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What’s your funniest deer camp story.

maybe not my funniest but certainly one of my most memorable and still humorous to me:

Quite a few years ago I was still remote hunting in my popup camper and I had a buddy from North Carolina join me during the first week of November to stay in camp. His first night in camp we crashed early, him in bunk on the end near the door, me in the bunk on the other end. Popups don't have a lot of room for gear so he had his stuff piled up on his bunk, stuff that included snacks . . . I had told him before we turned in that I had been having difficulty porcupines chewing on the camper at night so if he heard something to wake me up so I could go dispose of it.

Middle of the night suddenly I'm wide awake. I don't know what woke me but I thought I had heard something. I'm laying there in my bunk listening to the silence of the woods in the middle of the night waiting for the telltale sound of porky teeth on ABS. Suddenly my buddy says "Joe???" in a really confused voice. I say "Did you hear something?" Again he says "Joe????"

By now I'm sure he's heard the porky so I jump out of my sleeping bag, grab my headlamp and pistol and burst out the camper door. To my surprise as I bust out the door I find find not a 15lb porcupine but a 200lb black bear crashing away from camp through pine thicket the camper was parked in. I turn to see my buddy standing there looking a bit shaken. He say's "What teh heck was that?" As I explain he gets a bit of an ashen look to his face and says "I thought you were outside of the camper pushing on my feet through the tent fabric. You startled the heck out of me when you answered me from inside the camper. Man that thing had some heft to it!" Sure enough, there were scratch marks on the bug netting right where his feet had been.

I still chuckle thinking about the look on his face knowing he had a bear pushing at his feet in his sleep. Although he still comes back from North Carolina to hunt every year that was the last season he remote camped out there.
 
Somewhere around 1989 I was hunting with a friend 2 1/2 hours from home. We had the weekend so we would camp in the back of the pickup on Saturday night.

It was Mike's truck and we had a bunch of gear with us that had to be unloaded and put under a tarp before we could roll out pads and bags. It took us at least 15 minutes to arrange bows, food, cookstove doodads, hunting babbles all under the tarp.

We turned in with Mike's alarm set for early the next morning. I never heard the alarm but woke to Mike grumbling and looking at his watch. He looks at me and says "we're late". We get up, roll up our bags, crawl out and start moving the small mountain of gear into the bed of the truck. We get it all loaded and jump into the cab, the engine roars to life. Then in my peripheral I see Mike staring blankly at the dash. That's when i notice the clock says 1:30. That can't be right I think. I didn't remember his clock being off yesterday.

In the meantime Mike is now staring at his watch. Then he mumbles "oh crap, I read my watch wrong, we don't have to get up for 4 more hours".

So we have to move the mountain of gear out of the truck so we can go back to bed. We about wore out the gear just moving it back and forth that night. LOL.
 
I have one from the early 1990's. We had just purchased the cabin and property we had hunted since the 70's. Early season bow with a couple of buddies and me at camp. Had fallen asleep in the chair and my buddies had crashed but left the generator on. I was 3/4 asleep when I went out to kill the power and take a leak. Turned off the generator and it was instantly pitch dark and still quiet. Took a couple of steps and started to relieve myself. I hear a low, deep growl and damn it sounded close. I am fully awake now but still getting rid of that nights beer. I hear it again only a little louder. Cut me off in midstream. I am thinking 30-40 yards at most. Bear started snapping its teeth at me next. I know you are not supposed to run but I had no idea I could move that fast. Slammed the cabin door loud enough to get everyone out of bed. They looked a little confused as I was throwing slugs into the cabin 12 gauge. Bear never tried to get in but I slept with that shotgun next to my bed that night. Turns out I ripped the screen door damn near off the hinges getting in that night. I still hear about it to this day. One thing is for sure ..... that night we both knew who was the predator and who was prey.
 
I was hunting with my Dad in a national forest mountainous area that is leased to cattle for part of the year in an enclosed field that we parked in.

I get back to the truck earlier than him, but it is still pitch black and I'm busying in the passenger side door putting away my gear. He grabs a bleached cow skull and sneaks up behind me with his light out. He stands in the shadows while holding it at arm's length around 1 foot behind my head. When I turn around, I see a disembodied skull floating.

I jumped into the truck and was too scared to even scream. He finally laughs and walks into the light. I think the cow skull is still hanging at camp. If so, I'll clean it with bleach and bring it inside for safer keeping.
 
Syracuse, Kansas, pheasant hunting, I was 8 or so. Had 3 or 4 of us in the bed of a pickup going down a dirt two track to get back to our trucks after pushing a big block of crp grass. I was sitting on the tailgate dangling my feet. Dad said I was going to fall off if we hit a big enough bump. Sure as hell not 10 seconds go by and we hit a sizable bump and I go flying off, rolled 4 or 5 times in the dirt. Hence for quite a while I was known as tumbleweed in that group. Shot my first rooster pheasant that same trip.
 
raisins said:
I was hunting with my Dad in a national forest mountainous area that is leased to cattle for part of the year in an enclosed field that we parked in.

