Your best hunting story!

Great story backstrapking.

thats a pretty good story posiedon. not every good hunting story has to end with a kill.

Chase I believe you caught your second smallmouth directly under where I was hanging...lol

I wrote this to my mates after one of my trips, I'll never forget this one.


G'day guys,
Had another rostered week off last week and had a fishing trip organised with a few people from work and a dog. We left Darwin harbour around 8.30pm friday night and headed out to sea to try and catch some fish. The eskies were chockers with piss(6 cartons orta do it we thought) so we were set. An hour or so in, Janine(a sheila from work)hasn't yet got her sea legs(too much drink you see)so decides to have a kip laying down on the esky, a big 140 litre job, so plenty of room you'd think. Not long into her sleep, the waves of the ocean decide she has slept long enough and promptly knocks her off the esky onto the floor of the boat. While falling off, she smashed her head onto a smaller esky, her eye copping the full brunt of it. Almost instantly, she had a ripper of a bruise a boxer would be proud of dishing out. With her eye closing over and the whinging, we take her back in and drop her off at Blue's house, at a small community that is acroos the harbour from Darwin, but a good two hour drive away. We drop her off and two other blokes get off too. It now leaves Blue, Brad and myself plus Blue's dog Gunna on the boat, so we head out to get into some proper fishing. We catch a few decent golden snapper and a few little sharks. I remember catching a few, but I got too pissed and passed out down the back of the boat. I woke at day break and we're bloody miles away from darwin. Blue and Brad stayed up all night and we'd motored most of the night apparently. Straight into fishing and it's not long before we catch a few more. There is mention that a pub is probably open somewhere in the world, so the esky is open and we're into it again by about 6am. It doesn't take long to top ourselves up again and we're all having a merry time. We moved spots a few times and while setting the anchor down one time, I musta had one too many beers, because I basically followed the anchor straight into the water. It was a much needed swim coz it was stinking hot out there. I only remember the one swim, but the video camera tells a different story. My burnt, blistered and now flaking back tells a different story too. The day goes by without incident except for a few times when the boat took my feet out from under me causing me to try and panelbeat the boat with my head. They reckon one good panelbeating job I did sent me to sleep almost instantly. Things gradually got worse from here on in. I come to saturday arvo and we're heading back to darwin, our fishing trip over. The motor starts to surge and chug along for a bit, then nothing. After numerous attempts to start it, we check the fuel and find our problem. 160 litres, all gone. Lucky we had started to head back to darwin or we'd be bloody miles away. No phone reception, no radio reception, nothing, we are f..ked basically. We leave the anchor up and drift with the tide. We finally contact another boat somewhere out there who contacts the coast guard for us. They say they'll send a tow boat, but it'll cost us. We say no probs, just send the bloody thing. Darkness decends and we have a bite to eat expecting a rescue boat in a few hours. We try and sleep and all find a cramped spot to get in a few hours kip. I wake up in astonishment. A wave has whipped up and come over the back of the boat totally drenching me. Sleep doesn't come easy when you're soaking wet, cold and laying on wet carpet. I needn't have worried really, coz about two hours later, a storm whips up and we are in the middle of it. Three people and a dog don't really fit under a 3x3 foot centre console. The angle of the rain doesn't help and we are all soaking wet now. I gathered up some water from the console roof with an ice cream container and suck it down. Gee, it tastes funny. Barstards didn't tell me I was drinking out of the dogs container. It was about 1am by now and we're wondering where this bloody coast guard is. We try sleep again in soaked clothes and wet floor. The dog has now become hot property for some much needed warmth and Brad nabs it. With all the grog and probably the filthy dog water dish, I'm now outa bed putting some good fish burley over the side til there was no more burley left inside me. What a s..t night, really. Sunday morning comes and we check the GPS. We have drifted further out to sea. We wonder where our coast guard is, arseholes. We try contacting them, plus any other boats in the area, no good. After a few hours, a boat comes by and we wave them down. Four blokes going fishing aren't real keen to help us just yet. We'll go fishing first and get you on the way back, they say. We have no bargaining power and go back to sleeping on the wet floor til they come back, not before having a quick feed. That water must've still been playing havoc with me coz I soon had a heap of burley floating in the ocean again. Pity we had run out of bait a long time ago. We finally hear a boat motor at around midday. The 4 fishos had contacted a bigger boat and these guys had come to help us. They gave us two jerry cans full of fuel, asked for no money, phone numbers or anything. We got theirs and they went on their way. We finally got our boat going and headed for home. We were starving by this stage, rummaging through the esky to see what we had left. One lone Cherry ripe was found and Blue put it in the side of the boat. A minute later, we hear a crinkling noise and look down to find Gunna the dog hoeing into the Cherry Ripe, the little barstard. Poor bugger must've been starving though too. We make the boat ramp 19 hours later than planned and realise we still have all Janine's stuff, handbag, clothes, wallet, phone. The poor girl spent all weekend by herself with a monster black eye in a community and house she'd never been too before. She had hitched a lift into Darwin a fe whours before we got back. Turns out she fractured her eyesocket and is awaiting facial surgery. And, considering we drifted out at sea about 40 odd k's from land for 19 hours, got burnt, drunk, starved, spewed, rained on and only kept 4 fish, what a f..ked fishing trip.

