Ep 3 Bad Luck Hunts

We all have some bad luck while out in the woods or on the water. If you have some bad luck time to time don’t let it discourage you and wreck your day or your whole season. That’s why I decided to share my bad luck stories! I have some pretty bad ones where you might just say “this guy is just a horrible hunter” or “this guy can’t shoot at all” now those words could be true! But I don’t want to think they are so I never let my bad luck get me down! And I share my bad luck stories for you guys to Hopfully make you feel better about some bad luck you have had yourselves! 

If you like the podcast and want to be on the show to share your stories! Follow me on Instagram @gameandgunpodcast or @iainanderson123 send me a message and we will get you on the show! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello listeners, I am your host, Ian Anderson of the Game and Gun Podcast. Um You know, I just wanted to talk a little bit about some bad luck. You know, we all deal with it. We all have to go through it. Either if that's wounding something or a complete miss or having something catchy on the way in. You know, bad luck happens to us all, but I'm just here to tell you don't be discouraged about it. Don't let that wreck the whole season just because something bad happened. You know, a lot of the a lot of weirder things can happen while you're out there. I I say all the time, if I didn't have bad luck, I would have no luck at all. And I I kind of think that my bad luck and good luck is kind of 50-50 with each other. Because if I had nothing but good luck, I would be. I would have so many trophies on the wall. I would have never shot, never missed. You know, we all shoot, we all miss. It's gonna happen to the best of us no matter how long you've been in the game for. So we've had a little bit of bad luck recently. Um So I just kind of figured, you know what, what's a good way to deal with bad luck? And I kind of thought, you know what, maybe that's just to talk about some bad luck. So that's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna tell some of my bad luck stories. And um, you know, we're gonna start this off just by the bad luck I had just this 2026 spring turkey season. It's been a long time since I've gone out in the turkey season and not shot a turkey. This year I didn't shoot one. Now, there's a lot of things at play. There was bad luck, there was stupidity on my part, but we're just gonna kind of give a little run through on that, and then I'll I'll share some more. So, first day, opening day actually ended up being pretty good. It wasn't great, could have been a lot better, but you know, things don't play out the way you always want them to. And um, so me and my girlfriend, we get up open in the morning, and it's just pouring down rain. There's nothing you can do about that. I was like, you know what? Screw it. I did my scouting. There was birds in there last night. I know they're roosted, let's just go give it a try. So we get out there, we're sitting, you know, rain's coming down, sun comes up, it lightens up a little bit, but not too too much. But we can hear the gobbling going off, and um, you know, me and my girlfriend are sitting there in the stand, and we get a nice loud gobble come off from our left side, and uh I say, you get that gun up and ready, he's coming out right now. So Hen walks out, and I see the Tom coming out, but when I get a closer look at it, it's just a Jake. Now, this isn't a bad luck story, this is just kind of the beginning of how the whole season went. So the Jake comes in. I look at my girlfriend, I go, You can hammer it if you want. She says, No, it's not doing it for me, you know. His tail fin doesn't look nice, and he looks like a small bird, so she let it walk, which was great. Then next day comes around, I go out by myself. This is when the bad luck starts. Um I go out to the same spot, and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna get something here. And get up in my stand get up in my blind, sorry, and uh, you know, start giving off a little bit of yelps and just nice and soft at first. And I can hear some gobblers, and I'm like, alright, we're getting there, we're getting there, you know, they're still in the roost, but they're here, they're gonna show up. Twenty minutes after shooting light comes around, and here comes this truck, bull crap exhaust on it, just sounds like a heap of crap. Comes right down the center of the field. There's a big laneway that runs down the center of it, and starts driving down towards where the goblers are gonna come out of. So I pull into action quick, I pull my flashlight out, and the truck's facing right towards me, and I hit them with my stroll light on my flashlight. They sort of stop, and I go, Yeah, okay, you know I'm here. Get out. That's what this means. Someone's here. Get out. Well, needless