Pre hunt stuff ups

So a couple of years ago the day before I was due to fly in thought I better check the rifle was still good. Into the range and couldn't hit a 20ltr drum at 100. Couldn't sit the shots due to long grass. In the last box of ammo. Flying in early morning and no chance of getting more ammo. Brought target right in too 25 l to see I was hitting well high. Turns out without zero stop I had wound a revolution up not down and was 20" high at 100. Fixed luckily as next shot secured my first 8pt sika.
Yesterday similar thing. Better check rifle. Sig binos say they need a software update. No worries press ok. Update fails half way through and can no longer see any information in binos. So now have no rangefinder or drop chart. Changed battery with no result. Persisted for a while and turns out buttons were still working but not showing anything so managed to complete update and everything appeared backs as normal. Phew crisis averted. Now just have to wait until I get amongst the sika on Friday.
Anything like this happened to you,?

Mate has had a few blinders, unfortunately only spotted when we were already in the field.
1st one was unpacking the guns to head out, and all I heard was swearing. Turns out the trigger lock was in place, but the key was 5 hours away.
Second was shooting goats, and he couldn't hit the side of a barn. I had a shot, and noticed the front ring had come loose, and the scope was flopping around.
Luckily there was a second rifle on hand, and the trips were not written off.

Know someone that turned up to a search and rescue call out witj pack and jacket complete with their slippers...... somehow forgot boots on the way put the door

Happened to me last weekend.

Sighted in my CZ452 .22LR the weekend before and hitting the bullseye at 40m.

During the hunt I had well over 30 opportunities to shoot rabbits and possum at typical ranges.
I missed every single shot.

Later I found the whole barreled action could be slided back and forth in the stock by hand. All 3 action screws were loose.

I’ve never had any seriously terrible hunting gear stuff ups. Trip I did with my brother just after Christmas just been I forgot to bring my mug & cutlery, but luckily there were some definitely not clean ones left at the hut & I happened to have some cloths & hand sanitiser.

But I’ve had a couple of fumbles on dives before- one time drove for about an hour to a spot to realise I didn’t have a mask. Usually have all my gear packed & ready to go (complete with a spare mask) but this was first dive back after I’d been diving in Vanuatu & I’d popped mask in outside pocket of suitcase instead of with the rest of my dive gear. Dive buddy that day didn’t have a spare mask so it was a long mission back to town to grab it.

45 years ago my wife and 2 lads flew into Boyds. Got to the hanger at Taupo and only had one rifle, not one for me and one for the boys. When we got home a week later the other rifle was still in it's bag where I had left it on the deck at the back door at home. Just as well we lived an hour from town and 20 mins from the closest neighbour. And just as well it was 45 years ago and not now.

I want to hear from people who have forgotten or lost their knives. What do you do if you shoot an animal? Teeth, sharp rock? :D

Last weekend.
New scope on the Rifle and some new ammo to sight in with as had run out of it usual favourite. Heading away following weekend so she'll be sweet.
Missing paper at 100M so close the gap and start again, three shots later and two hits on paper in opposing corners and one AWOL, the two hits are sideways on paper, check suppressor, all tight, no baffle strike, try again with suppressor off. Same result. Ammo tumbling, no remedy until I go buy the usual pills. But that'll be after my trip.
223 tagging along now not 7mm-08.

5 years ago or so, Drive to road end one and a half hours away, sleep in the wagon for the night. Up at 5, gear up, no bolt for the 7.62 so in a bout of pure stubbornness I drive home to collect the bolt, then back to hunt zone for an evening stalk, sleep in the wagon a second night and get in a morning hunt. 6 hours of driving for 3 goats. Who would..

Western Australia, 2012. Organised a trip all the way up to the Northern Territory border for a spot of scrub cattle and donkey culling on the station. It’s a full day drive and by that I mean about 1250km, 15-16 hours. Four blokes, me driving the Prado. Decided to use the big Thule roof pod as there was quite a lot of gear. It was perfect for storing rifles in their bags, wrapped up in sleeping bags, to cope with the endless corrugations.

Arrive at destination... hot, rattled to hell & back, dusty, very thirsty... you have probably already guessed... Old mate who shall remain forever nameless has decided at the last minute to add something to the roof pod, taken my roof pod keys and then gone for a last minute slash before we left. The keys were on top of the cistern. No good to us there.

