Author Topic: The unluckiest animal. (Read 7874 times)

Brock Samson · « **on:** December 06, 2007, 03:35:37 PM »

Let's hear some stories about unlucky animals. We always see nature portrayed as perfect and graceful, but I've seen birds fly into immovable objects, deer trip and fall on their faces, and MY vote for the unluckiest animal; "SPLAT, the doofus groundhog."

Splat probably thought he had it made. He was located in a nice soybean field, off a remote gravel road, close enough to town that people didn't usually shoot there. He became so complacent that cars driving by didn't worry him. Even cars stopping didn't worry him. One day, a car stopped at the roadside, and the occupants looked at Splat. One of them was my brother-in-law. He was armed with an AMT .45 ACP Backup, which is a relatively small defense pistol, with a hellacious trigger pull, and nothing but a groove on the slide for a "sight". Splat obviously knew what kind of shot my brother-in-law was, and felt not the least bit threatened. My brother-in-law's friend kept goading him to shoot the arrogant groundhog, and eventually, though he had no hope of hitting him, he looked around for witnesses, opened the door, took quick "aim", and pulled the trigger. My brother-in-law didn't know that the gun I'd just sold him was loaded with Glaser safety slugs, and he attributed the surprised look on Splat's face to the fact that he's actually HIT him! In fact, I believe poor Splat's eyes were bulging out from having received a couple hundred foot-pounds of energy into an 8 pound body, from a guy who can't hit a deer with a scoped rifle!

Although the 15 yard distance was no overall varmint-shooting record, it probably sets the record for shots made with double action .45's with no sights!

And the record for "Unluckiest Groundhog".

Next?

IOWA DON · « **Reply #1 on:** December 07, 2007, 03:05:37 AM »

For me it was Ricochet Rooster. A bunch of pheasants were in an a cattle pen behind a barn in an abandoned farmyard, no cattle, just pheasants. I shot at the head of a rooster with my pellet rifle. There were stems of some bushes in the way, but I hoped to shoot between them. My buddy congratulated me on making a good shot when a rooster started flopping around with a shot through the brain. That was not the pheasant I was shooting at. Apparently my pellet struck a weed and deflected, and hit the unlucky pheasant several feet away from the one I was aiming at. What's the chance?

GregP42 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 07, 2007, 05:30:43 AM »

I believe I know the most unlucky groundhog in the world! Many many years ago, about 1980-82 time frame, I was out shooting groundhogs with my dad, he was using his 98 Mauser in 30-06, and I was using my 96 Mauser in 7x57, (Yes we were bored and wanted to see what happened.) Anyway, we were out riding around the farm and had shot several groundhogs when this one stood up at the edge of a rock ledge about 200 yards away, dad said I couldn't hit it so I took careful aim and touched it off. Boom, and down went the groundhog, so we ride over that way to gather him up and when we get there he is dead as 3 oclock, and there isn't a bullet hole or any blood on him anywhere! Best we can figure out is A) I scared him to death, or B) I hit the rock he was sitting on and that killed him. But I would have to say he was the most unlucky one I know of.

Greg

Graybeard · « **Reply #3 on:** December 07, 2007, 06:15:47 AM »

Many moons ago as a young lad perhaps still in the single digits for age I used to make my own bows and arrows. The wood for the bow was most often privet hedge and it was not unusual for my arrows to be also. They were free and worked reasonably well.

I often used these to attempt shots at birds when I wanted to increase the challenge over my Daisy bb gun. One day I slipped up on some pigeons that were feeding in a field near my house. I can't recall the distance I got to them but am sure it exceeded 25 yards and could have been as much as fifty yards. I decided that was as close as I was gonna get without them spooking and flying so released a home made arrow from my home made bow. At the shot the pigeons took flight and one ran rat smack into that arrow about two feet above the ground. It centered that pigeon just perfectly.

No way did I tell my hunting partner and friend that it was anything but a carefully planned shot that went right even tho it was in reality just pure blind luck good for me and bad for the pigeon. That was one unlucky pigeon that day.

zasxcd · « **Reply #4 on:** December 07, 2007, 11:57:41 AM »

Back in the early 80's I used to plink in the back yard with a scope mounted Remington 580 (I sure wish I had that gun back!!) using .22 CB caps. I always made sure I had a good backstop, usually the dirt on the other side of the creek that went through. A grackle flew into the poplar tree on the bank of the creek, maybe 75-80 yards away. It just happened to alight on a branch directly in line with the trunk of the tree, about 30 feet up, on my side. More to scare it than to hit it, I aimed about 3 feet over it and carefully squeezed off the shot. I was almost a surprised as the bird eas when it fell dead at the base of the tree. I walked over and checked it, and yep, dead center through the wing and then into the breast.

