Most Painful Hunting Experience???

[tomstopper]

Besides the mental anguish of not getting a shot or worse yet wounding an animal and not being able to recover it, what was your most painful hunting experience (can be funny or serious)? Maybe we all can learn from each other what not to do as seasons are approaching.

Mine would have to be a turkey hunt with a buddy of mine. We were walking a pipeline in PA and when I hit the slate call, one gobbled very close to us off in the timber to our right. We quickly went to the left side of the pipeline were I set up on the edge and my buddy went 15-20 yards behind me. I thought that it was going to be over quickly but I was wrong. It took that bird about 20 mins to make his way to us very cautiously. Finally I took a great shot and he dropped. I immediately went to stand up to retrieve him and due to my leg being asleep (it was tucked under my but fro 20 mins and due to the excitement I never noticed it) I fell flat on my face very hard. I just remember laying there looking at him flopping and was dazed. My buddy said it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I had a killer headache and the whole left side of my face badly bruised for days. My wife is a registered nurse and still thinks I had a minor concussion. To this day, I am very cautions about sitting with my legs under me.

[1iagobblergetter]

Mine would be several years ago when my Son was about 6 or 7 years old.
I called a big ol Tom in full strut clear across a field with my at the time scrawny little son sitting in front of me. At about 25 yards I whispered shoot when it's head was up ,20 yards same thing,15 yards,12 and finally the gun goes off, turkey then flys off and my son started celebrating like the year before when he did kill one. When i told him son you missed,he flew off. He looks up at me and asks Daddy,but will he come back. Lol..My answer was probably not today son and he went from happy to full out crying in a heartbeat.
I explained to him that sometimes things don't work out as planned and maybe he just saved him for the next time we were out hunting and we might be able to enjoy seeing him together strutting across the field again with the sun glistening off his feathers.
He was good with that and learned how his first ever and not last miss felt..

[renegade19]

The time I tripped walking down a very steep and slippery hill.  Ended up face planting into the side of Trapper Al's boat.  Didn't lose my 870 into the lake though!

[Gobble!]

This one hurt.  Bird did everything wrong came in to 10 yards max, busts me, I swing and eat a tree 2 steps in front of me. Thought I was high enough.

[Deputy 14]

5 or 6 seasons ago was a mess with rain and while i was on my ATV apparently my gun got a lot of water inside and rusted some parts in the trigger assembly. Not knowing this I continued to hunt for 3 more days in the rain.
So when the weather finally broke i was able to get on a bird, an old loner bird, one of those you only kill 2 in a lifetime kind of turkey. Worked him for a couple hours and when he finally got around to coming in I put the bead on his head and squeezed, nothing. Check my safety and it's off, push slide forward, squeeze, nothing. Bird turns and faces me in full strut, and I pulled the trigger a lot harder than normal and in doing so I pulled over his head and shot a perfect hole through his fan. It all happened in slow motion and I still remember seeing the sunlight coming through his freshly perforated fan.

[Gooserbat]

On a particular SE Oklahoma 3 day trip I fell in the creek, hit my head on the bunk above mine...hard, tripped and fell into a very large mess of green briars, and set down on a nest of fire ants... killed a turkey after all that.

[daddyduke]

Wore a new pair of rubber boots on an all day hunt in some very hilly woods. My blisters had blisters. Lesson learned the hard way. They felt very comfortable walking around the flat ground park by my house.

[chcltlabz]

One comical painful experience was when Hevishot first came out with the gold hull goose loads.  Obviously, I had mixed a Hevishot turkey shell in with my goose loads.  I pulled up on a flock that peeled straight overhead, and needless to say, shooting straight up with a turkey shell is not a good idea.  My arm went numb all the way to my elbow.

[Sir-diealot]

I was in a car accident in 2001 I tried to hunt in 2002 and had 3 come into me all brushing their feathers against the blind I was in or on the backpack I had behind the blind. I had one of them stop perfectly for me maybe 10-15 yards away, because of the accident I was in so much pain I was not even able to get the front of the gun up to shoot the bird. I tried so hard to get the front of the gun up and he stood so long for me but I could not do it, that sunk me into a very deep depression for a long time I tried to deer hunt about 7 years after that and sat in the stand for about 4 hours and got out and that made me have to stay at home laying in bed for four days due to pain.

4 years ago my doctor found a medication combination that lets me do several of the things I could not do before and hunting so long as I do not push to hard is one of them. I truly thank God for giving me back at least part of what I lost. Going to try to ride a bike (Mountain Bike) this Spring and see how that goes. I really do miss riding my bike.

[guesswho]

It was either this broke nose in Georgia, or the time I blew my knee out in Nebraska (acl and both meniscus), or the time I undid everything in Ohio that a surgery had repaired in my left elbow the week before in Georgia.
After this thread I may retire from turkey hunting and just talk about turkey hunting.  I'm better at talking about it anyway. 

[dirtnap]

Guesswho,

How in the world you break your nose?

[ol bob]

It was either this broke nose in Georgia, or the time I blew my knee out in Nebraska (acl and both meniscus), or the time I undid everything in Ohio that a surgery had repaired in my left elbow the week before in Georgia.
After this thread I may retire from turkey hunting and just talk about turkey hunting.  I'm better at talking about it anyway. 

Been there done that I think mine looked a lot worse.

[guesswho]

Guesswho,

How in the world you break your nose?

Come to find out, an awkward position (bird behind you), 3 1/2" shells, a scope, and a Mossberg 835 isn't a good combo.

[Tail Feathers]

My most painful was not actually during a hunt, but preparing for deer season.  Machete work on a bush and stabbed a fresh cut branch into the webbing between my two middle fingers.  That thing went in about 1/2".  I got a little sick to my stomach on that one.

But I'm still better off than Ronnie! Dang son, you need to be careful.

[Happy]

The fall of 2017 I managed to put the blade of my case knife into my forearm while skinning a deer. The blood flew when I pulled it out. Thought I could superglue it back shut and thought I had succeeded until the next day. It blew apart when I was working concessions at one of my daughters volleyball games. Needless to say the lady didn't want her nachos and I went to the local med express. For some strange reason I know both the main doctors there and they had a good laugh while they sewed me up. That was the latest woopsie.