WORST hunting experience ever?

TMS said:

Day 1, we stalk a herd of sable, we get up to a beautiful bull about 70 yards from us, standing frontal, tell client not to shoot, wait for sable to turn, bang....he just shoots and misses, before the sable turns, we keep following the herd, we find the bull about 20 yards to the left of the herd, show him the bull, while I am looking through my binoculars, he just shoots into the middle of the herd, hits a baby sable, I just about blow my nut.

at supper he gets drunk, takes his chair and goes and sits at the river, and calls his "call girl" on his sate phone, I politely ask him to please move back from the water, tells me to @#$# off, and moves onto the edge. Says he won't hunt again, his 3 mates tell me just ignore him.

we shoot 2 buffalo the next day, so now he says he wants to hunt again, but refuses to hunt with me,

Day 3 I go with him and another ph, find herd of buff at waterhole in swamp, I am standing behind them, spot big bull, ph shows him, put his gun on the sticks, I can see he's not aiming at the bull, stop him, ph again explains the right bull, now the buff know we there, noses in the air, I move to his left as we only about 30 yards from the buff, he shoots the big bull takes off....there lies a dead buffalo calf.....ph can't believe it...

Client calls me and the ph @#$$@$$%#@$$#@ and tells me he is worth 52 million $$, by now I have lost my sense of humor and tell him he's the biggest @#$# and his 52mil$$$ will help him @#$# all if I decided to leave him there in the swamp and I promise I was close.

He shoots a suni, runs up to the suni, pulls out his dagger and starts stabbing it to pieces, I tell him to stop, replies..I pay the @#$#@@ taxidermist, he can fix it..

Cherry on the top.....we sitting on the sand bank, watching hippo, they slowly drifting towards us, show him the bull, he shoots, hits the wrong hippo in the back of the spine, hippo swirling in the water, I tell him to shoot again, he refuses, by now the hippo is drifting past us, I am carrying 458wm open sights, he doesn't shoot, I had to get on the dugout with 2 polers and follow the hippo, hippo goes under comes up on our left then under us, this goes on for awhile, I eventually get a shot, hit the hippo in the brain and it sinks. A hippo can take about 3 hours before it bloats and comes to the surface. After an hour i start getting the usual abuse......6 hours later the hippo starts to float, we get rained on you name it...

We eventually get the hippo onto the bank, he walks up to the hippo looks at it and says to me, why did you @#$%#@ shoot my hippo in the arse.....

If I had to type everything else that happened on that safari, I would be here all day......it was a nightmare, I have posted a pic of his hippo, my expression explains it all...

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I have all the respect in the world for you hard working PH's. Dealing with these butthead clients has to be the worst. That guy should take some of his 52 million and buy a decent attitude for himself.

@Brent in Az , would cost him more than 52mil to get a decent attitude, the butt of my rifle would have worked better.

blackdog001blackdog001 said:

............. The "guide" gave us each a number and said when I call your number, shoot. Ah . . . we did not pull the trigger that day. ..............

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I'd have told that Outfitter his number was up!

TMS said:

...
If I had to type everything else that happened on that safari, I would be here all day......it was a nightmare, I have posted a pic of his hippo, my expression explains it all...

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Without the picture, I might have thought this was another work of Elephant hunting fiction.

@BRICKBURN , glad to see you woke up with a personality this morning....

Brown Bear hunt out of Haines Alaska, with a well known guide that was supposed to be great... well he was back in his sleeping bag at spike camp by 9:30am every day,
claiming that the bear activity was only early morning and late afternoon, he would not glass for bears during the day. he tried to get me to shoot a 7' bear that he claimed was 8'. It would have passed for a small interior grizzly so I let it go and that was the only male bear I saw in 10 days! He said it was slow because it was getting late in the fall and the fish were gone but when I booked the hunt he said spring and fall were both good and there were always plenty of bears around?? to top it off I had a group of 4 big wolves (2- jet black males) howling at 60 yards in front of my tent in the middle of the day! I got some awesome video but despite having a tag in pocket the outfitter warned me that a shot could alert any bears in the area to our presence and would ruin the hunt. I am still kicking myself to this day!

I feel sorry for the client of HuntHard that had his elephant hunt ruined! Time and money gone.

TMS said:

at supper he gets drunk, takes his chair and goes and sits at the river, and calls his "call girl" on his sate phone, I politely ask him to please move back from the water, tells me to @#$# off, and moves onto the edge.

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now where is a croc when you need one..........

spike.t said:

now where is a croc when you need one..........

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Oops....

"Anyone else hear that splashing and screaming last night?........Me neither"

The Croc would probably spit out that sourpuss

At least the crocs food would have been well marinated.

TMS said:

At least the crocs food would have been well marinated.

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!!

Anyone else with a nightmare to share?

Worst for me was hunting with a friend on public land where we split to go either side of a small ridge and probably only had a 100yds between us when I heard a shot. I decided to carry on for a few more minutes as he had sometimes been known to miss and there was an outside chance that an animal may come over the ridge in my direction. After about 10 minutes I decided that he must have connected so started to go back round the end of the ridge to help him with the expected carry out when I met him coming toward me. He asked where my deer was and I asked him about his. It turned out neither of us had shot so there was a poacher somewhere on the block between us and goodness only knows where he (or she) was shooting so we left and I havent hunted public land again. Risking getting shot is not my idea of hunting so I am fortunate in having access to private properties to hunt, one with over 3000 acres where there are fallow and red deer and 25000 acres for goat and fallow deer although the deer there are much harder to get onto.