Graybeard · « **Reply #5 on:** December 07, 2007, 12:24:50 PM »

Now THAT reminds me of another unlucky bird story.

Back in the days of my youth again I was at the time using a Crossman .22 caliber pellet rifle. Up on the school ground above where I'd taken the pigeon was one of those tall metal high voltage power line towers that must have been 100' tall and the hill it was on stood another 50'-60' above the area below. I was at my house perhaps 150 yards or so away from that tower.

One day it was just quite literally covered with Starlings must have been hundreds of them taking up about every open space on it. I aimed at the bird sitting up top in the middle where a metal spike jutted above the main structure of the tower. Another bird well down below that one and all the way out to the outside of the tower fell dead at the shot. One more time I looked the hero for my excellent shooting when it fact it was pure blind luck. That bird was 20' or more from the spot I was aiming at. But with that many there I figured my chances of hitting one might not be so bad.

Again that day that was one mighty unlucky bird. He was just in the wrong place at the right time.

tn_junk · « **Reply #6 on:** December 07, 2007, 12:28:24 PM »

My grandmothers favorite hen "Matilda".
30 (maybe 50) yard shot with a Red Ryder BB gun. Dead center brain shot. Did it on a dare from a friend 'bout 40 years or so ago. Got a serious butt whipping for it.

alan

Ray Ford · « **Reply #7 on:** December 07, 2007, 02:52:42 PM »

A few years ago, my wife's niece was standing beside the north wheat field on our place in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. It was deer season, and she was in possession of her dad's 30.30. Suddenly, a group of deer ran across the wheat field. She threw the gun to her shoulder and lobbed one toward the group--which group was somewhere around 100 yards away. A young buck dropped in his tracks with a bullet in his brain. My son, her cousin, commented, "That had to be the unluckiest buck to ever cross the wheat field!"

IOWA DON · « **Reply #8 on:** December 08, 2007, 09:43:29 AM »

I got to thinking about a coyote my dad's next door neighbor shot off the his tractor when disking a field. He had a .22 pump and said he only had some very old .22 shorts. The coyote was what he thought was at least 200 yards away. The first one or two cartridges failed to fire and when one kicked up dust far short of the coyote he held about 6 feet over it and that bullet hit it in the neck killing it. He knew where the coyotes den was so he and my dad dug up the pups and killed them for the bounty, $2.50 per coyote, and had a joint family picnic with the proceeds. I was about 8 years old at the time and the coyotes were very young. I wanted to keep one to try to raise it as a dog, but they said it would never become tame.

Roudy · « **Reply #9 on:** December 09, 2007, 07:00:24 AM »

About ten years ago my 6 year old grandson and I were sitting on our back deck and he was 'practicing' with his Red Ryder BB gun. A small bird landed in the driveway about 40 feet away, My grandson said, "Grandpa, can I shoot at that bird". I was confident that the bird was in no danger and I said, "Sure, go ahead."

He shot, bird died instantly with a BB in the eye. Grandson cried because he had killed the bird and said through his sobs, "Grandpa, I didn't know I was that good!"

Roudy

NONYA · « **Reply #10 on:** December 09, 2007, 08:27:12 AM »

About 5 years ago me and my Dad were trying to stalk up on a herd of doe antelope in open stuble fields,after a couple hours we could only get within about 800 yards of the spooky herd.We decided to leave this area and try another but first my Dad decides hes going to try a shot at the lead doe,AKA unluckiest doe antelope in the world,he touches one off and I see the bullet stike dirt 100 yards short,then 50 yards short,then WHACK,knocks a leg off right at the knee and she piles up 50 yards away,thats right the bullet bounced TWICE before it hit her.

six_gunz · « **Reply #11 on:** December 09, 2007, 08:50:09 AM »

