It’s a real thing here in Texas, with quite a big portion of hunting land also being actively ranched. Don’t shoot the big deer that kinda make a “moooo” noise, okay?

 

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46 COMMENTS

  1. Same in Colorado. Cows, elk, moose nothing’s safe from the ‘tards during hunting season. Whatever season it is, people will shoot the wrong thing.

    Even trucks. Though, to be fair, I don’t think we have a season for those so that’s not a case of misidentification, it’s just plain stupid.

    • The biggest problem we have around here are the pseudo-hunters from the bigger cities treating deer season as another excuse to have a drunken vacation away from their wives.

      • Had that where I grew up.

        Walking in the woods was damned risky during rifle season. A disturbingly large percentage of people sat in blinds drunk and would shoot at anything that moved.

        Which sucked for the large number of people in poverty who didn’t have food if they didn’t fill their tags.

        Every year we had PSAs running on the radio to please not shoot electrical transformers on power poles in rural areas. And every year, people ignored it.

        From where I grew up: “Hey, you shot my cow!” always gets me.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q57eWfaZmM

        • Pretty much the same thing down here, unfortunately… 🙁

        • Some years ago a fellow at the company where I worked returned from his yearly hunting trip. I asked him if he had any luck. He said no, but he had a couple of good sound shots. I had never heard that term so inquired what a “sound shot” was. He replied he had heard a deer in the bushes a couple of times and had gotten off a couple of good sound shots but hadn’t scored a deer. Note to self: Never ever agree to go hunting with this azzhole.

    • I certainly am no bovine expert, but I don’t believe that is a cow. I believe it is either a bull or a steer. Of course, given the level of intelligence of most of the population, “cow” serves as a catch-all phrase for any four-legged beastie that goes “moo” although any dairy farmer will tell you there are three distinct copies of bovines. My money is on “bull” for the pictured bovine. On an organized long-distance bike ride which partly went through open range country I came upon two idiots who were on the ride and were discussing the cow standing in the shade of a tree about 50 yards away. A quick glance revealed that the “cow” was most definitely a “bull”. I so advised the two numb-skulls of that fact and my advice was to not approach the said animal and definitely not to touch it. I quickly left them because I did not want to be a witness to what was going to happen as they looked at me as if I were the one who was daft and not them.

    • Depending upon which expert you consult, estimates of the number of the male population who are color blind in the U.S ranges from 17% to 21%. A red/green color blind individual sees red as black and orange as gray. He also sees green as grey. He sees orange vests as grey against a gray background. The reason I know this is because a relative of mine is red/green color blind. While hunting in the CA Central Valley, early one morning on pheasant season opening day a group of six hunters wearing blaze orange crossed in front of us about 300 or more yards away. I mentioned to my relative to keep an eye on the line of hunters crossing in front of us because they probably would come back when they reached the property line. He replied “What line of hunters?” My reply was the line of hunters directly in front of us. He replied that he didn’t see anything. To me the orange blobs were plainly visible. So, using a tree as a reference point and fingers to indicate distance I suggested he look four fingers to the right of a large cottonwood. He said he saw movement but couldn’t see anything other than movement. That was a wake-up moment for me. Why am I wearing blaze orange when anywhere from 17 to 21% of the guys in the field can’t see it? On a long distance bike ride, pedaling down a straightaway that ended in a T-intersection with a heavy growth of dark green brush on the other side of the T, I noticed a large group of fellow bicyclists. I couldn’t distinguish how many riders were in the group but I could see it was a large group because I could see the movement of bare legs moving up and down. However, I could see the couple of riders who were wearing bright yellow jerseys and one person in a white jersey. They stood out nicely against the green foliage whereas the others in dark colors were nicely camouflaged. I recall that if one is bird hunting in some of the southern plantation hunting farms, the dictated color to wear in the field is pure white. While blaze orange is dictated by law in some jurisdictions, I always make sure I also have a bright yellow garment on while hunting. My relative tell which traffic light is on by the fact that he can distinguish the light shining and knows from position that red is on top and green is on bottom. Otherwise he can’t tell one color from another.