We spent a very irritating couple of hours in the dark, trying to pick the locks. Fat chance. Tragically for the roof pod, the decision was made it had to be sacrificed. There was absolutely no way of breaking into it without damaging it quite badly. Old mate had fessed up, and promised to cough up for a new one. After we had forced it open there was no way we could close it so we took it off and donated it to the locals who were very happy to use it for God alone knows what.

Old mate duly acquired a new roof pod and decided to fit it to his Prado to get it home, easy enough. Very clever roof pods these Thules, easy as. His wife drove the vehicle to the shops that evening, and attempted to enter the multi-storey carpark...

I eventually got the third pod delivered directly to me. We used it once, changed vehicles, didn’t need it any more and sold it.

Had any interesting rifle fail recently.

Goat culling on the farm in the back blocks of Wairoa. You’d think they farm goats, not sheep. KRG Bravo stock, Howa 6.5 barrelled action. My young mate has been desperate to have a go on this for ages. He has his girlfriend in tow, she’s quite feisty and demanding to say the least. Set him up on the first goat around 300m, easy shot. Clean miss. Bit closer next time, I see the splash way to the left. Has another go, this time to the right by the same distance. WTF? I have a go. 400m, instant dead goat. Now things are getting a bit tense.

Young mate shoots at a goat, wings it and now it’s bleating horribly as they do, and he starts getting massive grief from his girl who is very unhappy about this. So another shot misses, and the goat goes into cover, making a helluva noise. Now there’s tears and runny snot and my two boys don’t know where to look or what to do, this young woman has lost her bundle completely. I took a walk and got a good look at the goat in the scrub, and shot it with my .223 Howa Mini, Belmont 62gr, holding over, which wasn’t too shabby at a touch over 320m. Dead. Now young mate doesn’t want to shoot my “laser accurate” rifle any more. He just wishes we hadn’t bloody come!

I went to pack the rifle away, all very awkward, and noticed a clunk. The front action screw wasn’t tight. What? The action was slopping in the chassis. Back at the house, the torque was checked - perfect..... eh? What’s going on? Long story short the locking plate that pulls up onto the bottom of the recoil lug was poorly machined - uneven - and had a small high spot that had been gradually smeared by repeated swapping out of barrelled actions from the chassis. The alloy plate was now no longer thick enough (by literally a couple thou) to bind to the bottom of the lug, and lock the action in place. It had been a problem waiting to happen for over a year.

(It took a little bit of working out and some videos backwards and forwards to KRG in the US, but good buggers that they are they sent me two replacement locking plates by first class Courier and that fixed the problem immediately.)

This unexpected problem sure took the fun out of the subsequent goat culling because we were now very limited rifle wise (two .223s), it was that mad hot spell we had in January and the temp hit 40° two days in a row. The country there is either straight up, or straight down, and the whole point for my young mate was to do some long-range stuff from good spots with a 360° field of view... but, er, no. He’s a damn good hunter and a very good shot but he was very disappointed... and man did he get his ear chewed. Oh well, live and learn.

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Originally Posted by MB

I want to hear from people who have forgotten or lost their knives. What do you do if you shoot an animal? Teeth, sharp rock? :D

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Ran out of ammo, forgotten knife(dunno how it’s like the first thing I strap in when going out to work every day....) had to finish off a goat....flat head screw drivers aren’t THAT sharp...


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Sure is uncomfortable when ya forget your sleeping bag.

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Originally Posted by MB

I want to hear from people who have forgotten or lost their knives. What do you do if you shoot an animal? Teeth, sharp rock? :D

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Been there. Just smashed some rocks together in the creek till one broke with a sharp edge. Did pretty OK for a rock!

A bigger stuff up was owning two Rem 700's, one in .223 and one in .308. Guess what, both bolts fit both rifles.....

Got flown into Ngapuketurua hut one roar,unpacked and set up hut to discover my hunting boots were still in the ute back in helisika's carpark. Red bands saved the trip!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by MB

I want to hear from people who have forgotten or lost their knives. What do you do if you shoot an animal? Teeth, sharp rock? :D

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Done that, thought mate had his knife. Dragged the animal down gully to the creek and left it with water running over it all night. It was actually good as gold in the morning, a little blown but not tainted from gassing up

I've had a couple of stuff ups.