WOW! Thanks Troy you really have me thinking through all of the years of my deer hunting.... I have so many great stories, to many to type, I will try to come up with one to share. Some times you just need to sit back and think about all of the great memories you have of your years of hunting.

The day after i was married, my new bride and i went out to the family farm for some pictures with our wedding party. after pictures were taken, we all walked the property line of the 80 acres. at the back of the property line "HE" (the big 10-12 point buck) stared us down from across the creek. Flash forward to this year. I hadn't seen anything for about 3 weeks. i was sitting in my stand awaiting a small 6 pointer that my camera had caught the day before. before i knew it, he was walking 10 yards infront of my stand. (until this point, i had been hunting only 3 years and only seen doe) i got the jitters and missed low, only knocking fur off of him. i was so angry at myself for being "that guy" that i called it a day (at 8 am) and called the wife and inlaws to help me look around the property (praying that we could find something). after 6 hours of searching the property up and down. my father in law started screaming at the top of his lungs. (my father in law was in a bad car accident and broke his neck about 20 years ago... he cant even pick up a hammer without him hurting for hours... this will come into play later in the story). Since he can't run, he took out his .22 cal. pistol and fired into the air. we all came running thinking he was injured. He explained how he saw a hunter decked out in camo holding a bow running through the woods away from us and down a trail. so we all split up yelling for this person to "show themselves" .. obviously poachers know what they're doing is wrong and the person bolted. my wife and mother in law decided it would be best to jump a creek and peer into the neighboring corn field to see if they could find the person running away. my father in law and i stood in the middle of the main train (about 4 1/2 ft wide) talking and laughing about "what we'd do if we caught the guy...lol all of a suddun my father in law, broken neck and all - dropped to the ground whispering about as loudly as he could "LOOK! IT'S THE BIG ONE!!!" i couldn't see through the brush because everything was green still in november. on a small ridge near the back pond i see the rack above the brush 30 yards away ... walking slowly from left to right. we walked parallel with the antler for 10 yards and they stopped, faced us and started moving towards us. my father in law was so startled by this he yelped out loud - "He's coming!" i could see him walk closer and drew what seemed like a million pound back and felt my anchor point. my release was slipping from my hand but somehow i managed to keep the tip of my finger on the trigger. after 2 winutes of "eternity" i saw the perfect opertunity...and let the arrow fly 25 yards towards the unsuspecting 8 Pointer. the Buck turned and sprinted off with my "hound dog" of a father in law on his tail. (as i said, he has a broken neck.. he cannot ride the 20 minutes in a car to get to my house...LOL and this old guy was sprinting faster than i probably could). 30-40 yards later, on the other side of the pond i found him laying under the pine trees. i know he wasn't the same buck as the one i had seen the day after my wedding... and i know that i could not have done this by myself... but it was amazing to me that we were so loud and still got to see him, let alone get a 25 yard shot at him. 235lb 8 Pointer. i still can't believe it. i always told myself that i wasn't a trophy hunter... and that meat in the freezer was the most important thing, but to be totally honest - Those 8 points make me smile every time. Lol, after this hunt - i should just retire from the game because i don't think it could get any better than this. hahaha

Awesome story!