Close to the truck

[Lefty]

Close to the truck!1
Come guys got to be some good stories on close to the truck.

A few years back I had bought a 2017 Colorado diesel pickup, Whiter in color,,, My neighbor loves his.
I had parked to load goose decoys in the truck, layout blind Gun clothes , blind, bag were in the truck , doors open , one goose shy of my limit.
I hear a her-ronk,, aA pair locked up and gliding in, I grabbed my gun slipped in a shell, a few clucks and drop the one goose. inside the remaining decoys

One of my favorites I was parked at the end of a mountain 2 track My wife was going to drop down the mountain and pick me up on a deer hunt. Not far from the pickup a fellow and his young son were hiking to their truck,, My wife was visiting with them when a buck stepped out in back of my pick up,, A little convincing to the dad to "take the shot" my wife helped the young kid kill his first little buck. They dropped the tailgate and pulled the buck up in to the truck bed, Didnt drag it one inch only lifted the buck up.

The below pic a couple years after the pic was taken Julie and Andrew Were following 3 bulls all the way back.. The sad part they had know idea it was real elk they though they were messing with someone, and they were messing back ... I was across the meadow ,, the elk yards away from the trucks and Julie and Andrew below the elk 30 yards.

After looking at that pic..My wifes car is maybe dirty fopr the 2nd time in its life. My trucks getting a new tranny,, the car went goose hunting today ,, of an set some cat traps
I was trying to take a nop and this gall kept pestering me, she had a couple fawns so she got a pass,,, well actually I was waiting for my daughter to arrow her

[RanchoSueno]

My first cool calling situation happened 200yds from the truck and the trailhead. I showed up in a new area at 5am. Walked in a half mile till it got grey and threw out a location bugle. A bull sounded off back at the trailhead just off in the woods. I thought bull crap, someone's pulling my leg but it had "that" echo/vibration to it. I of course bugled my way to him and he went quiet. Found fresh poop and tracks everywhere. Eventually gave up and circled around running into a handful of muley does. I sat back down on a log next to the pile of fresh elk poop, snacked on a lunchable and tooted on my grunt tube just screwing around with quiet squeals. I made a half attempt to chuckle and BAM 80yds away was a bull chuckling for real. He was across this little finger ridge backed up to the parking area. I continued to call too much till he walked off after chuckling and raking back n forth for 10 minutes. I scooted back out and around to the truck so excited to finally have an encounter. I didn't make it back in til the next morning and made a different approach. Bumped some cows and felt defeated. Went to leave back up the little ridge I had lunch at the morning before and had a mule doe blow her head off at me. Totally ready to give up. Got to the top and found two rubs. I started beating the one up and dorking around screaming my bugle tube off. Bull popped out at 60yds and circled in to 30yds. I was full draw but stuck on my knee, petrified to move and blow the situation. He ended up getting my wind and swapping ends but it was absolutely exciting and would likely have been a breeze to pack out

[Indian Summer]

One time I slammed the tailgate and a turkey gobbled in the dark. That’s all I got!

But…. I knew this dude who moved up to Montana with his family from Texas. Kind of a chubby guy. They bought the gas station and convenience store/sporting goods store in town. He talked a pretty good game when it came to hunting, but you could tell that he probably wasn’t much of a mountain man. At one point, he bought a nice Morgan horse, but he was afraid of it so sold it to me for only $1000. But man was he lucky! He didn’t live there two years before drawing a bighorn sheep ram tag which he punched with a full curl ram. Most people had been applying for it for 30 years with no luck.

One day he drove up to a high trail head. Parked and got out of the truck and dropped the tailgate to get his bow and pack out. When he slammed the tailgate shut a bull bugled a couple hundred yards away. He let out a cow call and pretty soon the bull bugled again. He had cut the distance in half. So the guy knocked an arrow and just waited. A few minutes later a perfectly typical 7 x 7 bull stepped out right into the trailhead parking lot and he shot it and killed it. I saw the bull with my own two eyes. It was insane. It was the only true seven point bull I had ever seen taken from the area. It fell over dead 40 yards from the truck.

[saddlesore]

Years ago I was archery hunting muleys in New Mexico. There were quite few deer right out side of Albuquerque on Sandia Peak. We would drive out after work to Juan Tabo, a little park on the West side of the mountain, and hunt up. As we were taking a break,we looked down at the truck and a herd of about twenty deer were milling about the truck.
That has tough country to hunt as it was all big rock.Unless you stuck a deer, any arrow shot was pretty much ruined.

Go into the Archive Tips forum and you can read about elk in camp in the" Mexican Stand Off Story .

I was always grateful for those easy ones as I sure as heck worked my butt off for the elk that weren't.

Not doing well so I don't post much anymore.

[>>>---WW---->]

Good to see ya back on here Vince. Hope you get to feeling better soon.

[Lefty]

My first cool calling situation happened 200yds from the truck and the trailhead. I showed up in a new area at 5am. Walked in a half mile till it got grey and threw out a location bugle. A bull sounded off back at the trailhead just off in the woods. I thought bull crap, someone's pulling my leg but it had "that" echo/vibration to it. I of course bugled my way to him and he went quiet. Found fresh poop and tracks everywhere. Eventually gave up and circled around running into a handful of muley does. I sat back down on a log next to the pile of fresh elk poop, snacked on a lunchable and tooted on my grunt tube just screwing around with quiet squeals. I made a half attempt to chuckle and BAM 80yds away was a bull chuckling for real. He was across this little finger ridge backed up to the parking area. I continued to call too much till he walked off after chuckling and raking back n forth for 10 minutes. I scooted back out and around to the truck so excited to finally have an encounter. I didn't make it back in til the next morning and made a different approach. Bumped some cows and felt defeated. Went to leave back up the little ridge I had lunch at the morning before and had a mule doe blow her head off at me. Totally ready to give up. Got to the top and found two rubs. I started beating the one up and dorking around screaming my bugle tube off. Bull popped out at 60yds and circled in to 30yds. I was full draw but stuck on my knee, petrified to move and blow the situation. He ended up getting my wind and swapping ends but it was absolutely exciting and would likely have been a breeze to pack out

Im a big fan of those close encounters