area (about 6 years) he asked me if I had ever lost anything?

The question seemed weird but I said you know I lost a knife my grandpa gave me three years ago. He asked me to describe it, which I did. He reaches in his back pack and pulls it out and said I've been waiting to meet you for 3 years I found it and have been carrying it ever since.

I was dumb founded!!! Not only that he found my knife but more importantly that he was such a decent human being that held on to it so long and gave it back to me!!!!

Amazed I thanked him and told him how he was probably one of the conscientious and honest individuals I had ever met.

In hind sight my gratitude was grossly inadequate as he was truly a special man and I should have done something more consequential. At the time I was a an unsophisticated kid and didn't realize this type of value system was so rare that I would never be exposed to it again!

I still have my grandpa's knife and the integrity of that man will never fade from my value system

That’s the type of man that I would like to have as a friend. And I have friends that would tell you that you did not meet a man, you met an angel.

Driving back from the blind one night,

Thought I heard a grown woman screaming at the top of her lungs.

(Had the windows rolled down in case I saw a pig)

Spooked me because we were in the middle of nowhere San Saba..

Didn’t realize there had been reports of a mountain lion in the area.

Must’ve been 40-60 yards away

Needless to say I didn’t hang around to investigate it

Cool. I hunt about six miles west of San Saba about a half mile north of 190.

I was trying to think of anything interesting I have found out there, but I have had no luck. My nephew and his wife find lots of arrowheads and pieces of them, and other stuff the Indians made. I have found what was obviously stone chips from arrowhead and tool making, but I guess I'm just not tuned to that kind of thing.

As many years as I've been tromping around out in the sticks in various places it seems like I'd have found something terribly interesting, but I can't say I ever have.

This is not really hunting related, but they may have been hunting something---trouble, at the very least. I have an uncle who was a young kid in the early 50s---maybe this was late 40s...anyway, he and friends would spend a lot of time in the desert north of Fabens, Texas which is about 28 miles east of El Paso, downriver. One day they found a .50-cal machine gun set up on its tripod complete with a belt of ammo still threaded, but rusted up so solid as to be inoperable. I think this had to have been somewhere near where I-10 runs through that area now, and maybe even further north than that. Anyway, they went home and retrieved a wagon and went back out there and dragged the thing back to town, where they set it up in one of the boys' driveways and would pretend that the cars driving past were German tanks. For some odd reason some of the citizens of Fabens were disturbed about a .50-cal machinegun being pointed at them as they drove past (imagine that) and the sheriff's deputies came by and confiscated it. That was completely unfair, the way I see it. LOL.

Not all that interesting but a couple of bucks locked together that drowned in the creek

I lived in the Australian Outback for 6 years. Used to go out rabbit shooting. One trip with a buddy of mine on dirt bikes we came across two piles of fairly freshly dug dirt that looked about perfect size for graves. Neither of us had brought a GPS with us. Tried finding the same spot a couple of times and never did.

Not hunting but kid found this and an empty dynamite box on her property. Old star cannon shell box.

What a surprise to see Randall's handle on a post again. We hunted together a couple times at a couple of his place's and in south texas for javelina one time and I stayed at the house & the School Property Lion Shack the last time we were together, and planning on me taking lease for a piece of land so I could come and go. Rest in Peace
Ron

That’s a great story