  3. don’t know if it’s true, but, I heard a story about a guy thinking about shooting a deer. Thought about how much work it would be to carry it back to his truck – so, he did not take the shot. On the way home, he shot a cow much closer to the road…

    • Turned out a guy I used to hunt with was a undiagnosed diabetic.

      On a deer hunt just before it was discovered I was thinking about if I was going to carry the deer or him to my 4wd. The deer was a lot smaller than him. He was probably close to 300#. Got them both there eventually.

  4. An acquaintance of ours from Ireland has always been enamored with the wilderness areas of the Americas, both North and South. He began his own expedition outfitter service, so, now we call him “Paddy Gohnia”. Everyone gets a nickname. The odd thing is that Paddy is Jewish, so we call his business “Mosel Tov Missions”. He is a good natured guy and has not shot us….yet.

    Paddy has strict qualifications for carrying a firearm on his missions: he hands you a pistol with a single 410 cartridge in it. Then, he throws a live rattlesnake at you. You have to kill the snake before it kills you. If you kill the snake, you get to carry. If the snake kills you, well….

    Paddy’s services are expensive, meant for the upper-crusters, so, we will continue our walks through the Appalachians without him.

    • Am I allowed to skin and eat the snake? And am I required to use the gun to do so? Rattler isn’t my favorite but it’s not bad.

      IRL, someone does this to me, they’re getting shot in the foot right off the bat and I’ll wander off to find a stick to catch the snake safely.

      If the person gets bit or, far more likely, bleeds out… well, that’s what you get for throwing snakes at people.

      Rattlers aren’t really scary when you’ve seen what an angry 14’+ Retic can/will do and the range they can do it at. Mambas, OTOH, are scary as fuck. I’ll run away from that thing as fast as I can, come back and murder your kids for having thrown one at me.

      • Friend no. 1 always put on chaps when going into the weeds/woods to protect himself from his fantasy snake that was apparently always out to get him. Friend no. 2 didn’t sweat snakes at all. We were all out in the woods. Friend 2 and I find a huge black snake. So naturally, he picks it up, sneaks up behind Friend 1, and throws it on him. That guy didn’t even find it funny later on. He legitimately freaked out.

        Non-venomous snake bites can still hurt. And you can get a nasty infection from it if you don’t properly clean it in a timely manner.

        • Oh, I know.

          It took two of us to pull a 6.5′ African Rock Python off my friend. They’re mean as hell.

          Its fangs went clean through his forearm between the bones, then it wrapped around him and wouldn’t let go. Strong as hell when they’re mad. Fun times getting those fangs out kinda-sorta straight and not letting it thrash side to side while doing it.

          Well, not for the guy with a bunch of holes in his arm… or really anyone else but it sounds better when you say it that way. IRL it was a bloody mess to clean up and once you get the snake off you better have a plan to put it somewhere safely.

          Still, a fun story when he’s around. “Show, ’em your arm, dude!”. Glad I didn’t get the ER bill.

          And that’s not even really that big. You should see what a 14′ Reticulated Python’s bite does to a person. That’s 50/50 you’re in the ICU just from the bite.

        • There are for-real African Rock Pythons in the wild out there in the mountain west?

          The little I know about them is that are reputed to be among the nastiest ill-tempered critters…

          *shudder* 🙁

        • “There are for-real African Rock Pythons in the wild out there in the mountain west?”

          Not that I know of but some people get them and keep them as pets, which is what was going on in that case. He’d had the snake for years. It didn’t bite him until it did. They’re not very uncommon at reptile shows and MorphMarket nearly always has some in stock. Same with Retics and several other snakes that are decidedly NOT beginner’s animals.

          It wouldn’t shock me if some of the people in the lower quintile of intelligence have let some ARPs go in the wild around here the way they have in Florida for a dozen species, but I’d doubt they survive the winter around here unless they got into someone’s house.

          For non-venomous, you can shop online with zero restrictions so sometimes people get things they probably shouldn’t.