Went for a couple of nights up the Ruahine's, was wondering why my feet were so sore after walking into Leon Kinvig, bowling a deer on a slip and hiking it back to the tops. Got back home and was cleaning my boots only to realise I hadn't put the insoles back in from the last trip lol.

Another one, woke up at 2am to drive the 3 hours to a spot. Hiked in for a couple of hours to get there on sun up. Went to put my bolt in the rifle which had been sitting on top of my pack out only to realise I had grabbed the wrong one at home. Sat freezing my arse off and decided to call it a day after a few hours. Luckily no deer were spotted that morning!

I have 2 rugers and have mad that mistake more than once, including a trip to Durville Island haha

Wow some of the stories in this thread are certainly interesting and good to know so I don't make the same mistakes in the future.
The worst that happened to me was forgetting to bring my magazine for rabbit shooting, so I had to feed one round at a time into my firearm making for many missed opportunities. Really not that bad though.

Went fly fishing in one of the little tekapo lakes. Getting set up. No rod in tube. Shit. Had a rummage around had side cutters, tape and a road atlas.
Cut down a willow branch taped on reel. Cut steel ring binder off road atlas. Taped them on and caught 3 salmon. It cast like a dog but got the wind behind me and managed to float it out enough to catch fish

Left the mag for the 243 at home
I used to be quite naughty and leave the mag loaded and stashed in my shooting pouch.
Cant remember what I did but the ammo was in there but not the mag.
Wasnt that far from home but could not be bothered.
The remi semi was a single shot for the hunt.
Pissing down rain and didn't see anything anyway

Where to start.....usually with the old man (who is my preferred hunting partner):

Was looking at heading over the Ruahine tops into some pretty quiet country in terms of visitor numbers....(He was living in Levin at the time, I was in Napier....) all things co-ordinated to have a great Queen's birthday weekend in the hills - I headed into Sunrise Hut on the Saturday morning - getting out the door at 4am and speaking on the phone to the old fulla to let him know I was on the way, he advised that he would meet me there around 10am.... Arriving at Sunrise hut (our agreed meeting point before heading over the tops) around 8:30 and waiting.....and waiting...... A large group of Group of Edenborough students arrived and proceeded to play games and text message their mates via Spark.... (I was on Vodafone....for the last weekend of my life and couldn't get reception).
Around 13:00 I decided: bugger this, something has happened to the old boy - there was no way to confirm as Vodafone was shit, so I headed out to the carpark. Called him when in cellphone coverage only to find..... the old bugger had forgotten his tramping boots....realized in Dannevirke so had headed home to get them.....tried calling me but couldn't get through....

Anyone thinking of using Vodafone....DON'T. They are shit. Lesson learnt - I can now get coverage from the top of the Ruahines - something Vodafone cannot... I'm convinced this will be the case elsewhere.

When my hunting mate remi was a young pup at 6months, We headed to towards the ruahines about a 3 and half hour drive. On the way there I noticed he was so quiet, I was quite chuffed that he being such a good little pup.

We arrive at the carpark and I got to lace up my boots, but alas I had no laces left he had chewed them right off my boots haha. I shimmied my boots up with the broken laces and headed on, within 10 minutes remi was winding in the bush we popped in and a spiker was bedded down smacking him in the neck. Little pup redeemed himself and we turned around and went home haha

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Originally Posted by ROKTOY

6 hours of driving for 3 goats. Who would..

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Uuuumm , I do , semi regularly .....

up to 4 hrs drive round trip plus 6 hrs walking for a goat maybe , even 2 occasionally .....

but it's not just the hunting , it's the exercise ...... (so I keep telling myself)

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Originally Posted by trapperjohn

Sure is uncomfortable when ya forget your sleeping bag.

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and been there done that too .... in the middle of winter ......
uncomfortable and effing cold .....

Early on in my reintroduction to hunting @Pommy and I were heading out to look for wobblies - I'm sure I asked him to grab my rifle from inside the door while I grabbed something I had forgotten. The upshot is we got to the road end to find I had no rifle. Bugger. He had his 223 so we went and found out that TTSX projectiles aren't the first or second or third choice for small critters. Just one of many things learned that day.

