whitehunter35
01-07-2004, 10:21 AM
A few years back, My Father-in-Law, Brother-in-Law, and I where selected by lottery to participate in a quota hunt in the Land Between the Lakes region in Western Kentucky. Most hunters, including the three of us, where hunting in regions that were restricted to black powder only, but some areas were open to center fire rifle shooters.
We spaced ourselves on the same ridge, oriented to the North, with My Dad-in-Law in the center, Bro-in-law on the far left, and me on the far right: roughly 4-500 meters apart. I found a real nice place overlooking a little valley, and settled into the sit and scan mode.
I heard a few shots, but nothing that was close, until I started hearing a fellow who was yelling loudly in the woods to the Northeast, at roughly the 2 o'clock direction from my position. One word that I could not hear, but could tell that it started with a J, and ended with an "E" sound. He was yelling it over and over.
Jimmy? it was something like that- the echo in the little valley bounced around too much for me to get a good read, but as my Dad-Law's name is "Jerry", and my Bro-Law's Jerry David, or "J.D.", I was not without concern. The yelling went on for a few minutes and stopped, so I stood fast- it was definatly not "help", and I also reasoned that my family was on my left, while this yelling was going onto my right/front. I was also aware that the center-fire hunters boundary was real close to where I was hunting and did not care to blunder around in the woods and get shot in two.
Roughly ten minutes later, it started again to my 12 o'clock, but this time it sounded like "Jen Lee!" over and over for a few moments, than quiting as before. It stopped as soon as it started, was quiet for another ten minutes, and started again at my 11 o'clock. Few moments of silence pass again, now he is at my 9 o'clock, yelling as loud as he can, the sound much closer, and me imagining that I am now hearing "J.D.!" instead of "Jen Lee". This pattern repeated itself every ten minutes or so, moving from East to West in front of me, and then gradually back, the last time I heard him yell was back at my two o'clock, more or less where it had started. I never could really tell what this guy was yelling about, and why he would yell for awhile, quit, move, yell, quit, move, etc.
My morning hunt was over, of course, as this fellow had been yelling his head off intermittenly for about an hour, and covered at least a mile in front of me across and back, so I policed up my stuff, and headed out of the woods. I met my Dad in law at the truck, and he greeted me with, "What in the world was that guy yelling?"
"Jen lee?" is all I could come up with.
Dad was slightly peturbed, and was my brother in law, who actually went to investigate, thinking it was one of us yelling "J.D." We didn't see deer one, thousand wonders.
During breakfast, we had gotten to the point that we could laugh about it, although none of us could envision a circumstance where a guy would be running around in the woods yelling like a fool- during a managed quota hunt in progress.
After breakfast, we went into a convienence store to buy some things to eat the rest of the day, and I struck up a conversation with a hunter in the parking lot. This fellow was towing a flatbed trailer behind his SUV, with a respectable looking six point (around 150-160lbs) laying in the trailer. The odd thing about this six point, is that one of its hind legs was laying beside the deer, severed just below the hip.
"Shoot the leg off one?" I asked this fellow.
"Yeah," he told me, his voice rising, becoming excited, "it was the dangest thing.......I shot this deer through the leg, and shot its leg almost clean off.......and then I couldn't get my rifle to work anymore. It would barely bend the primer and not shoot! I went through all twenty rounds that I had, and not one of them would work," He produced from his pocket a handfull of 270 WIN Cartridges, with the primer slightly indented, as he had described.
"So, I started running after this deer to cut its throat, and every time I would get close.....the @%!! thing would give me the business end of its horns! So,....I yelled for my buddy......"
My father in law interrupted him, using a non too neighborly tone, "WHAT IS YOUR BUDDY'S NAME?!!!!"
"uh....uh........Johnny......" this old boy had no idea why that part of the story was important to us, and after a moment meekly continued, "it took me an hour to wear the thing down enough where I could get ahold of it."
He couldn't decide why we were looking at him the way we were, and more than likely interepted our disgust in him as doubt in his story, "Honest guys, that thing liked to have killed me."
We all kind of looked at each other, and one of us started laughing, which caused the three of us to start laughing, deep, tear producing belly laughs, until finally Johnny's friend was laughing right along with us, with no idea why he was doing so.