          But, hey, at least they’re not buying giant centipedes. I’m not really sure that I think it’s wise for people to sell Chinese Red Headed Centipedes over the internet to just anyone. I’ve seen one “get loose” in an exotic pet store (it was returned by bringing it back and letting it loose) and raise one hell of a ruckus.

          https://www.morphmarket.com/us/c/invertebrates/centipedes/1483596

        • “They’re not very uncommon at reptile shows and MorphMarket nearly always has some in stock.”

          I’ve seen them at the herp shows about 20 years back, but have *zero* interest in keeping the ‘hot’ (venomous) ones. There’s another one with a bad rep, bright green with a real angular head? Stunning looking snake…

          Those far braver than I can play with those things…

        • My exotic pet experience ended with the Australian Bearded Dragons, they have a pretty mellow disposition, but inhale great quantities of live crickets and baby mice…

        • A NativeAmerican woman was picking up fire wood to build a fire. She came upon a frozen snake and took it back to her buffalo skin mansion, after the snake thawed out it bit her. She said “Why did you do that after I saved your life?” It said “Because I’m a snake.”

        • was stopped at a roadside shanty, riding in the blue mountains. something like mukade, maybe 10″ frikkin’ ‘pede makes the mistake of crawling up onto shoesberry rd., the local kids surround it and stone until deadern a doornail.

        • Venomous snake keeping, usually, requires a license. It’s non-venomous that’s basically unregulated outside of endangered species. The licensure for venomous snakes makes me wonder why there isn’t licensure for venomous insects and arachnids. But then, no one ever said .gov makes sense.

          They can’t really stop the illegal trade completely but it’s pretty small. Most people who want venomous snakes are part of an antivenom program and are milking the snakes for that purpose. They’re careful and, often, actual herpetologists doing it on the side.

          There’s another one with a bad rep, bright green with a real angular head?

          Angled heads are usually a viper. There are bright green pit vipers. There’s a Green Mamba too but it doesn’t have that kind of head. Vipers all have a bad reputation to one degree or another. Rattlers actually are pit vipers. I don’t do venomous at all and I don’t really care for the “advanced” non-venomous these days either. Carpet pythons and assorted other “chill” snakes do just fine for me.

          If you like lizards a terrarium with a large Salamander is entertaining. They’re garbage disposals. Bugs, mice, if it fits in their mouth they’ll smash it. Safer than a monitor lizard too. PITA to keep in a dry area though, IMHO.

          @tsbhoa.p.jr

          The Blue Mountains are some amazing country. I wasn’t aware there were huge centipedes there though.

          The “scary creature” when I was there was the Funnel Web. Natural habitat, the corner of hotel rooms and rental houses, of course. I loled at that.

      • Read a story somewhere that a guy tried to run from a mamba and it chased him and bit him. Apparently they are quite aggressive.

        • j12
          My ex sister in law was South African. She told the story about one of the family sitting in the living room on the couch, and one of her other family members said “Don’t move.” They froze, and the other person carefully got a shotgun and brought it up to bear almost right at the person sitting on the couch. They fired it off, and the bird shot charge ripped through the top of the back of the couch leaving a fairly good size divot, but it basically vaporized the head if the black mamba that was stretched out behind them..

  5. I’m thankful that I am blessed to have private property to hunt on–only problem is keeping the neighbors from trespassing on it!

    • “…only problem is keeping the neighbors from trespassing on it!”

      Bear traps.

      HTH. 😉

  6. A friend of mine, now passed on, was a game warden in Wisc. Some of the animals idiots would show up at the registration stations was amusing. Dogs, calves, donkeys, horses, and who knows what else. A neighbor had Charolaise and Limousine cattle. Someone did shoot a couple steers while trespassing on his pasture land. Even cut the fence to get in. Neither he nor the Sherrif’s deputy were amused.
    ” It.s the second week of deer camp and all the guys are here, The only time we leave the camp is when we go for beer.” Apologies to Da Yuppers.

  7. This incident happened in Philadelphia yesterday, and that woman has a bigger set of balls than most guys.

    Him pulling that gun didn’t phase her one damn bit, she was that mad, and she had every right to be that mad, with a passenger and 2 of her kids in that car :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9X3ONWJU7c

    • Philly is having a real problem with these dirt bike and 4-wheelers flash-swarming the city streets. They seem to be organizing via social media, the same way the looters are doing it in other areas.