Mine would be a rabbit. While out small game hunting with my brother, cousin, and my dad in Illinois when I was about 17 or 18 we had been out and hadn't had much luck seeing anything that day. On the way back to the truck we took the railroad tracks back and when we got close to where we were parked there was a company close by with a chain link fence. I heard a rattling noise, we must have jumped the rabbit out of hiding when walking by, it had got scared and ran straight into the fence and somehow tangled itself up and was stuck. I decided at that close of range with a 12 ga. I better make a head shot so I don't make hamburger out of it. Needless to say, that rabbit lost his head that day.

six_gunz · « **Reply #12 on:** December 09, 2007, 09:00:33 AM »

Quote from: Roudy on December 09, 2007, 07:00:24 AM

About ten years ago my 6 year old grandson and I were sitting on our back deck and he was 'practicing' with his Red Ryder BB gun. A small bird landed in the driveway about 40 feet away, My grandson said, "Grandpa, can I shoot at that bird". I was confident that the bird was in no danger and I said, "Sure, go ahead."

He shot, bird died instantly with a BB in the eye. Grandson cried because he had killed the bird and said through his sobs, "Grandpa, I didn't know I was that good!"

Roudy

I was about 10 and me and my brother were out shooting our Red Ryder's, I was just walking under a tree with the bb gun pointed up towards the sky resting on my shoulder when for some reason I decided to pull the trigger. I heard some crashing through the limbs and leaves and down came a bird spiraling down. I had shot and killed it without even trying or even wanting to. I felt pretty bad after that (lesson learned on knowing what I'm shooting at), my dad always raised me with the "If you're not going to eat it then don't kill it" theory.

Ray Ford · « **Reply #13 on:** December 09, 2007, 10:15:30 AM »

Quote from: NONYA on December 09, 2007, 08:27:12 AM

About 5 years ago me and my Dad were trying to stalk up on a herd of doe antelope in open stuble fields,after a couple hours we could only get within about 800 yards of the spooky herd.We decided to leave this area and try another but first my Dad decides hes going to try a shot at the lead doe,AKA unluckiest doe antelope in the world,he touches one off and I see the bullet stike dirt 100 yards short,then 50 yards short,then WHACK,knocks a leg off right at the knee and she piles up 50 yards away,thats right the bullet bounced TWICE before it hit her.

Speaking of bouncing, or skipping, bullets, a few years ago, I had a Thoroughbred mare that was somewhat crippled. A kid with a .22 came on to my place and to my pond. I happened by the place and saw him hightailin' it across the pasture away from there. I really didn't think anything about it, but I afterwards found the mare dead--down in the pond near its edge. I pulled her out and found a bullet hole in the front of her left shoulder. I reconstructed what could have happened: The kid shot at the water. The bullet skipped as they will do and hit the mare. Being already crippled, she fell into the water and drowned.

I didn't think that he shot her deliberately. If he had, he probably would hit her in a different spot.

If he had came to me and told me what had happened, I might have been able to pull her from the pond and save her. The wound would probably have not been fatal. After exhausting herself trying to get up, I am sure, she drowned.

Brock Samson · « **Reply #14 on:** December 09, 2007, 06:38:30 PM »

Roudy, that is a sweet story. God bless your grandson.

Phoneman · « **Reply #15 on:** December 10, 2007, 04:35:59 AM »

I came across a deer carcass 2 years ago. The spike buck had run up a hill so fast it poked it's head through 2 strands of barbed wire and flipped. Pinned itself upside down with it's neck twisted in the barbed wire.

Phoneman · « **Reply #16 on:** December 10, 2007, 04:44:53 AM »

Another one.

I used to raise Bantam chickens. I had a set of roosters that always teamed up together to raise a little @#$%. One day rooster number one went after my daughter so he had a severe case of lead poisoning later that day. rooster number 2 was pretty good for about a week after that. But one day i was walking across my yard and i felt something hit the back of my leg. Turned around and this rooster was running away from me. Got about 30 ft. and crowed at me. I turned around and went towards a tree to pick up a soft ball the kids had left out. When i got to the softball the little SOB got me in the back of the leg again. When I turned around with the softball in hand he was 20 ft. and running. I let loose with a sidearm throw that hit him square in the body. Killed the thing as soon as it hit him. Not even a twitch. I don't think I could do that again no matter how many times I tried. I'm lucky to make a tissue in a waste basket at 5 feet.

Brock Samson · « **Reply #17 on:** December 10, 2007, 11:35:08 AM »

Instinct shooting, baby!