to say, they didn't get out, and they went and parked right where the uh turkeys were gonna come out of. And I hear them close, slam their truck doors, and I know they can hear the gobblers going off. It's like, are you serious? What the hell's with that? So talked to the landowner and whatnot, and he said, No, they had they're allowed back there, but he didn't tell us that they were gonna be hunting, so we'll just have to let that guy know that hey, you know what? Someone else is there. He and they they I heard back. They saw my flashlight and everything. They're like, oh, there's someone here. They just kind of went like meh. Well, that's kind of bullshit. So either way, no harm done, I guess. I went and screwed around somewhere else, didn't get a bird that day. Then I had a couple other days where I was working afternoon, so I was able to get up every morning and go out and try and get a turkey. Go to a different spot. There's gobblers in there too. They sound fairly close. And uh, you know, they fly the roost and they just head to a different direction. They're like, nah, we're not going over there today. We like this farm off on this side. We're not gonna go to that farm over there. So, no turkeys there, so I'm sitting there. It's like 9 o'clock or so. And I'm like, you know what? I don't think they're gonna make their way. They might, but it could take all day, so I'm like, screw, I'm not sitting here all day. So I decided what I'm gonna do is I am gonna go to another property that I haven't been to yet, do a little scouting. Now, this is where the stupidity of my bad luck comes in. Um I get out to that one farm, and I just had low expectations for it. I've been I drive by it every day, haven't seen any birds in the field or nothing, so I'm like, there's gonna be nothing there, but it's worth a check. So I get out into this one spot and uh just sort of walk into the bush, and there's a bit of mud there, it's just a little divid into the ground, so it stayed soaked and it's muddy, and I see one set of tracks in it. I'm like, okay, that's not horrible, but that's not enough to make me want to stay here. Oh, and here's the here's the stupid part. Um, I went in there with no gun, and I was trying to sell film, and I went in there with no camera. Talk about an idiot move. So I get into the bush and I'm just kind of looking around, looking for looking for a roost tree if there's any turkey crap on the ground. And then I'm like, well, maybe I can get one to gobble off on the neighbor's property. I don't think there's a one in here. So I pull my diaphragm call out, pop down in my mouth, and I start yelping. Oh boy, do I wish I didn't do that. What a stupid thing to do. You know, a lot of times you don't go hunting without a gun. Well, shit, I did. And um, I'm kind of just getting ready to walk back out. I'm like, let's give one more. Do another bit of yelp, and I hear it gobble, and I was like, it seemed far away, and I was like, no, that wasn't one, was it? Do another yelp. Gobble closer. I'm like, no. And then I'm just standing there frozen, thinking, what's gonna happen? And gobble even closer. So now he's coming in on a frickin' string. So I'm like, okay, I can either just run out of here and be nice and come back tomorrow with my girlfriend so she can get a bird. So I run back to the truck and I go, Yeah, nope. We're gonna leave her in the dust today. I'm out here, I'm gonna go shoot this thing. I grab my gun, my camera, and I don't even think, like, maybe I should just pitch up on the side of the side of the field or whatever. No, I ran right back in there. Ran right back in there and sat down. It's like, you know, you get you get lost in the moment, and it's like that was just super, super stupid. And then the rest of the season was just birds flew off somewhere else, went back and sat on a couple other farms, they just decided to go to another direction instead of towards me. You know, it's just kind of how it goes. You get stupid accidents like what I did and mix with the bad luck, it just wasn't my year. So there's my first little kicker of bad luck. But I'm kind of starting to think maybe now that I told that story, it's more stupidity than bad luck, but either way, we'll get into some more bad luck here. Um just missing shots. I have a Tika T3X light in 22250. I got a 4x12 Nikon Buckmaster scope on it, and that thing drives tax. 200 yards drives tax on a six-inch plate. And I know that gun's accurate. I've killed with that gun. But just as many times as I've killed with that gun, I have missed with that gun as well. You know, we're sitting out on an open cut cornfield in January. I got the Fox Pro out there. Big coyote comes out at like 80 yards, get him to stop, put the crosshairs right on them, pull the trigger, don't know where it went. Went right over its back, went right under it. I don't know, but