      Personally, it wouldn’t bother me one whit if they start taking fire from pissed-off city residents… 🙁

      • They’re bold because they get away with it or get a slap on the wrist. We know how to deal with that. You have to want to deal with it. Democrats are pro-criminal.

  10. There’s a joke about a Vermont farmer who paints “CHICKEN” instead of “COW” on his herd, believing it protects them better because most Flatlander hunters know they aren’t accurate enough to hit a chicken.

    • texan bragged about how it took four days to inspect all the fence on his ranch.
      the vermonter said i had a truck like that once.

  12. There are a LOT of white-tail deer hunters in my state and I cannot recall ever hearing about any of them shooting livestock, either mistakenly or intentionally.

    What have I heard? A neighbor of mine who is an avid hunter warned me (in the most grave and serious tone) about an unexpected danger of hunting on public land. That danger: one or more serial killers who use deer season as cover to be out on public land with a rifle to snipe unsuspecting hunters–and then slink away of course. As far as I could tell he was dead serious. He even expanded that concept to people who go fishing in remote areas of my state–claiming that one or more serial killers murder a lone fisherman/woman every few years.

    I asked why we do not hear about it on the news. He was not totally sure. His best guess is that law enforcement keeps it quiet or else droves of people would stop hunting and fishing which generates a GIANT amount of tourism, business, and tax dollars in my state.

    The closest parallel that I have heard to this was the guy of Southeast Asian decent who posed as a hunter and murdered one or more hunters during deer season in Wisconsin several years ago.

    • Sounds like a more plausible version of Missing 411. With that said we did have a kid get snatched from a state park kinda up my way over the weekend with about a 15 hour delay from report to amber alert. Thankfully the kid was recovered alive but lots of fuckery to untangle.

      • SAFEupstateFML,

        Yes, I saw about the girl kidnapped from the campground on national news I believe. I am incredibly happy that law enforcement found her without any obvious physical injuries. I can only begin to imagine the magnitude of her emotional injuries, though.

    • “one or more serial killers murder a lone fisherman/woman every few years“

      Happens all the time, here is a somewhat recent serial killer who specialized in outdoorsmen.

      Dillon’s shooting victims were:[7]

      “Donald Welling, 35, of Strasburg, Ohio on April 1, 1989, while walking or jogging on Tuscarawas County Road 94.
      Jamie Paxton, 21, of Bannock, Ohio on Nov. 10, 1990, while deer hunting in Belmont County.
      Kevin Loring, 30, of Duxbury, Massachusetts on Nov. 28, 1990, while deer hunting in Muskingum County.
      Claude Hawkins, 48, of Mansfield, Ohio on March 14, 1992, while fishing at Wills Creek dam in Coshocton County.
      Gary Bradley, 44, of Williamstown, West Virginia, on April 5, 1992, while fishing in Caldwell, Ohio in Noble County.“

      “the guy of Southeast Asian decent who posed as a hunter and murdered one or more hunters“

      He wasn’t “posing”, he was actually hunting and gotten to a property dispute with several other folks out hunting.

      “Chai Soua Vang (born September 24, 1968), more commonly known as Chai Vang, is an American man who was convicted of first degree intentional homicide, having pleaded self-defense after allegedly being fired upon. Vang, a six-year veteran of the California National Guard, shot eight people while he unintentionally trespassed upon a hunting group in northern Wisconsin on November 21, 2004; six were killed and two were wounded.“

      FYI, Mr. Vang had an iron-sited SKS.

      I have worked with many Hmong, whether he was right or wrong they are very bad to fuck with.

      • Miner49er,

        I would say that there is a VERY good probability that my neighbor heard about those murders and they were the basis for his warnings that he shared with me.

    • Just did some research, interesting details concerning red flag laws and domestic violence preventing more killing:

      “Vang was an angry renegade. He bragged to coworkers about poaching deer on land he owned in Minnesota, and had citations for trespassing and going over bag limit on fish. His first marriage ended after he accused his wife of infidelity and pointed a loaded handgun at her. His second marriage ended after he nearly choked his wife to death for gambling away $3,000.“

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