Crazy night in the deer woods


Ethan Givan

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Im setting in the house watching tv last night and my buddy calls me at about 9:15pm and tells me that he needs my help. He says he had went bowhunting that afternoon, and that he shot a deer and he needs help getting it out of the woods. So being the good friend I am and considering he lives less than a mile from me I said sure.

So I get over there, we hop on the 4 wheeler and head back to the area he was hunting. The area he is hunting is a rather large property that is nothing but hills and hollers, cedar thickets and grown up creek bottoms. There was no trail going to where he was hunting so he was trying to work his way through the woods on the 4 wheeler where ever he could get through and with it being dark made it even more difficult.

About 30 minutes into the ride, he tells me he doesnt know where he is at.:hammer1: Ive never been on this farm before, I have just seen topo maps, so Im not much help to him. There was a big pile of rocks there in the woods and I asked him if he recognized it. Nope he doesnt, but he believes he can figure it out so he keeps going. 15 minutes later of zigg zagging through the thickets on the 4 wheeler and we find ourselves back at the same pile of rocks. We had made a big circle and still had no clue where we were.

At this point Im starting to get a little anxious. He keeps going in random directions and I finally tell him to stop...turn off the 4 wheeler...and let me think. I could smell a creek from where we were, so I told him to go down hill. I knew if we could find the creek we would have to be East of where we had entered the area. We found the creek and started headin back up the creek bottom and he finally found himslef back in familiar territory. We made it to the place where he shot the deer, we found the deer and wrestled it onto the 4 wheeler.

We made it back to his house with the deer at 1:30am this morning and by 2 am we had it skinned and de boned. Last night is officially the first time Ive been completely lost. I have been turned around before but not lost. Sorry for the long story but I wanted to share my crazy night in the deer woods. I hope he buys a GPS for next year :D

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I have never gotten lost but have gotten turned around a few times. I carry a gps just for that reason. I have all my parking spots marked and all my stands marked in the gps unit. I have not had to use it yet but its nice to know that if I do get turned around in the dark as you and your friend did then I can find my way out.

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i hunt on about 40 acres of property that i know real well, so it would be hard for myself to get lost, been turned around on other pieces of property though, i just try to look for familiar lanmarks... one example is we have a large rock hedgerow that runs east-west that if i find i could get to where i need to be... glad you made it out

OK though!!!

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I think most of us have been turned around like that a few times at night. I got a GPS about ten years ago after getting turned around for 2 hours trying to find a doe a kid had shot on a NWTF Wheeling sportsman hunt. Kid was all heart and had never killed a deer and I was determined to retrieve it even though the shot was marginal. Never got the deer, but did spend the money on a GPS after that night.

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I got lost once in 4500 acres of state land. Lets just say I never want to do that again. Fortunately, my hunting buddies heard my yelling and saw my flashlight, so I was only lost for a few hours.

The real scary part was, it was the night before rifle season opened, and I was wearing only camo clothing, as I was bow hunting. I would've hated to have to have spent the night in there, only to wake up knowing that there were rifle hunters in there and me not wearing any orange. I think we all know that there are some crazy people out there that will shoot at anything!!

Needless to say, I now have a GPS, and won't go into the woods without it, and a compass as back up...no matter how well I know the land.

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