it was a miss. And it's like, how is and so I was like, okay, I must have screwed this gun up by putting it in the truck or something, maybe the sights off. Go out, shoot at 50 hit, shoot at 100 hit, go to 200 hit. I'm like, okay. Um that could be my issue with just operator error, or it could be bad luck. I've shot that gun, I've I've got a thousand plus rounds through that gun. I'm good at long range with it, you know. You miss every now and again, get another coyote coming up on it. Miss again. So now I'm starting to think, alright, there's something going on here, because how can I hit a six-inch plate at 200 yards plus you know the 100 and the 50, but I can't hit a still coyote on it at uh at 70, you know, you go out again with it. I know that gun's on, and I'm like, I'm determined. I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot a coyote with this gun. Sure enough, first coyote I shoot on it. It was the first time going out on the one year, and uh put the fox pro out, get a little elevated on a hillside, turn that fox pro on. I see a coyote running after like 15 seconds of calling, he's coming in quick, and he gets out on the edge of the field, and he's looking straight on to me. So I get him to stop and I drop him right in his tracks. I was like, look at that, the gun does shoot good. Then later on, we go back out there on another day, a couple weeks later, and it's blowing snow. We got 70 to 90 kilometer winds. I don't even know why I just said let's go, but we went. I got that Fox Pro going for like 25 minutes, and I had this little uh this little bracket that mounts onto my scope, which has a clamp on it for my phone, and by using a fixture of mirrors within that bracket, I can record from my phone through my scope. So 25 minutes comes up, I'm freezing, and I'm like, screw it, there's nothing coming. Take the phone out of the bracket, turn off that uh fox pro and I start walking out to it. And do I not see a coyote running through the bush? So I dive right back into the field edge, right on that tree line where I was, turn around, there's the coyote right in the field running towards the fox pro. It's not even on. So I get my gun up on my knee, it turns around and starts running. I shoot and I hear that meat pop. And so with that gun, I'm going from missing still coyotes to hitting still coyotes, and now I'm hitting coyotes on the run. It's starting to sound a little bit more like luck to me. And then same thing, you know, go back out later that year. Coyote at 75, same as the first one I shot that year. Looking broadside right on me. I got this on video. That was those crosshairs are right on him, dead center, right in the middle of his chest. I shoot, miss. He starts running, I rack another load, shoot and miss. So you know what? Could be a lot of operator error. I don't like to think that though. I like to think, you know what, maybe there's some sort of a weird juju with that gun. I did trade a mini 14 for it, and I really wish I didn't, because now in Canada, mini 14s are illegal. They are prohibited firearms. Thanks, Liberal Government of Canada. Um hopefully you guys can pull whatever you got stuck up your ass, and uh, you know, let us have some little bit of freedoms that we had, I suppose. The little we had, and uh leave us licensed gun owners alone, so you know I'd love to buy a mini 14 again. Should have never sold it. Bought that gun for 1300 bucks, and I'm like, you know what, it's not really doing too it was it wasn't an accurate gun. Put a scope on it, 100 yards, I'm getting like three inch groupings. Could have been the ammo, I changed it up, nothing really nothing really changed with it, so I was like, you know what? This isn't really gonna do me any good, so we're going to uh go down to the gun shop, we're gonna swap it out for something better. I was like, I want a 22,250. Those are good, that's a good coyote round. So I went there and I was like, hey, I got this Mini 14, I want to trade it for a Tika. It says, alright, we'll give you 600 bucks for it. You gotta be kidding me. Best I can do is like seven. You know what? Stupid me. You know, it's like I could have if I knew about the online gun forum where I could have sold that for the price that I bought it for, I would have done that, but stuck in the moment one more time. And I was like, stuck my hand at I said deal. Still had to pay 300 bucks for that stupid gun. Um but we have drawn blood on it, which is pretty good. But you know, I'll always continue to use it if I miss or if I hit or not, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep it and I'm gonna keep using it. It's just more stories to tell. But that gun has sang many times. It has hit it has hit less than it has uh missed. You can call me a bad shot if you want. I know how to use that gun. I think there's just something wrong with it. A little bit of bad luck