The other notable achievement was leaving my boots outside the front door on a trip up the Rangitata. I found this out when we pulled up to the river and our driver suggested that it might be wise to have good boots on should things go pear-shaped... As it was my first time doing any sort of big river crossing I was wondering what the hell I had let myself in for. By an unbelievable stroke of good luck our driver had not only thrown in his spare set of boots into the truck, but they were the exact size needed for my odd shaped feet and had the exact same Formthotics fitted that I use!!! So from total catastrophe we had an awesome trip, learned loads and also got to try out some Lowa Tibets in the perfect terrain :)

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Originally Posted by ROKTOY

6 hours of driving for 3 goats. Who would..

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Just 6 hours, lucky bugger!

Met a mate after work and transferred everything over to their ute for an evening hunt. Pulled up and start to get ready - asked her where she put my day bag?? She reckons she never touched it. I thought she was taking the piss as I was sure I'd put it on the ground as I unloaded my ute with the rest of the stuff she grabbed for me.
Had no bolt, no jacket (was pissing down when we turned up), no binos, no headlamp, no blood tester, no lollies or food (I'm a diabetic so this was a bit of a major) managed to find enough food to keep me alive if my levels were to go low.
Ended up having an alright hunt and found my bag on my backseat when I got back to my ute.

Can't say I suffered any major hunting stuff ups, but I've forgotten my fishing rods twice (realised as I just set off down the road) and my dive weights once (had to miss the diving part of a day on the water).

CHECKLISTS!

Back from a recent 12 day trip, everything packed, all the important stuff and not so important stuff checked and rechecked.

Fly in set camp, now time for a brew, hmmm...

Don,t recall packing a lighter or matches.

Half day trek over hill to next hut, see what they got, yes box of matches from resident, swapped for home preserved peaches... excellent swap.

Its the little things, that really count.

Mate turned up once from the north island all set for a few weeks hunting over the roar , however he somehow left the bolt for his rifle behind !!

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Originally Posted by MB

I want to hear from people who have forgotten or lost their knives. What do you do if you shoot an animal? Teeth, sharp rock? :D

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Stomp an empty case and use the neck.

About a month or so ago I set off after work for a quick fly camp overnighter on the Ruahine tops. First issue was the blisters that my not quite new boots gave me in the first hour of hiking. Cut that one off at the pass by going barefoot to the tops, which believe it or not was actually quite pleasant.... Issue two revealed itself at the top, when I found my 2litre water bottle had transferred 1.5litres into my sleeping bag. Not only was my down bag worth nothing to me, but I had only enough water to make dinner, and a quick splash to quench my thirst.

Never again will I trust a milk bottle lid!

Post lockdown south island trip in my hast forgot my tent luckily I had my bivy bag was bloody cold none the less. 2016 able lake tahr ballot mate had purchased a new rem 700 in 7mm mag from Napier a cobbler on the trip from wairoa picked it up and bought it down to us we went to site it in as soon as we got their only to realise the silly bloody rem extractor was bend and wouldn't clip over the shell and chamber a round luckily we had 3 other functioning rifles. Same trip my tent leaked like a dive on the first night and luckily we had a spare gear tent

Not pre hunt but...

Mid feb, stinking hot. Left truck at 2pm. 5hrs later in a sweet soaked singlet & shorts above the Bush line traversing thru patches of scree and tussock.

Two shots ring out from below in the bush, I stop look about for a few minutes and then turn and again head uphill. Just in time to see the neck and back of a spooked deer cross the ridge above me.

Throw off the backpack in the middle of a scree patch and run left to see if i can get a shot on the deer. Buggered if i know where it went?

Do you think i could find my backpack.....not in the middle of any scree patch anywhere.

Heart rate got up a bit, took me a nervous and stressful hour to find it. Was starting to get a bit chilli too, no extra clothes, no head torch, no nothing. (all in the backpack)

It had rolled to the bottom of the scree patch and was nestled against the tussock.

I was very very relieved when I saw it I tell you !!!

NEVER will I do that again [emoji106]









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I managed to have a frustrating prehunt stuff up recently. Heading down to hunt, after an hour or so drive in the mates ute from where we met up, we pulled over on the farm we had access to get across to a DOC block. Sighted a mob of goats as we were beginning to get our stuff out of the truck, so quickly go to get my new Tikka, keen to blood it for the first time. Reach into my rifle bag and find that my bolt had come out of my rifle bag and stayed behind in my car, an hour away. Classic simple, easily avoidable mistake! Definitely a lesson that I will remember, double checking gear in between vehicle change overs.