Got a Good Story?

[BritChaser]

Many good tales have been told here over the years, but now many are deeply embedded in the data. Gurus, Masters, and Pros, retell your tales, and new and newer members, tell us yours.

Here's one: "Bull Calf in a Swimming Pool."

We six hunters had just taken our line into a promising field when the farmer's teenage son came along in a pickup honking and waving us over to him. He said a calf had fallen into a swimming pool and his dad wanted us (mostly city slickers) to get it out. Yep, out in the middle nowhere in western Kansas an old abandoned farmstead had an in-ground cement pool with deep and shallow ends. Standing in foot-deep slime in the deep end was a black bull calf with some sharp little horns on him. Someone got a rope and we pulled him out of the slime up to the dry shallow end. Then we pushed him to a corner, put his front legs over the edge and used a post to hoist up his hind quarters and then shove his ass over to the ground. Up to this point he was real nice. As soon as his butt hit dirt, he got ornery and took the two guys holding the rope for a little heel skating. He finally jumped back over the hot wire and returned to his herd. True story!

 

[jeffstally]

I was walking a field in SD with my springers. We were walking directly at a grove of trees 100 yds ahead of me. A hawk came flying right at me from behind the grove of trees. He flared when he saw me and the sudden direction changed caused him to drop his lunch- a rooster. The rooster flew right at me and just over my head. I unloaded 4 shells at him and never ruffled a feather. That lucky SOB escaped death twice in 10 seconds.

 

[CharBroiled]

It's Opening weekend 2003 and we're in Edwards County. We had received permission to hunt a strip of CRP, which was only a eighth of a mile wide, but a mile long. The first day we were allowed to walk only half of it, with the second day being allowed access to the whole thing.

The field was loaded with birds. There were eight of us walking, and no dog. We had covered the swath of this monstrous walk with quite a bit of shooting and roosters galore. We turned the first corner, had a few more get up, and were in the process of swinging the second corner when a rooster broke just to the right of me. I'm not sure who knocked it down, me or the guy to my right.

The bird tumbled out of the sky, landing on the green wheat field next to this CRP. However, instead of folding up neatly, the bird flipped over and took off running at full speed, dragging his wing. I took off like a sprinter stuck in quicksand as I have never been, nor ever will be accused of being fleet of foot. The guy on my right also took off after the bird as well, both of us never going to win a 100 meter dash, let alone the 100 meter mosey.

There were telephone poles dotting the mile line, each one surrounding by a tuft of weeds. This bird kept dashing ahead of us, by about 50-60 yards outside of the range of my modified choke. Tony an I stayed in hot (well really lukewarm pursuit) as every time we thought we had him pinned in a tuft of weeds, he'd sneak out the end, still dragging his wing.

This kept happening for not one, not two, not three but four telephone poles with a chance for the bird to get to a shelterbelt where we'd never see him again. We finally got close enough to roll him over with one shot. But he popped back up, as if he was about to run off again. I've never stopped running, (which are words to that point in my life I've never uttered) and had closed the gap enough to launch myself in the air, in a long, ungraceful arc, landing with a thump close enough to the bird to snag it with my gun free hand.

The bird began to claw me with its free leg, drawing blood on my wrist before I finally managed to grab it by the head and wring its neck. I looked back and Tony has his hands on his knees gasping for air while I'm stuck on the ground, wondering A. how I'm going to get back to my feet and. B. how the heck we're going to make it back to the grass as we covered over half of a mile during our not-so-epic chase.

Among our panting for air, Tony and I began to laugh, and laugh hard. It sucks when you're out of breath from running, while laughing so hard the tears are starting to come down. I'm pretty sure they were tears of mirth and not tears from the pain of the run.

 

[BritChaser]

I was walking a field in SD with my springers. We were walking directly at a grove of trees 100 yds ahead of me. A hawk came flying right at me from behind the grove of trees. He flared when he saw me and the sudden direction changed caused him to drop his lunch- a rooster. The rooster flew right at me and just over my head. I unloaded 4 shells at him and never ruffled a feather. That lucky SOB escaped death twice in 10 seconds.

Great story. I saw a pheasant fly from cover to milo stalks and land right where a hawk was sitting on a post. The hawk jumped him, got him airborne but the pheasant broke loose and flew back to cover.