And they say it doesn't exist....

shooter · « **Reply #18 on:** December 10, 2007, 09:12:13 PM »

Mine was back in 1978 when i was about 19 yrs old.My girl and i were driving out to this deserted road surrounded by farm fields and woods on a sunny afternoon.She was driving and i made her stop the car on the dirt road because about 30 yrds ahead was a cock pheasant crossing the road.Well i got out of her car ,grabbed a golfball sized rock and started walking towards the rooster which flushed.Well ,i threw a sidearm pitch and knocked it out of the sky dead.The girlfriend started crying and screaming at me asking me why i did such a thing.All i could say was "i didnt think i'd hit it" .This coming from a kid who literally couldnt hit a car parked at that distance with a rock.
Shooter
Another one comes to mind when i was a kid i shot a barn swallow out of the air with a red rider bb gun.It was swooping down on this lake for bugs and i just announced to my brother " give me the gun,im going to shoot that bird out of the air"Well ,the bird ran into my BB and proceeded to make a crash landing in the lake dead.All my brother could do was shake his head.

H666 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 17, 2007, 03:12:18 AM »

Couple of years ago I was hunting mink near a river by my home, when I saw a big white one (free-jack from a cage) tearing up the earth from under a rock and running straight away. I had my brother's trusty 11-87 with me and poured some 7 shells after it and not a single one hit. I loaded the gun again and ran after it. Not tracking down the fastest of animals I quickly gained ground and let a rain of hail and fire emerge on the animal. Still no harm. I chased the thing up to a road by the river and emptied my gun at it, but all for naught. Now I'm out of ammo and the mink stands in the middle of the road, just in order to grin and flip me the finger. Then, just before he runs of again, he gets run over by a bus......

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #20 on:** December 17, 2007, 04:14:02 AM »

while deer hunting years ago i had gotten a deer and could not shoot another , only 6 of us were hunting so i loaded for turkey and took a stand . had made up my mind i was not shooting another deer . well 8 does and a spike come out right on top of me ! so i yelled and waved my hands to run them to the next stand . they came at me instead of running the other way ? as they jumped a barbed wire fence one doe got her head caught , she didn't move as i got the wire off then i saw why - both front legs were broken ! now that's unlucky ! ( and yes i shot her ! )

IOWA DON · « **Reply #21 on:** December 17, 2007, 05:57:51 AM »

I remembered a couple more unlucky animals. My buddy and I saw a pheasant on the road. (Iowa allows road hunting.) It ran into the ditch on the passenger side and my buddy got out, flushed and hit it, breaking a wing so it couldn't fly, but it could still run. I was out of the vehicle on the drivers side and his pheasant had made it over to the picked bean field on my side of the road. Suddenly a rooster flushed on my side and I killed it with maybe a 15 yard shot. However, my buddy's rooster was on the ground running another 15 yards away or so almost directly behind the my rooster. I got him with the same shot, sort of an accidental shooting. Another time a buddy hit a squirrel as it was jumping from one tree to another, with a .22 revolver! He was not an accomplished pistol shot and it was borrowed from a friend of his. One time I shot at a quail at very close range and it went into at least three pieces, wings went separate ways from the body. The breast was in perfect condition, without a piece of shot in it. Aparently I had missed with the shot charge, but the wad had hit it.

Brock Samson · « **Reply #22 on:** December 19, 2007, 05:48:35 AM »

Okay, here's a good one, though everybody has probably gotten this in their email by now...

http://www.break.com/index/deer-caught-in-swing-set.html

It's a buck with its antlers stuck in a rope swing.

Tom W. · « **Reply #23 on:** December 22, 2007, 05:06:14 PM »

I was working in a bauxite plant, removing oversizes clods from a conveyor belt before they went into a huge kiln to get dried and loaded onto boxcars. A dove landed on a powerline that was close by, and I threw about four clods at the bird until the fifth one hit and killed it. I don't know who was more surprised, my co-workers, me, or the dove!

IOWA DON · « **Reply #24 on:** December 23, 2007, 10:22:56 AM »

When I was about 16 years old there was a dove sitting in a branch of a tree (probably 10 or 15 yards away) and I decided to shoot it with my 12-ga shotgun. However, it did not seem sporting to sitting bird with a shotgun. I was standing along a recently plowed field, so I picked up a dirt clod and threw it at the dove, not intending to hit it, but just to make it fly. My dirt clod hit it and it flew, but I missed it with the shotgun.