I get back to the truck earlier than him, but it is still pitch black and I'm busying in the passenger side door putting away my gear. He grabs a bleached cow skull and sneaks up behind me with his light out. He stands in the shadows while holding it at arm's length around 1 foot behind my head. When I turn around, I see a disembodied skull floating.

I jumped into the truck and was too scared to even scream. He finally laughs and walks into the light. I think the cow skull is still hanging at camp. If so, I'll clean it with bleach and bring it inside for safer keeping.
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I may have stirred the pot! You got me going.
 
I wasn't in on this adventure, but it gets retold from time to time. We have a friend who gets very excitable when he sees a buck and he has a tendency to vastly overestimate the size of the bucks. This fellow and two of my other friends were hunting in the same area during the rut. Steve, we will call him, Steve, was in a ladder stand with a 270. My friends were in stands about four hundred yards away. A "monster buck" came out at about 80 yards and Steve "drills him" with the 270. The buck runs and is immediately out of sight in the thick woods. My friends text him and ask if he got one. He says yeah and they say OK we will come down and help you find it. Sit tight. About the time my friends start heading Steve's way. Boom! Another rifle shot rings out. My friends text him and Steve says the buck came back and he shot it again! Not knowing what to think they tell him hang on we'll be there shortly. They get to within 100 yards or so and Boom! Another shot. More texts follow and Steve said the monster buck came back for thirds! Now my friends don't know what to think. They tell him to stop shooting since they are close. They get over to Steve and follow the various blood trails to 3 very dead 80 inch bucks.
 
Ok here is one of mine. Several years ago before cell phones etc. me and a few fellas would set up a bow hunting camp in an old camper we had. Usually every night after the hunt we would have a little beverage and play cards and talk smart pretty late. 1 guy named Gus, would always get mad at our late night antics because he was an early riser and would go to bed early. When he went to bed 1 night much earlier than us, I got a great idea! Gus had a habit of taking his watch off and then setting his alarm. When we knew he was sleeping I set his watch and alarm 3 hours ahead. You know what’s coming. Just after we closed down the card game and went to sleep. Gus’s alarm went off got up dressed grabbed his bow and went to his stand. He came back a few hours later screaming who did this to me. I thought the world was ending and the sun was never coming up!
Nasty trick to play on someone but we know how to have a little fun!
 
I was in a hunting club. We were hunting in Iowa. Instead of staying at a local motel, 4 of us decided to rent a cabin. I did not know these guys very well. But since I was the older, I mean the more experienced guy, one of these young guys kept calling me old man.
So one night I got up at about 3 to take a leak. I took a warm beer and pored it in the sleeping bag of the young kid. The next morning he thought he pissed in his bag. I did not have to say a thing, the other two did it for me.
 
I grew up in a family that took their deer hunting seriously and we travelled all around to do it. One of the places we would go an in state NWR. One week in the early 80’s we were down there with myself, my dad, my brother, his FIL and my uncle.

My dad my brother and myself slept in our little camper and the other two slept in the back of my uncle’s truck. My dad was always the first one up and he would wake me and my brother. I would go out and start breakfast and coffee. This week was miserably cold (teens in SC….brutal) and my brother would get the fire going. After a few days I was getting damned tired of my uncle always being the last to stir and he never did so before the coffee was ready and breakfast was close. I’d had enough.

The next morning I took one of the dried hot peppers my brother had brought and carved a small notch in it, counted down 5 cups (styrofoam) and rimmed hell out of it then stacked them all back in place. I told only my brother what I had done and made sure to distribute the cups as folks came over to get some coffee. When Uncle Slackass finally got up he grabbed and filled the money cup, lol.

We’re sitting around the fire eating breakfast when he takes the first sip….”damn that coffee’s hot!”. I grin. He tries a couple more sips and bitches about how hot the coffee is and berates my coffee making skills, etc. I continue to grin. Finally he sets his “hot” coffee aside in the 14° weather and finishes his breakfast.

After he was done eating he takes another sip and starts cussing again, lol. My brother starts laughing and I snicker….Uncle Slackass realizes I’ve done something, calls me a SOB and throws his coffee at me

He charged me and I took him down (I’m twice his size, lol) we’re raising all kinds of hell rasslin’ around cussing each other, my dad cussing us both, my brother cheering the fight on with no bother choosing a side and Joe, his FIL just continued with breakfast because he had learned this was normal behavior.

We calm everything down, straighten up camp and head out for the morning hunt. When we got back the folks camped next to us we’re gone. They had packed up and moved to the far end of the camp ground
 
I have another that involves a now passed hunting buddy of mine, Steve, that always brings a smile to my face. This was in the very early '80s and we were hunting the second weekend of rifle season and the deer were locked up in the thick stuff pretty tight hiding from the pressure. We sat individually in the morning with no sightings and regrouped around ten. Steve had to head back downstate by noon so we decided to do a short drive to him hoping to get him a deer. Three of us lined up along the western edge of a chunk of slash and he sat at the end of draw in a thick escape route on the eastern end. We start walking and when we're about 3/4 of the way through it we all hear a BOOM . . . . . . . . .BOOM.

