Home › Forums › Campfire Forum › What Have You Forgotten?
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At least a few times in every outdoorsmans career, I’d bet most of us forget to bring something we REALLY needed. 15 years ago I packed up for a trout fishing trip to Michigans’ Upper Peninsula and after arriving, it hit me I forgot to pack my sleeping bag. A friend had an old wool Army blanket and I spent a few miserable nights curled up like a wooly caterpillar. Another time a friend and I were an hour from home heading toward a bowhunting spot and he said he forgot something with a reserved tone. I said “what, your bow…hahahaha?? Sure enough he left it in his vehicle when we left. Funny now but they weren’t then. Any good ones out there?
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A few years ago I was hunting in Wisconsin and planned to drive home after last light. I didn’t shoot anything that evening, so when I got back to my truck I laid my bow on the ground, stripped off my coat and bibs, loaded up, and got on the road. About the time I got to Janesville (halfway point home) I realized my bow was still laying next to the landowner’s driveway. Needless to say, I didn’t get home until late that night.
I also left a Helle Polar blade with an antler handle in a tree on some public hunting land an hour and a half from home. I didn’t realize it until I got home that night, and figured my chances of it still being there the next day were slim. Luckily, I ended up finding it right where I left it.
And then there’s the time I forgot my deer tag at my father’s house…
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Last fall, on the evening I killed a bull, I realized I’d forgotten my new camera so have no “hero shots” from that hunt.
Three years ago I killed a bull on the last day of the season and realized I’d neglected to bring my belt knife … a Helle. Had to quarter the elk with my backup knife, overall length less than 4″. It too was a Helle blade and worked great, but the handle was small and thin and I couldn’t use my hands for about a week after that due to cramps.
Many years ago I left a Swiss Army knife sitting on a log some four miles up the mountain from home, blade open, where I’d stopped during an elk hunt for lunch. Next spring, after lying under our average 19′ snow here all winter, in turkey season I returned and there lay the knife right where I’d left it, the blade clean and shining like a mirror.
Most recently, when I killed a Coues buck this past January, once again I didn’t have my belt knife along that morning … and this time I didn’t have a backup either, so did the work with a Swiss Army knife … no, not the same one that sat out all winter long ago, which got lost again, this time permanently.
Once I drove to the trailhead without my bow, which I’d left lying on the target butt. Happily it was only a few miles.
All of this makes me realize, happily?, that I can’t blame all of my current forgetfulness on age alone, as I’ve always been dumb that way. 😛
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Just a few:
On a 5-day fishing trip in the southern Sierras a few years ago, we got camp entirely set up on the first night before I discovered I didn’t have a sleeping bag. Spent a cold night wrapped up in a tarp and bought a blanket at a tack store the following day. Spent the rest of the trip in it.
One day elk hunting last fall I climbed the mountain behind my house before I realized I’d left my glove in the truck.
On a 30-day kayaking trip in Alaska, I realized I didn’t bring a toothbrush. I “toughed” it out for about 4 or 5 days before my mouth felt like an abused shag carpet. A buddy offered to let me borrow his, as long as I sterilized afterward. After using it, I put it in boiled, sterile water for a few minutes. Over the next several days, all the bristles fell off…
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Oh, here’s one I forgot about a watch that Daves’ post about leaving a Swiss Army knife on a mt. reminded me of. I’d gotten back to where I’d parked one year and noticed a little something shiny in the hard packed dirt, so I scratched it up and beheld an LL Bean pocket watch that still worked! Well, I carried it for years…one year having set it on a rock hunting high in the Adirondacks and leaving it there, came back down the mt., and said “aw s–t”, went the 2k feet back up and every damn rock looked the same, but eventually I found it! It survived one trip thru the washing machine but the 2nd one killed it a few years later:cry:. I hate it when stuff I’m fond of “dies”!
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One of my hog hunts in southern Al was a toughie. Six hour drive only to find out I had left my rubber boots at home. Only had the tennis shoes I had on my feet for the drive down and back. Three days of walking in the water and mud left my feet raw to the bone. Needless to say I threw those shoes in the trash when I returned home. What was white shoes were now black and smelled like swanp water.
Troy
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Forgetting and berating yourself for it makes the trips memories to laugh at forever.
I drove a November rain and higher elevation snow an hour and a half to my elk area. After putting on all my gear I went to grab my bow from behind the seat and realized I left it on the couch in the living room.
I made the best of it and hunted with my cheap digital camera. I witnessed the largest herd of elk working there way down to the lower elevations. I lost count after about 45. They were safely the other side of a raging stream from me so, not that having the bow would have made much difference, it made for good memories and pictures.
Another successful hunt started with me forgetting my boots at home leaving me to hunt, slipping and sliding, in my Romeo slippers in the rain. My bike chain broke during my pedal in the same morning. I was able to connect with a young buck before the day was out, though.
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Up early,predawn and and I was feeling my way toward my stand deep in the woods. Got there and tied my bow to the rope,then climbed to my perch. Pulled up my bow and hung it on its hook, then went about getting my gloves and headnet on.
I heard something approaching in the gray light,and took my bow from its hook and peered into the faint light. And it was at that moment I realized my quiver was laying on the dining room table.(Right where I put it the night before.)
The young buck that appeared never realized how lucky he was that I was so absent-mended. 🙄
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