bored into the stock of that gun, maybe. And then um another little bad luck coyote story. I'm sitting at a buddy's farm. Small little farm, real thick, thick it uh thick pine woods he's got out back. I go in there with my scattered gun. And I get my Fox Pro set up about like eight yards in front of me, like right up in my face basically. Turn that thing on 40 seconds later, here comes a coyote running through that bush. I just keep the Fox Pro on. So he comes up right onto that Fox Pro, jumps up onto the branch, like I got it hanging in a branch, he jumps up and bites it. Then he's like, what was that? Does a little turnaround. I shoot. I got uh I got number four buck in my gun, two and three-quarter inch, number four buck. So that should be I think that should be 15 pellets. I held I held that scatter gun right on him. That should have blown a hole through him the size of a dinner plate, but he ran off, and I'm th I I look over there, I'm like, alright, I there's no way I didn't hit that coyote somewhere. So I'm looking through the snow for blood. I'm like, what the hell's going on? Well, didn't I just have a case of X-ray vision? When I pulled the trigger on that coyote, he was standing behind a small pine tree, no more than the thickness of, let's say, uh 30 ounce Yeti tumbler, maybe even the 20-ounce. Just sort of like a about the thickness of your standard travel coffee mug. Every pellet went right into that tree, and he was sitting right behind it. A little bad luck there too, I guess. That could be bad luck, that could be also again operator error. I keep telling my friends, they bring up that story all the time, like, oh, you just like shooting trees. I go, you know what? You'll have a case of X-ray vision one day too, and I'm gonna be laughing at you. And it ain't gonna be on a coyote, it's gonna be on something way bigger than that. So far, no one's had a case of the X-ray visions but me. But the day is to come, the day is to come. Um I've had bad luck deer hunting too. The opening morning one morning. Walking out to my stand, didn't I just blow out four deer? That's nice, that's opening morning, screwed the whole frickin' property up already. Next year or two years later, whatever, sort of same thing. It's the opening day of shotgun season. I walk out to my stand. No blowouts, no snort wheeze. I get to my stand and I put my foot on the first rung. Guess what? Boom, blowouts, snort wheeze. Well, ain't that nice? So I sit there for a few seconds and I'm like, alright, let's just stay here still. Give it some time. Give it about 20 minutes about just me sitting still, and I climb up my tree really, really slowly. And this is where I say don't get uh discouraged about stuff. Because even though when I walked in and I got to my stand, I blew deer out. I'm sitting there in my stand. I get my grunt tube out after about a half hour, maybe of sitting in it. Get my grunt tube out, do a couple grunts, and I start hearing one walking right towards me. And every time I've used a grunt call, it's brought a buck out. It's never brought out a dough. I'm like, there's a buck coming. I get my gun shouldered. Never even get got to see him. He got into the downwind position of me. And uh I just saw his like I just saw his foot stride. That's all I saw. Because he's sitting behind. He's in like an open grass field, but he's sitting behind a uh a big cedar tree. That's just off to the side. So he never cleared the cedar tree. And he just stood there and I'm watching his like leg. That's all I can see is his leg. And he's sitting there for about ten minutes, and then he just turns around and walks the other way. Tried to ground him back. He lost all interest. He caught my wind. So there's some bad luck there again. And then um my most devastating both of these stories are pretty devastating. But the the second one I'll tell you is the most devastating for sure. Um shotgun season. Uh sitting in my stand, we got a bunch of other guys on the farm. And um we hear one guy fire off his gun. We got a little text group going. It's me, the farmer, my stepdad, and then there's an old guy, Bill, out there. You may have heard his name pop up in the past two episodes. Bill is a great guy, he's passed on. But my goodness, did he? Ever have stories. I wish I started this years ago where I could have, you know, shared a couple of his, but you know, there's a lot of other people we can still talk to. And um we get the text messages going, and I go, Kevin, was that you? Nope. Well, John, was that you? Nope. It was Billy. So we're all going, yeah, congratulations, Bill. Texting over the phone. And um, I go, should we get down and help him track it? My stepdad goes, nope, you guys stay in your stand. It's still pretty early. I'll head out, I'll walk the far way around away from where we're hunting, I'll go meet up with Bill. So Kevin gets out of