This story doesn't fall under the worst hunting experience, but could be classified as, a miserable experience, and a lesson learned.

In 2009, the Arizona Game & Fish Dept, offered some late November archery elk hunts in select units. I happened to draw one of the 25 tags available for unit 27. I have hunted unit 27 since my High School days of the late 70's.

I was able to hunt 9 days of the 14 day hunt.

My camp was located at Strayhorse campground below the Rim. I had the place to myself. On the 7th day of the hunt, I took the highline trail west of camp. I was tired from all the hunting miles ofvthe previous days, and had planned to be back at camp for lunch. However, my exploratory nature, got the best of me that day.

After a 1.5 mile hike on the trail, I decided to drop down the Canyon where there was a water tank about 2 miles down. I sat about 100 yards from the tank to have lunch. The only animals that came in were some Coues Whitetail.

Instead of doing the smart thing, and going back to camp, I hiked the remaining 3 miles to where the canyon met East Eagle creek.

When I got to the bottom of the Canyon, I saw the Forest service sign nailed to the tree.

Highway 191-------------------> 5 miles.

Have you ever had that sinking feeling in your stomach?

It was unreasonably warm. I was out of water. I had developed the worst case of Monkey butt you could ever imagine.

Every step, was agony. It felt like someone had taken 40 grit sandpaper to my backside.

5 more miles? .......shit!

It was starting to get dark soon. I wad sorely tempted to pull out my space blanket from my pack, and curl up under a bush for the night.

Instead, I decided to man up, and make the hike. I wish there had been a snowbank to plop my rear end in. It was on fire..

About 2 hours after dark I reached the highway. Another 2.5 miles of uphill walking to camp.

I was in major pain, and totally spent. I remembered, that a guy I know had a camp just up the road, He worked for an outfitter, and they had a satellite camp by the highway. I managed to limp my way up there, only to find he wasn't there, however, one of his hunters was, and he graciously agreed to drive me up to my camp. I don't know if I could have made it walking.

After a painful shower in my travel trailer, I collapsed from exhaustion in my bed, and slept like a dead man.

I normally carry close to a gallon of water. But I only loaded my pack with enough for a morming hunt. My curious nature of " Whats over the next hill"?, tends to get the better of me sometimes.

This wasn't the first time.

My worst hunting experience has nothing to do with a dishonest or lazy outfitter. I've only been on three guided hunts in my life, two of which were with sponsors here on AH (Texas and the Eastern Cape of RSA) and one with a very respected outfitter in Namibia. Nope, my bad, bad day was all on me.

In 2012 my brother was drawn for mule deer close to where I live. He was going to show up for the second weekend of the season. That Friday, the morning started out beautiful with no snow on the ground, but by 1pm it started coming down very hard. By the time I got off work that day it was really starting to pile up and the wind was starting to blow, but I wanted to rip out to the area I wanted to take him hunting and see if I could spot any good bucks. When I was nearly there, he texted me to tell me he couldn't make it down. I said OK and never told him I was headed to the hunting area. I had never thought to tell anyone where I was going as I was living alone at the time. For some reason, I decided to keep going. The land that I wanted to hunt is owned by a friend of mine, but to get to it I had to leave the road and drive a mile down a trail and then another mile across a two-track trail. By now it was getting dark and pretty much turning into a blizzard and it struck me how stupid I was to be out there. It's very rugged. I decided to try turning around instead of backing out and had to go down a hill to make the turn. Then I couldn't get back up even in 4 wheel drive. So I tried hitting the hills with more speed and I just couldn't get a good enough grip on the snow. The snow was blowing up over my windshield, preventing me from seeing and pretty soon I ended up putting the driver side of my truck in some water and I am stuck.

Now it is dark and a blizzard is blowing like crazy. Nobody knows I'm out here. My phone battery is almost dead. Weigh the options of walking out or spending the night in the truck. Decide to walk. An hour later I arrive back at me truck. Walked in a circle! Again decide to keep walking. This time I just head for a fence to follow it until I know exactly where I am before I use my phone. By now the snow in the low areas is past my knees and I'm tripping over dead trees that are buried under the snow. I'm also starting to get muscle cramps in my hamstrings. At one point I came to a big slough that straddled the fenceline. It was a long way to walk around so I decided to cross on the ice. Got 40 yards out and broke through to my thighs. Back out and keep walking now with water in my boots and frozen pants. Finally called a buddy for help and managed to get out to the road and waited for him and his Dad to come. After four hours of walking, they found me and got me home.

That was the only time in my hunting career that I was afraid for my own life. Learned a lot of lessons the hard way that night.

One of my worst/toughest hunts was when I was 17. Last day of duck season in Id. Jan and it dropped to -30 the night before. Last day so you gotta try right. It warmed up to about -20 when my cousin and I left the house. About 3/4 mile walk from home 3 ducks flew by and I got one one of them. He landed in a frozen back eddy on the river..... Which of course had a lot of slush ice in it. It appeared to me that the ducks head had punched through the ice so I was Leary of going out to retrieve him. I looked for a long stick. Nothing. I eventually got too far out on the ice and went through to my chest. The hip boot I had on were way too short. I clambered out of the water and my cousin thought it was rather funny.... I took off the hip boots in the snow and drained the water out. Then took off my socks and wrung them out the best I could. The hip boots were frozen by the time I put them back on.
Then I found a long enough branch and got the duck. Then the long COLD walk home. Got home and changed clothes. Then went back out duck hunting, because well, it was the last day...
Bruce

I feel so fortunate. All of my bad hunt luck has been 100% my fault.