Thread: I'm an idiot.

Day-hunting alone in the Blue Mountains, lightning struck me three times - in the form of three stupid mistakes:

Before heading away from the truck I decided my day pack was unduly heavy, so tipped it all out and re-packed only the bare essentials to lighten the load and make more room for venison. After a couple hours of fruitless stalking, my bowels told me that it was time for the appropriate ablution which I duly performed. Then dived into my pack for the dunny paper that I always carry, only to discover that I had omitted it from the bare essentials and foolishly left it behind with the unnecessaries. Damn and blast! So I cast my eyes around, and to my dismay bracken fern was the only available substitute – aaargh! Not relishing the bracken fern prospect, I despairingly searched again in my depleted pack until I came upon my DoC hunting permit. Hmmm, difficult decision, bracken fern or hunting permit. Luckily for both of us, the DoC ranger was somewhere else that day.

A few hours after the no-dunny-paper incident, I headed off downhill along a heavily overgrown firebreak toward a promising clearing, with rifle shoulder-slung to keep hands free for parting the dense brush. It was nightmare bashing through 3m high gorse, but the clearing was going to be worth it – surely heaving with unwary and tasty fallow deer. I finally got there after an hour or so of tortuous going and went to unsling my rifle, only to find to my horror it was gone - stripped off my shoulder by the gorse somewhere back up the firebreak. Aghast, I immediately forgot about the deer and set out to re-trace my steps without much hope of finding it in the dense gorse; thinking my insurance could cover most of the loss, but to claim insurance I would have to report it to the cops who were not going to be impressed with a loaded rifle lost (bolt closed on empty chamber but mag in and full). Thinking such depressing thoughts I gorse-bashed uphill nearly all the way back without finding it – thorough searching was impossible in the dense gorse. But then, back up near the top, miraculously there she was, hanging onto a gorse bush and waiting faithfully for me to come and reclaim her. Whew!!

After the lost-rifle drama, I returned to the truck and headed away empty-handed, on the theory to get out of there before something else went wrong. Arriving at the Forestry gate on the way out of the Bluies I unlocked the big combination padlock, placed it up on the free end of the gate boom, and gave the boom a good shove to swing it open. The hinges were obviously well greased because the boom flew around, gathering speed until it slammed into a stump by the roadside and the big padlock flew off at high velocity into the long grass. I searched for about 45 minutes, pulling out long grass and thistles down to the dirt, until it got dark and I had to give up and go home. Next morning I rang the Forestry office and confessed, expecting to be charged the cost of the lost padlock (about $100!). But the good Forestry bloke went out and looked himself, and soon reported back that he had quickly found it - just beyond my scorched-earth search area. He thanked me for bothering to search, and for telling them about it, and he said “well at least not all hunters are total a**holes (!?!).