doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com In The Big Woods

Not really hunting but we(my recon team) were in the canopy trying to reach our LZ for extraction when we discovered we no longer on the map. We were getting a bit concerned when the point man started sputtering (he was German and we couldn't always understand him when he got excited). He had nearly stepped on a very large python that was ,fortunately, gorged on something large,and didn't want to fight us either.We decided to go back the other way and,luckily, that put us back on the map and on our way to the LZ.

Try getting lost in a cattail marsh. I spent three hours in waders looking for my boat in a cattail marsh after I downed a duck and did not have a dog. The cattails were about 3-4 feet above my head and the cattails were floating so when you broke through getting back up on the matt was difficult to say the least. I knew I was within 100 yards of the skiff but in which direction?? Never get lost in a cattail marsh with neopreme waders on unless you want to loose some weight.

A big river swamp, like the Savannah River here, very close to my farm, is about as grey and featureless a place as I can imagine when a fog or drizzly rain rolls in. Spanish moss, tree trunks, the ground and the sky are all the same color. A snowstorm in the mountains must be a lot the same. Been turned around in the swamp a few times following someone else, but always found my way in an hour or so. "All sloughs lead to the river", is a saying that was drilled into me from an early age.

In my older age I can appreciate the words of an old swamper who told me once, "You ain't lost if you don't care where you are". How true.

Daryl's mention of Ak reminds me of "one of those stories." I wasn't hunting uplands, but instead moose with a couple of friends on the Aniak river.

A small sandbar had some fresh moose tracks, so I decided to see where they led. Unfortunately, they led into a fairly heavy birch and white spruce thicket. By the time I gave up or lost the moose tracks, I was thoroughly turned around! I'd hear the river in one direction and head that way, only to hear it, or so I thought, off in another direction. This went on for way too long. It was getting dark, and I was seeing a fair amount of bear tracks back in the woods, hence I was getting a bit worried. Finely, I heard the faint sound of an outboard motor and took off in the direction of the sound. I finally stumbled out to the bank of the Aniak a short while before darkness set in.

My friends were running the river looking for me and were also a bit worried, and relieved when they spotted me.

Of course, they didn't want to fire off any shots, in hope that I would hear them and possibly spook any moose that might be in the near vacinity!

It doesn't take big woods to get "lost." I wasn't a half-mile from home, coming on dark with big snowflakes coming down. I knew there was a logging road to my right and when I didn't make the intercept I kept veering harder to the right. Imagine my surprise when I saw fresh tracks and realized they were mine. I had made a complete circle. Poor light and snow can make a fool.

Similar to Daryl's story...hunting deer in the Black Hills of South Dakota where I was born and raised and have hunted all my life.

Left the pickup a few miles south of Rockerville and started out in a heavy snow to make a big circle back to the truck. A little before noon thought I should be getting back close to where I had started from and soon recognized the little hill my truck should be parked below.

I hope to never have that sinking feeling in the stomach again when I topped the hill and saw the town of Rockerville directly below. The 3-mile walk back down the road to my truck gave time for reflection on hunting in conditions where snow blocks the sun and other landmarks even in territory you know.

In my twenties, I really suffered from happy feet. If I went a half hour without seeing a deer, I was off on another trek to see what was over the next hill. I saw a LOT of new country, and I'm sure I foolishly pushed a lot of deer into other hunters sights. A topo map and compass never let me down and always got me back.

One typically gray and cold Pennsylvania December day, I was hunting a new area and I was several miles back in from the road which ran E to W. I hadn't bothered with the topo too much being confident that walking due south would get me back to the road. It did... two hours after dark and after four hours of solid hoofing it and really beginning to doubt my compass. So much did I doubt it that I began always carrying a second compass in case I wanted to verify that it was correct.

That was all well and good for about five or six years. Then while I was prepping for deer hunting and getting out all of my gear, I set my two compasses out on the table. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that the better and more expensive of the two had flipped direction and now showed that south was north. I still wonder what I'd have done if I hadn't caught that until I was way back in on one of my little forays.

I'd hunted all over the US including some actual wilderness in ID, CA, and OR and never got lost or even close. But one day hunting grouse (alone, how much sense does that make?), in a state park in upstate NY, I hunted along for several hours and stopped to sneak up on a beaver dam to see if it contained any ducks. It didn't, but I then realized that it looked MIGHTY familiar. Looked around in the snow for tracks and sure enough there were some. Mine.

Wierd feeling; I'd walked in about a 2-mile circle, thinking I was going in a big arc back to the road where my car ws parked. This was on the Rensselaer Plateau in eastern NYS. It isn't flat or featureless, it is just nearly flat and the features are all the same. The streams up there don't really run in winter, they sort of seep in no particular direction. And it is heavily wooded, with occasional clearings that are old log landings, all almost identical. There is one promontory called "The Gipfel" but it isn't tall enough to see at any distance. Confusin' country. Fortunately I carry a compass.

I was a ranger with the National Park Service in the Everglades area from mid 70's til mid 80's. A hunter in his 70's did not return to camp Sunday nite from his deer stand. We started searching for him Monday morning. A helicopter found him dead around noon on Tuesday. He had taken all his clothes off, a sure sign of hypothermia. The autopsy said he'd been dead about 24 hours when he was found. It was October in South Florida; the temp at nite was in the mid 60's and quite warm during the day. The water was never over knee deep. Other than age he had no medical problems. Strangely, it turned out this wasn't unusual. Most people will give up and die in less than 2 days when lost, disoriented, and discouraged.