Getting lost at the lease stories. I'll go first

[justincorbell]

Right off of 326? We entry my lease about 3 miles west of sour lake but our property goes south and east from there. I seen your profile says your from China, did you go to harden Jefferson?


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No sir, the lease was on old sour lake road. I grew up in beaumont, been in china 5yrs.

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[Rat]

With today's technology and free apps.....a man or woman should never get lost again.

Being lost is only a dead battery away...

[Rat]

I just posted this on another forum, pretty funny that this topic came up...

Mind Tricks

Circa 1988-89. In high school I had permission to hunt on a ranch just outside of my small town. The part of the ranch I could hunt was two sections, bordered by a highway on the West and a river on the North; it was fenced on three side, the river side was open. We hunted this place with headlamps for fur bearers during trapping season and we always had great luck; it was no unusual to take 20+ coons and several ringtail on a good night. The only downfall was it required a LOT of walking as there were no roads on this section of the ranch.

The evening began like any other; we parked the truck at the Southeast corner and entered through a water gap. The plan, as usual, was to hunt South to North; ending up at the river where we could cross and head to town to get the Scout and drive back to the truck when the hunt was over. Daniel and I had done this many times. The great thing about this particular section is it has a great big antenna array on top of the mountain, which was pretty big for the Texas hill Country. The antenna enabled me to quickly orient a topo map for navigation. This meant we could spend more time hunting and less time paying attention to where we were.

It had been a good night of hunting and we had bagged several big coons and a few ringtail. We skinned them on the spot and carried the hides strung on a lanyard; each sharing half the load.

We usually hunted right to the river and used the river to handrail to the highway; then we would walk the highway back to town and get the Scout. Tonight though, because we had done so well, we decided to cut it short. So instead of hitting the river like usual, I pulled out the map, oriented the map, got a quick bearing and we headed out. In hindsight, it seems so silly, but at the time it was bewildering...

After walking for a time we both thought we should be at the river by now, but we weren't. Sure that we were on the right track we just continued walking. Now this isn't like trail walking or hiking. We were busting brush, cross country, up and down sharp draws, fighting cedar breaks and ankle busting rocks the whole way.

We were quickly becoming frustrated and probably a little dehydrated. I again consulted the map and again made the determination that we were on the right track, Daniel also agreed. The night was pretty dark by now, the moon was gone and we were nearing exhaustion. As we came down a long draw we hit the river and a road; and this is where sanity took flight.

The river was on the wrong side of us, left side instead of right side and there shouldn't be a caliche road anywhere near this location; at least not without crossing a fence along the way. But, it was a road and we were sure we could figure it out, still determined we were on the right course and the map was somehow screwed up, we started walking the road. Heading what we though was West, toward town. After about 15 minutes we came to a gate we recognized, which was, again, on the wrong side of the road; it should have been on our right, but it was on our left.

For some reason, neither of our brains could grasp the fact that, at some point, we had gotten 180 degrees off our course; even with this cold hard gate telling us we were wrong, we both just KNEW we were right.

Exhausted, bloody and dehydrated we decided to head back to the river crossing for water and to sleep it off. We slept on the river for the remaining hour or so of darkness and awoke hours later with a new lease on life. We built a fire, shot a turtle and a nutria, ate both for breakfast and decided to head out down the road toward town. With sleep, food and water we knew exactly where we were; about 4 miles due East of town on Dry Creek road. Not long after we started walking we got a ride from Earl.

When we arrived at The Store one of the ranch hands from the place we had been hunting was waiting on us. He had seen my truck at the water gap and had come to check on us.

To this day I can't wrap my head around how we got so lost on a tract of land we were very familiar with. And what's worse, is that my brain was lying to me the whole time! To end up where we were we had to cross a fence, but neither Daniel or I remember crossing a fence.

Daniel and I learned a lot about ourselves that night; but what I have always kept with me, and has saved be countless times since, is to always trust the map and compass. Your brain will tell you lies to make the world fit your perspective, the map and compass will never lead you astray.

But it was worth it, the furrier came on Sunday and we made close to $600 that night with the hides.

Even though it was a hard lesson to learn, we were paid well to learn it!