The moral of the story is: A sidearm (a.k.a. "Johnny gun") in addition to your centerfire rifle is sometimes worth the extra weight.
Good hunting,
Steve
We spaced ourselves on the same ridge, oriented to the North, with My Dad-in-Law in the center, Bro-in-law on the far left, and me on the far right: roughly 4-500 meters apart. I found a real nice place overlooking a little valley, and settled into the sit and scan mode.
I heard a few shots, but nothing that was close, until I started hearing a fellow who was yelling loudly in the woods to the Northeast, at roughly the 2 o'clock direction from my position. One word that I could not hear, but could tell that it started with a J, and ended with an "E" sound. He was yelling it over and over.
Jimmy? it was something like that- the echo in the little valley bounced around too much for me to get a good read, but as my Dad-Law's name is "Jerry", and my Bro-Law's Jerry David, or "J.D.", I was not without concern. The yelling went on for a few minutes and stopped, so I stood fast- it was definatly not "help", and I also reasoned that my family was on my left, while this yelling was going onto my right/front. I was also aware that the center-fire hunters boundary was real close to where I was hunting and did not care to blunder around in the woods and get shot in two.
Roughly ten minutes later, it started again to my 12 o'clock, but this time it sounded like "Jen Lee!" over and over for a few moments, than quiting as before. It stopped as soon as it started, was quiet for another ten minutes, and started again at my 11 o'clock. Few moments of silence pass again, now he is at my 9 o'clock, yelling as loud as he can, the sound much closer, and me imagining that I am now hearing "J.D.!" instead of "Jen Lee". This pattern repeated itself every ten minutes or so, moving from East to West in front of me, and then gradually back, the last time I heard him yell was back at my two o'clock, more or less where it had started. I never could really tell what this guy was yelling about, and why he would yell for awhile, quit, move, yell, quit, move, etc.
My morning hunt was over, of course, as this fellow had been yelling his head off intermittenly for about an hour, and covered at least a mile in front of me across and back, so I policed up my stuff, and headed out of the woods. I met my Dad in law at the truck, and he greeted me with, "What in the world was that guy yelling?"
"Jen lee?" is all I could come up with.
Dad was slightly peturbed, and was my brother in law, who actually went to investigate, thinking it was one of us yelling "J.D." We didn't see deer one, thousand wonders.
During breakfast, we had gotten to the point that we could laugh about it, although none of us could envision a circumstance where a guy would be running around in the woods yelling like a fool- during a managed quota hunt in progress.
After breakfast, we went into a convienence store to buy some things to eat the rest of the day, and I struck up a conversation with a hunter in the parking lot. This fellow was towing a flatbed trailer behind his SUV, with a respectable looking six point (around 150-160lbs) laying in the trailer. The odd thing about this six point, is that one of its hind legs was laying beside the deer, severed just below the hip.
"Shoot the leg off one?" I asked this fellow.
"Yeah," he told me, his voice rising, becoming excited, "it was the dangest thing.......I shot this deer through the leg, and shot its leg almost clean off.......and then I couldn't get my rifle to work anymore. It would barely bend the primer and not shoot! I went through all twenty rounds that I had, and not one of them would work," He produced from his pocket a handfull of 270 WIN Cartridges, with the primer slightly indented, as he had described.
"So, I started running after this deer to cut its throat, and every time I would get close.....the @%!! thing would give me the business end of its horns! So,....I yelled for my buddy......"
My father in law interrupted him, using a non too neighborly tone, "WHAT IS YOUR BUDDY'S NAME?!!!!"
"uh....uh........Johnny......" this old boy had no idea why that part of the story was important to us, and after a moment meekly continued, "it took me an hour to wear the thing down enough where I could get ahold of it."
He couldn't decide why we were looking at him the way we were, and more than likely interepted our disgust in him as doubt in his story, "Honest guys, that thing liked to have killed me."
We all kind of looked at each other, and one of us started laughing, which caused the three of us to start laughing, deep, tear producing belly laughs, until finally Johnny's friend was laughing right along with us, with no idea why he was doing so.
The moral of the story is: A sidearm (a.k.a. "Johnny gun") in addition to your centerfire rifle is sometimes worth the extra weight.
Good hunting,
Steve