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #25 on:** December 26, 2007, 08:40:32 AM »

i hit a rabbit in the head with a hatchet , it was over 40 years ago !
not skill the hatchet bounced off the ground twice before hitting the rabbit !
had almost forgot about it !

IOWA DON · « **Reply #26 on:** December 26, 2007, 02:27:06 PM »

Note that I never saw this, but my dad told me about how my grandfather regularly killed rabbits. Back in the old days when they picked corn by hand, they would scare up a rabbit. When the rabbit would stop and look back, my grandfather would have an ear of corn in his hand and with an accurate throw of his left hand often kill the rabbit. When I was very young I remember a hawk getting a young chicken in our farm yard and flying off with it. My grandfather was there and picked up a rock or dirt clod and threw it at the hawk. He did not hit it, but his aim was close enough that the hawk dropped the young chicken. He was about 75 years old at the time.

Phoneman · « **Reply #27 on:** December 28, 2007, 01:19:14 AM »

I was out walking in the woods I rabbit hunted in when I was about 11 with a brand new ruger single six. I kicked up a rabbit, drew the pistol from its holster and shot it on the run from the hip. Boy I was on top of the world. I thought I ranked up there with Clint Eastwood. Haven't shot that gun in over 12 years now. I think I will get it out this weekend and shoot some paper with it.

jschance · « **Reply #28 on:** January 02, 2008, 09:32:09 AM »

One time a friend an myself were out rabbit hunting. He was armed with a bolt action 12 gauge (Mossburg, I think), long barrel, full choke. A rabbit flushed out from under our feet, he started to shoulder the gun but got his finger on the trigger first and the gun went off somewhere between his waist and shoulder. The full choke pattern caught the rabbit probably 8-10 foot from his feet and made a nice Jackson Pollock painting on the snow.

Another time, back in college. I kept a Wrist Rocket slingshot in my dorm room and a supply of rocks picked up from the landscaping. One afternoon I came back from class and noticed a starling in the tree across the yard from my 4th floor room. I opened up the window and let fly a rock from my slingshot. I watched the shot going wide when suddenly it hooked and smacked the bird right on the beak, killing it right where it sat.

Ray Ford · « **Reply #29 on:** January 03, 2008, 06:18:08 AM »

Your Wrist Rocket story reminded me of an experience indoors.

I was a kid--7 or 8 or 9 maybe. Two of my older sisters were on one of our beds--we had more beds than chairs in our house--with their backs up against the headboard. One was reading the paper and eating an apple. The other was similarly engaged. I was sitting on the lower end of the bed fooling with my beany/ie flip. (A beany/ie flip predates the Wrist Rocket and was oftentimes incorrectly called a slingshot and oftentimes called another name left over from a more racially insensitive time in our history. To make a beany/ie flip, one found a nice fork in a limb, cut it out, whittled off the bark, carved a grove around the two top ends, affixed two strips of stretchy rubber cut from an innertube, and made a pocket for a rock/marble, steely/ie ball from an old shoe tongue. A weapon fit for the king of your block. Such constructions would be impossible now: everyone knows that a kid with the necessary pocket knfie is bound to hurt himself or someone else.) Seeing a carton character on the back of the paper that my sister was reading, I, without thinking it through, let fly with my flip. The rock penetrated the picture, broke the lens of my sister's glasses, and impacted her eye.

At that moment, she was the unluckiest....

There was no serious and/or lasting injury--except to my sensibilities: I, scared and worried about my sister, started to cry and laid face down across a kitchen chair which happened to be in the bedroom. My widowed mother walked past--I'm sure that she was probably more concerned with how she was going to pay for my sister a new set of glasses than anything else--and slapped me once across the butt with a belt. That was one of only three or four times that I remember her ever hitting me--not to say that I didn't need hitting more than that. There was that time that she used the flat side of a butcher knife. I stayed awy from her in the kitchen after that.

BTW, I've known two men in my life that, as grown men, hunted with such a beany/ie flip, and both were deadly. One, when he took his big, long-legged Coyote and Jack Rabbit dogs out, always carried one in his hip pocket. If he saw a squirrel or a cottontail, it was supper.