[Tmag]

Colorado back in 1989 on a company hunt on private land. One of our customers got turned around and walked off the property we were hunting. We were looking all over for him and I just happened to ease out on the edge of a cliff and saw him about a mile over on another property standing in a road, he had orange coveralls on so he was easy to spot. He fired his pistol in the air hoping someone would hear it and come to him. I yelled a couple times and then fired a round off from my 7 mag, it got his attention.
He then turned to my right and began walking up the road. I got our guide and told him where I had seen the guy, he drove down a couple roads and a couple gates and as we came up to another gate a couple properties over there he was. He was happy to see us.

[AJ the TP Guru]

Not my lease, just a friend's ranch. Anyway he invited several of us to help him thin his hog population.

We all started out in different directions about 7am because he said that's when he'd been seeing them. Indeed, I ran into a sounder after about 15 minutes. Put an arrow into a sow at about 30 yds, and watched it run off apart from the other pigs. My 9 year old and I went to the last point we'd seen it at and found blood. After another 150 yds or so, we found her dying, and I put another arrow into her. Then we looked for the way back to the ranch house.

Boy, was that an adventure! Of course, there was no way I was gonna find that pig again. In that it was around Christmas, a week or so later one of the guys we'd gone there with gave me a Christmas present - a a dozen pork tamales. Plus, he convinced me he'd gone back out and found the pig, and that her pork was in the tamales.

It was a good month later when he fessed up. I felt like a fool then for believing him.

[rosco11]

Took my wife to my parents ranch in Jack County a few years ago. We walked to the back of the property to clear fence about a half a mile back. There is only one road leading to the back portion we were working on. An hour or so later my wife said she was thirsty and was going to walk back for a drink. Well she left and my dad and I kept working. 3 hours later my mother comes down and I asked how my wife was doing but she said she hasn't seen her. Not 5 minutes later I see her walking up from the oposite durection freaking out! I asked where she went and everything she described was on the property behind us 2-3 miles away. I asked if she crossed any fences and she said no. My only guess was she walked right over the 200' of fence we were working on in the opposite direction and never looked back. Just glad she made her way back to us. Really could have been a bad situation.

She has been back 2 times and has had nothing but bad luck. Big Red Ants in her pants the 2nd trip, 6' rattlesnake struck at her 3rd trip. Needless to say I don't think she will ever go again!

As far as me ever getting lost.....no...... I keep a close eye on landmarks, trees, rocks, etc. Explored a lot of land and seem to always find my way around.

That's nuts! Did the snake hit her? snake boots on?

[Davoh]

My grandparents place in Rocksprings is 1500 acres, and I grew up hunting there. I like to joke that my parents carried me to the stand in a car seat. Killed my first deer when I was 8. From then on, my dad started teaching me how to "walk and hunt" our pastures. We were always the only folks on the place, so it was easy enough to keep well away from each other when doing this. To this day, it is still my favorite way to hunt out there.

When I turned 12, I was then legally allowed to hunt without direct supervision of my parents. My Dad dropped me off on the back side of of a 400 acre pasture about 15 minutes before daylight. It was about 72 at that point, with a gentle south breeze. About 30 minutes after daylight, the wind switched out of the north, and it come a drizzly foggy cold front. By 2 hours after daylight, the temp was dropping below 50. All I had on was a cotton long sleeve shirt and a pair of jeans. Needless to say, about that point I wasn't paying much attention to deer hunting. Let me tell you, you think you know a place, or you think you know how to tell which direction is which... but when the weather socks in, every hill and every thicket looks the same. Forget about telling direction... The neat part about the place is that the pastures are layed out in a way that all the fences eventually lead back to the house. Find a fence, follow it, you'll get home. Might be the long way, but you'll get there. That's unless you find the fence that goes around a 10 acre feeder pen(was originally a sorting pen in the 30's-50's)... Being rather young I did not think to mark the fence where I started, so I ended up walking around it several times before I figured it out. What should have taken me till lunch to get back to the house, ended up taking me several more hours before I found the trail through the pasture, and followed it back to camp.

Cold, wet, and disoriented, is pretty @#_*&%_* scary to a 12 year old...

To this day, I only shoot critters with a rifle if it's weather like that, and I carry a roll of marking tape in my bag just in case.

[killerbee]

I wouldn't call it lost but I have been turned around plenty of times at diffrent leases. Most of the time it has been at night hunting hogs on foot. I remember one time in particular in the panhandle on the pease river. It was a new moon and really dark! I was out stalking pigs and got on a group that was on the move through some plum thickets. I followed the pigs and didn't pay any attention to which direction I was going. By the time I got a shot and killed a pig I was completely disoriented. Lol

[Efren]

Ttt