Excited we pick up our pace and as we get to a point we can finally see Steve one of the guys yells "Did you get him?" Steve yells back "I got two!" Now we're really pumped and heading toward him more quickly. "Where are they?" we yell. Steve points at his feet and then over to the other side of the ridge "One's right here, the other's over there! I shot them on a dead run!" We're all pumped as we walk toward him. You got to love it when a plan comes together!

As we approach here comes Steve with both his kills in his hand. . . . two snowshoe hares that we had jumped. He laughed his butt off over having pulled that over on us. He was so stoked he took it a bit further and tied each one across the rounded front fenders of the 50's Chevy pickup he drove for the ride home. We were all chuckling at "That crazy Steve" as he drove out of there that day. :)

The story could end there but it doesn't, Steve related the remainder to us during the subsequent deer season. On his way home he stopped for lunch at a little cafe. He's sitting there at the lunch counter with a group of other hunters all sitting there in their red wool pants eating lunch. They're all bemoaning their lack of luck that season and complaining about the lack of deer to shoot. Steve, sitting there quietly is taking it all in. One of them turns to him and says "How about you? Any luck this year?" Steve being Steve can't help himself . . . "Yep, I got two." he replied "A buck and a doe." One of the guys at the counter calls "Bull****!" Steve replies, "No, Really, they're tied on the hood of my truck in the parking lot." He then proceeds to tell the blow by blow story of the mornings hunt, of course leaving out the exact species he had taken, and how only his expert markmanship allowed him to make his kills while they were on a dead run through the trees. As he pays to leave the guy who called BS says, "You mind if we come out and check out your deer?" Steve says "No, come on out." Apparently their sense of humor wasn't as sharp as ours over being sucked in by Steve's story . . .Steve said he wasn't sure he was going to get out of the parking lot without a few punches being thrown after they saw his "Buck and Doe" tied across his truck fenders . . . Steve was a heck of a character . . . :)
 
Topdog said:
I used to do a lot of remote tent hunts, a good friend of mine knew this and would come occasionally, so naturally he told people at work, it wasn’t long and he had a gent that he worked with that wanted to experience a true backwoods tent hunt also, so of course I said sure why not bring him! Like usual I had a couple solo days logged in already when they arrived to my tent site, it’s always a welcome site when somebody shows up after being alone for a few days in the backcountry or so I thought. The guy was super nice and seemed to love the outdoors and the whole big woods tent hunting. So after dinner it was time to bed down and turn in for the night, and it’s a tent so sure it’s going to be tight, he tells us that he has sleep apnea and at times he can snore… so if it gets real bad just let him know and he can put some nasal strips on or something, sure no problem I said, won’t bother me, not much does. About 30 seconds after my head hitting the pillow I heard noises coming from that man I didn’t think were possible from a human, at least one that wasn’t in the emergency room, it sounded like somebody was being submerged in water and coming up for air every 15 seconds, and this is happening about 12” from my cot… so of course my buddy and I think it’s funny for a few minutes, what the heck is going on sort of moment, well it wasn’t so funny 8 hours later when it never stopped all night lol, I remember just finally getting up and saying the heck with sleep. Night #2 after dinner, the new hunter asks if he snored at all last night… and said if so he could wear a nasal strip tonight… so of course not to be awkward I hardly know this guy I don’t say much but my buddy said yea maybe a little.. why don’t you try one of those strips… so he pleasantly agrees, no problem. My head hits the pillow… 30 seconds go by… here we go again, all I can envision is what a drowning muskrat must be like in a trap submerged under water, gasping for air and life, the nasal strips did nothing, and there was no giggling from me or my buddy that night, we knew it was going to be a long 8 hours lol. The next morning with blood shot eyes I could hardly focus while in the woods, I was an absolute zombie. Sometime during the day I ran into my buddy alone on a trail and we briefly spoke on the matter, basically what the **** are we going to do type of talk, this trip was for several days LMAO. Night #3, not much talking going on, the guy who snores is having a grand time being in the great outdoors, myself..not exactly.. finally deep in one of my packs I found a used set of old dirty ear plugs, didn’t matter I was using them, with plugs in, pillow on my head, maybe this was the night I could sleep…. nope not a chance, I swear the tent walls must have been shaking with that dude snoring, like I said a super nice guy, but man was it intense, I have never heard anyone or anything sleep like that in my life ever, and I hope never do again lol, it was a long trip, one I will never forget.
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Several years ago I went on a week-long BWCA trip with 3 other dudes. I know I snore, so I declined the offer to share a tent and packed a backpacking solo tent. The first morning in camp we had the following conversation over breakfast oatmeal and tea:
Ryan: So, did you know you snore?
Me: Yeah, that's why I brought my own tent, remember?
Boomer: Uh-huh. We talked and decided you're going to have to pitch your own tent in your own campsite.
Derek: And that that campsite's going to have to be on your own lake.

After apologies the rest of the week went fine, I just set my tent up a respectful few dozen feet away from the others and heard no more complaints.
 
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