The things we do

[SPEMack618]

I've notice, that as a group, hunters can have some peculiar habits they develop and little quirks they pick up along the way.

For instance, this past sunay afternoon, I was packing away my duck hunting stuff as I watched the Falcons. Hosed off my waders, unloaded all the shells from my vet and whatnot and then I did two things that struck me as odd, but yet comforting.

I fired my shotgun three times and managed to find one shell hull before it sank. It went into my jacket pocket. I found it when I was hanging up my jacket and an decided to leae it there until next season.

And then, I pulled my shotgun out of it's gun case and cleared it. As I was putting it back in the bag, I noticed that there was a fair amount of caked on dirt on the stock from where I had used it as an impromptu walking stick getting out of the river. That too will stay on the gun until next time.

Anybody else got similar stories? Or am obsessing over the details because of an unsucessful hunt?

[12GaugeShuggoth]

I obsessively look for spent shells when in the field/woods. I'll walk around in a circle over and over until I finally find it. I just don't like to leave them sitting on the ground. Got a box of nothing but hunting trash that I put them in.

A couple years ago I dropped an 8 pointer with a Winchester Silver Tip slug, and recovered the extremely mushroomed jacket from the hide on the opposite side of the deer, the core separated and kept on going I guess. Anyway, that jagged chunk of metal hangs from my neck now whenever I've got a shotgun out with me. I very briefly considered doing something similar after I made my first bow kill, but quickly though better about it.

While cleaning the first deer of the year, we always stick a bunch of fat trimmings on the tree we hang them from as a good luck charm. Everyone has to leave a nice bloody hand print on the tree as well.