his stand, he starts walking over there. And um if I tell you I heard a freight train crashing through those woods, if I had that audio recording, that's exactly what it would sound like, other than the steam whistle blowing, because I had a doe running at full sprint, and tailing that doe was just the biggest buck I think I have still seen on the hoof. And that deer is just absolutely massive. I get my gun up, I'm like, okay, here comes possibility. But that doe kind of runs off into the thicker bush up a hill, and uh that buck's just kind of sitting there, and I'm like, alright, give me an open shot, or just come over my way a little bit closer. And uh he doesn't. He just kind of walks off and he gets behind this little just thick crap, can't really see behind it. And then he just disappears, he's gone. I'm thinking he must have just went off into the other side of the bush there. He must have just walked straight away from me instead of any other direction, because how can you just disappear? Sort of ten minutes goes by. I see that doe come back, and I'm like, okay, maybe that buck's gonna be behind it. That doe kind of stops at like 90 yards, lays down. So I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, well, this is interesting. I've never gotten the never got to witness the deer just sort of bed down before. So I pick up the old text box there and I start messaging the guys on the on the group chat. I go, I got a doe about 90 yards in front of you, it's bedded down. What do you what what do you think I should do? Then I just get a text message back from the farmer, he says, if she gets up, blast her. So I go, well, alright. So I'm sitting there, I'm just thinking, how am I gonna get this deer to stand up? Sitting in an aluminum ladder stand, so I start stomping my feet on the grate just to get this deer up. Nothing. I reach up and I grab a branch and I start hitting the tree, hitting the tree stand, not moving, I'm clapping my hands, I'm whistling. It's not getting up. So I'm thinking, well, there's two other things I could do right now is I could fire off a shot and see if that would get it up. Or let's try this sort of snort, let's try this snort wheeze that I bought that year. Just a little plastic, kind of funnel-y looking tube thing, and uh I give off a snort wheeze, just that deer got right up. I put my sights on it, and I drop it. That's pretty good, right? 90 yards slug uh with a 12 gauge slug. Well, after I see that deer go down, don't I just see this absolute beast of a buck come walking out where I saw him walk in? That buck got behind that uh mixture of crap that I couldn't see behind, and he bedded down too. He was there the whole time. Throughout the stomping and clapping and whistling. That snortwee's got him up too. Then after I shot that doe, he didn't uh he didn't uh get spooked from that. So I'm thinking, well, I just punched a tag, Bill just punched a tag, there's two more here. And this buck's gotta go down. So this buck's sitting no more than 10-15 yards further from where uh from where I shot that dough. And this thing's giving me just opportunity after opportunity. He's walking, but I get him to stop. As soon as he stops, I let that shotgun fire off. Bang! Nothing. He's just standing there looking. And I go, okay, that didn't do anything. Rack another one. Bang. Still nothing, he's still looking there. So I'm like, okay. Reach into my pocket, grab three more shells, load the gun up. I fired five rounds at that deer, and he didn't even move. Just ran out of shells. And I watched the biggest buck of my life just stroll away. That deer would have grossed in the 160s for sure, possibly even 170s. I'm just watching him walk away. Now, I was young at the time. You get buck fever when you see a deer that big. Mixture of bad luck, too. It's like, alright, I hit a deer a minute ago and dropped it at 90. What's this 10-15 yard difference doing? Shouldn't be really doing nothing. Well, shit, did it ever. Now that's just a that was just a smooth barrel uh Remington 870 shooting rifled slugs. Let me tell you something here. I have missed a couple deer with that gun. Um a lot of people have never missed with a smooth barrel rifled slug. Don't take the chance. Spend the money. You don't have to spend a lot. If you want to, you can. You know, it's a free world. Well, it's not really, it's a free country, depending on where you're listening from, but buy a proper slug gun. I thought, you know what? We're gonna we're gonna buy a proper gun for shotgun season. But first, let me tell you the reason why I wanted to buy a proper gun for shotgun season, and this is the devastating one. This is year. This might have been the year 20. I think this is 2020 or 21. Shotgun season comes around. There I am using that same gun. You know, I've got I've shot deer with it before. You know, I only missed, I only missed that one with it. Every other deer I've shot with it went down. I only just missed that one. Um, so I'm thinking, you know what, this is still good. Just had that stroke of bad luck, you know. Just the rifled slugs were just going left, right, everywhere but center that one day. So I take that gun back out in 2020 or 2021, whatever year it was, and um we get in my stand, and it's a nice crisp, frost, frosty early November morning. And I'm sitting there, it's all quiet. Probably around 8 o'clock comes. I'm like, you know what? Wind's blowing in a nice direction. Let's make a little racket. So I got a rattle bag. And I just nice and gently at first, you know, a little quick spar. And then I just knock it into a straight-on big fight. I'm just rattling the crap out of this bag. And um I see a deer run off. Probably about a hundred and so a hundred plus yards away. He runs off, sort of runs towards the neighboring property. So I'm thinking, okay, there was a deer here. He must have not liked how that rattle bag went. So I immediately pull out that same snort wheeze. I still have it, and I still use it to this day. Give off one snort wheeze. Give off another one. Put it down. I'm just sort of scouting around. Two minutes later, here comes another possibly 150, 160 gross buck comes just walking right in. He's ready for a fight, and he's walking right towards me. So I get my gun up, and then he kind of comes right towards me, and then he starts hooking to my left. So now he's giving me a perfect broad side shot. I give him the meh and he stops, and I go, Don't screw this up. And he stood there. I I had about 15 seconds of aiming, so I was like, alright, aim is tried and true, we're gonna hit him. Shoot. He does a little hump and a kick. And I was like, I hit him, I can't believe it. He comes around, he does a run, he gets like within 30 yards of me. And then he takes off. And he stops, and I'm like, no way, he's gonna drop right there. He starts wagging his tail. And uh just starts walking away. So I go, okay, let's give it some time. Give it about 20 minutes or so. I'm thinking he's gone. He's gotta be dead. And um go up to the shot placement spot where first impact was. Fur, blood, blood on the tree that he was standing in front of. And I follow that blood trail, and he's just pouring blood. Like, talk about dumping a can of red paint through the bush. Just pouring blood. Wasn't your favorite blood to see, but I figured I was like, you know what? That might have been a good liver shot. He's gonna go down. Follow that blood, walk onto the neighbor's property, following the blood through this one. It's a it's an empty house, no one's living there. This deer walked into their front yard or the front yard of that abandoned house. And I'm watching I'm looking around in the tall grass around there and following blood, and I'm like, what? He's gotta be around here somewhere. Keep following, and it just starts getting thinner and thinner. So I'm like, oh no. Keep looking around. He walked across the driveway of that abandoned house, and then he walks down through the yard of that house, goes across the uh neighbor's driveway. So now I'm like, I go to the neighbor, I go, I shot a deer, he walked across your driveway. Can I go and um can I get permission to search on your property? They say, Yeah, and uh from pouring a can of paint turned into one drop every 20 to 30 yards, and then that went from calling a friend who had a dog, hogged in, do what they said it was trained to do, and uh last blood was seven to eight hundred yards from first impact, and uh found them, never found them, and I pro I spent about three days on that property looking for it, never found it, and talk about something to put you in a depression. I wouldn't do a depression for that for six months, seven months, wrecked the whole season, but you know what? A few years goes by, you get a you get a better gun and you test it. Shot a deer, one shotgun season on a new property, and then couple years goes on by that, have a whole bunch of deer walk in. I was on the hunt for a lot of bigger bucks that I had on property, you know, they never came walking through, so I let a lot of young bucks walk. Then just last year we kinda catch a break and we shoot a 150 class buck with my butt with my crossbow. So, you know, you gotta take the bads with the goods, you know. It it's gonna happen to everybody, no matter what. Um but other than that, for like bad luck with deer and stuff, you know, it's there's been that big buck I missed. There was that unfortunate, nice buck that I wounded. Still feel bad. I feel bad about it right now, talking about it. But it's happened to all of us. Like, and if it hasn't happened to you yet, it's going to, but I pray it doesn't. Everybody misses at least one. Or everybody at least wounds one. And uh, you know, and other than that for deer, it's just been you know, you get busted and they come around, or they're they come to a spot where it's like I've never seen deer come out of this spot before, and you sit there and then they come out of the spot where you never thought they would come out of. You know, things just happen. You can pattern a deer, you can pattern deer all you want. They're gonna move. You know, they got free will out there, they'll do whatever the hell they want. If they've been coming every two days, you can have it planned out perfectly. Every two days at the exact same time, come out in the exact same spot of the field. You're like, alright, he was here two days ago. I got him coming back every other two days for the past how many times you've seen him, he's gonna come out this day. You go sit, he comes out from the other way. And catches you and busts you, and you know. They're gonna do what they want, you know. They're not mindless out there. They're they're the smartest things in the friggin' woods. They're gonna They're gonna catch you off guard. But um some other bad luck. This one's kind of funny. It's unfortunate for me, as of all the other stories were, but um my buddy's got this one nice property that we go duck hunting on. It's about it's after shotgun season, so I think it's the second week of November. He shot his deer. I'm not having any luck on my property for some reason that year. Like all the deer just disappeared after like the third week of October. Cameras were heavy, then all of a sudden they just went dead. So he goes, hey, yeah, I know you haven't been seeing much going on for deer season. You wanna you wanna come uh duck hunting on the one property here on a Saturday morning? I go, Yeah, let's do it. Nice cold frosty morning again in November. We go duck hunting. We get a nice mess of ducks. But this is a swamp. This isn't a nice sort of walk to an open pond or big wide stretch of river in the bush. This whole bush is swamp and it's up to your tits in swamp. So I got a mess of ducks on me. He's got a mess of ducks on him. Other buddies got a mess of ducks on him. My buddy's leading the way, I'm right behind him. Now there's this one particular spot where it's the deepest we gotta walk through. Like it's up, it's almost overflowing your waders. I walked through it that morning, no problem. For some reason, I decide to find the log that trips me up. And I fill my waders with dirty, cold, swamp smelling swamp gas water. Now there's a lot of things that could have happened because when I went down, I went down slow. My buddy could have helped me a little bit. He could have done anything. He just stood there and watched. I'm sitting there, I'm calling, I'm calling his name, but I'm like falling slow because I can't I got nowhere to grab, so I can't pick myself up. So I'm like, help! Help! And he's just watching me, he just sort of looks at me and gives me a little wave, bye-bye. And I sink down, get back up, and I was like, you could have helped me. He's like, what was I supposed to do? I was like, I literally put, I reached out with the mojo decoy on the stick. You could have grabbed it. That might have done something. And he's like, nah, I would have rather just seen you fill your waiter. So he got it, you got what he wished for. Next weekend we go out. Same spot. Don't we shoot a mess of ducks again? And don't I trip on that same stupid log again? Exactly one week later, except for this time it's 10 degrees colder. Same thing, a nice slow fall down. But now my friends, I'm like right behind my buddy at this point. I'm only two feet behind him. I slip on that stupid log again. And I'm saying, help I'm going down again. He just gives me the wave. He's like, you know I can't do nothing to see ya. An asshole. We've had fun out there. You know, you gotta fill your waiters once in a while, I guess. Um I've had bad luck with well, more bad luck with turkeys. I had a big Tom coming out, and you know, you put your bead right on his head at twenty-five yards, and I had a gun that could shoot out to frickin' 70, and I know this because I tested it. Clean miss. Fire that gun off and he flies away. Well, shit, ain't that something? Now, another little turkey story here with bad luck. Now, I'm telling a lot of bad luck here. Don't think that I'm a crap hunter or, you know, I'm full of bad luck. I've had a lot, a lot of success too. But this is just me sharing some bad luck, letting you guys know that it happens to everybody. Don't let it wreck your season or wreck your hunt. So I go out turkey hunting on my one buddy's farm. I end up shooting a limb hanger of a bird. He only had one spur. Now that spur was easily an inch and a half long. 23-pound bird, we weighed it. He was a chunky, chunky butterball. So I get out to my truck, I put my gun, because I dropped my tailgate, saw the bird on the tailgate, and I was like, alright, we're gonna do a little cleaning on it here. Just put my gun up on my uh up on in between the cab and the uh box of the truck. You got that little groove there. It's it's a nice little, it's like it was built for putting a gun there and it's gonna stand, it ain't gonna fall. So we clean out the bird. We toss the discarded carcass of the stuff that's not needed. Stow the meat in a bag, jump in the truck, put it in reverse, and uh I hear this weird noise, just like a clunk, and I'm thinking, what the hell was that? I stop the truck and I'm thinking what that could have been. I'm like, is that my drive shaft or is that uh, you know, maybe a wheel bearing or something? What is it? Then I'm thinking, I go, look in the backseat and my gun's not there. I go, fuck. No. No. I get out of the truck, there is my Belgian made Browning Auto 5 stamped into the mud. And I pull it out of the mud and I shoulder it, barrel bent. And I just I was so mad. I almost threw that gun because that is my favorite gun and I just ran it over with my truck. Needless to say, they're easy to get, you know, they're everywhere. People are selling them left, right, and center, and they're fairly cheap. But this was a maybe an 80s model. Not too sure. I tried running the serial number on it, but I can never get nothing. But um, nice fixed full choke, 32-inch barrel, ribbed barrel, just bent like a broken arm. And the only thing I was thinking about at that time was thank god I didn't run over the receiver of that gun. Because then it would have been totally screwed. It would have just demolished the whole gun. There would have been nothing I could do. So I took the barrel off it. Spent some time. Ended up finding somebody on a gun for him, selling two barrels for that gun. Um Browning Auto 5 Magnum, so it shoots three-inch shells. Some guy in Nova Scotia. He's like, I want 200 bucks for the barrels, 100 bucks each. I was like, send them both my way. Here's the money. Get them in the mail. I gotta work in uh I gotta work in A5 again. Now, it's not a 32 inch nice ribbed barrel. There's no rib, it's just a bead. One's a 26 inch barrel and one's a 28. But man, was that 32-inch barrel? Jeez, that was an unstoppable gun. That you cycle, I was using uh Winchester Longbeards number fives. And I am just, you know, I found I had an old beer can roll around in the box of my truck. I take it out, shake it up, step back 70 yards, and that thing just explodes. And you know, we're not gonna get that nice tight pattern again. Now with that 28-inch barrel. That 32-inch barrel was something special. And I ran it over with my truck. Um, that's all I can really think about for some of my bad luck. I'm sure there's more, but nothing I can really think of at this moment. At least the ones that are very remembered because it was a pretty horrible time to be part of that adventure. But you know, I just wanted to share those with you guys. Um, hunting season's coming around the corner. Stuff's gonna happen. You're either gonna have a little bit of bad luck, and if you do, don't let it ruin your hunt. Don't let it get you down because you know what? Weirder things have happened. I know guys who have bumped deer out. Deer come walking right back in, you know. I've had guys shoot and miss. Ten minutes later, another deer comes off and they shoot and they get it, you know. Things happen. Don't let a don't little bit of stroke of bad luck get you down and wreck your day or whole season. So that's all I can really think about for now. I'm sure there's more, but those might come up in uh later episodes of the show. So I just want to thank you guys for listening. I'm your host, Ian Anderson, with the Game and Gun Podcast. Um, if you guys like what you hear and you want to be on the show, uh go to the Game Gun Podcast Instagram. That's GameAnd Gun Podcast. That's all it is, at Game Gun Podcast. It should pop up. Hopefully you guys have no problem five no problem finding it. You can message me there, or you can message me on my personal if you want, uh, at Ian Anderson123. Uh I N A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N 1-23. You should see my profile picture come up there. You'll know it's me. Uh thanks again for listening. Hope to get some more podcasts out very soon. We got a guy I'm actually going to uh I'm going to interview him tomorrow. Um he's got a lot of experience. We're gonna post that one later next week. Um I'm very excited to talk to him. He's got a little he's got 50 plus years experience out in the woods. He's done everything from shooting rodents to moose and bass tournaments and other fishing tournaments and everything. He's got a lot of stories to tell. And um he's a real fun guy. He likes to throw in a lot of jokes. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and I hope you guys enjoy next week's episode. Hope to see you again soon. Goodbye.