Elmer Fudd stories from the 2025 season?

[lukebrowning]

Now that the season is over for most of us, what’s your Elmer Fudd stories of the 2025 season?

I have a few…

1) Packing out buck to trailhead… Elmer Fudd on SxS. “Nice buck, where did you get it?”… in the mountains… “yeah, but where?” … above 8,000 feet… pulls out phone asking me to show him exact area… “we drove all the way from Wisconsin, it’s not like we’re gonna blow up your secret spot…”

2) 1 hour before sunset Elmer Fudd sees area that elk cleared snow to feed the previous night. Doesn’t bother getting off ATV and drives off trail right up to the area to check it out. Then proceeds to drive over to the nearest group of trees upwind in a ‘sneaky crouch’ low on the handlebars to stake out the area for the evening.

3) Spring bear… After a few days of nasty wind, rain and snow the girlfriend and I get back to the trailhead exhausted. Packing up truck and I can see overweight Elmer Fudd get out of his camper and approach us in the usual ‘dumb shuffle/crouch/smile I’m gonna ask you for spots.’ “Did you see anything?” No, not really. “If you were us where would you hunt?” … south facing slopes with grass… “Any areas in particular?” … I repeat what I just said… “I’m not good at reading a map, but we can hike anywhere, like over 10 miles in a day.” That’s great, you should have no problem finding bears. We drive lower on the mountain where the weather is better to rearrange gear. Elmer Fudd passes us and speeds up kicking up mud.

… long live Elmer Fudd!

 

[sierracharlie338]

Haha this is hilarious! I don’t get to hunt public land so I’m in for the stories!

 

[HunterGatherer]

As I’m driving in one morning to hunt an area, I see a kid, maybe 20, standing next to his sxs with an elk quarter on his pack in the back of it, . He flags me down and asks “ You got horses ? “. I look behind me and say “nope”. He tells me how him and his buddy killed a spike way down in a hole and they’d packed until 2 am and were still packing. I said , “Sorry bud, I don’t own any stock“, and drove on.

Was driving back out later in the day and the same sxs comes flying up the road and the kid and his buddy are looking pretty frantic. Then he asks me if had seen an elk quarter in the road on my way down. I told him I hadn’t and he tore off up the road. Wonder if he ever found it. Slow down on them razrs boys !

 

[Muh387]

2025 was peak Elmer season. Here’s my top three

1. Opening morning, glassing a ridge, two guys on loud Hondas rip past me on the road, stop 300 yds below the elk I’m watching, get off, lay their rifles across the seats and start blasting skyward to see where they hit. Elk gone in 4 seconds flat.
2. Packing out my muley at dark, headlamp on. Dude in a lifted side by side with LED bar brighter than the sun rolls up, blinds me, yells You get him right here?? Show me on my onX! I told him Yep, right under your light bar. He stared at me for five seconds and finally drove off.
3. Last day of rifle, sitting a wallow. Camo’d up, 200 yds off the road. Hear a truck door slam, look up guy in blue jeans and a Carhartt coat walks straight to my wallow with a sandwich in one hand, rifle slung, pees in it, eats the sandwich standing in the middle of it, then walks back to his truck and leaves.

Elmer Fudd is alive, well, and somehow still breeding. Long live the legends.

 

[Poser]

Now that the season is over for most of us, what’s your Elmer Fudd stories of the 2025 season?

I have a few…

1) Packing out buck to trailhead… Elmer Fudd on SxS. “Nice buck, where did you get it?”… in the mountains… “yeah, but where?” … above 8,000 feet… pulls out phone asking me to show him exact area… “we drove all the way from Wisconsin, it’s not like we’re gonna blow up your secret spot…”


… long live Elmer Fudd!

My new favorite response to "where?" is, "You know, in the Rocky Mountains"

 

[bigbassin]

Not 2025, but one that comes to mind.

I got drawn for a whitetail WMA bow hunt outside Chattanooga, did some scouting and found some thick nasty cover complete with blowdowns that had trails leading out of it right next to some acorns that had been hit pretty good. Let’s say the edge is about 100 yards wide or so

Morning of the hunt I get in about an hour before legal light and setup along the northern corner, closer to the access, where I can hit a few different trails coming out.

Well 2 minutes before shooting light, I hear a guy walking behind me. He keeps coming, and walks directly under my climber.

I whisper out to him (which definitely caught him off guard) something to the effect of the deer out bedding 40 yards in front of us, if you setup on the other corner we’d be able to cover all of the trails coming out of the thicket. He responds back something along the lines of oh the deer are in front of us?

And straight into the bedding thicket he goes, crashing all the way through it.

Not even an hour later he comes back out, walks to my stand and tells me I was correct, he saw a bunch of deer in the cover, but he couldn’t get a shot since they were running.

I didn’t see anything that morning.

 

[JEck]

Wyoming antelope this year, night before season opens I bed down a nice group of goats and get in to where they were at last light the previous day a solid 45 minutes before legal shooting light. The whole time walking in there was a guy sitting 2/3 of a mile away off the main road facing out in to the sage with his brights turned on in his vehicle shining the whole country side. I get set up sitting over the water hole the goats are hitting, and sure enough, as soon as it’s light enough to see, this guy is driving through 3 different groups of goats along a muddy two track, tearing everything up and scaring critters left and right. He drives 15 yards from me and has the audacity wave as he drives by and move up 200 yards and stop and glass the goats I’m sitting on, then proceed to continue driving all over the place scaring groups left and right. Needless to say I didn’t get the buck out of that group, still tagged out two hours later on a different one though.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

I was out quail hunting with my GSP years back. I sat down for a short break when two hunters walked up to me to say hello, we talked for just. a few minutes then went our separate way. A shot time later my dog went on point about 40 yards ahead and up the hill from me, as I walked up to her, one of the guys came in from my left, he stopped, look at me. then at my dog, he asked what was wrong with my dog, why is she standing like that??????????????????????????????. And yes he had a shotgun and was acting like he was hunting. When I told him why she was on point, then she jumped in and flushed the quail he was dumbfounded. he had no idea dogs did such things. He had lots of questions and decided he need to get one of them hunting dogs.

 

[bigbassin]

Now one where I was the Fudd.

First time ever deer hunting on public land, pick out a spot on the map where 3 logging roads intersected and started walking in around 4:00 AM. Bright full moon so I walked in completely dark, no flashlight or head lamp.

Get out to the spot, see a pine that looks like it would see all 3 logging roads and go to setup my climber.

This is my first time ever doing so, in the dark, cold, trying to figure out what to do with my backpack, rifle, put on harness, etc. basically nothing quiet about this operation.

Well I get it figured out and start climbing. Get up about 8-10’ and see what looks like feet and a platform level with my eyes in the dark. Look up and see a dude staring down at me in the tree next to mine. Never said a word, made a noise, or shined a light at me.

I climbed down and left the area.

 

[5MilesBack]

Just the other day I looked out the front window, and there's this giant wabbit just sitting there in front of our porch. I grabbed my twusty .22, came around the garage, and shot that giant wabbit. He didn't take a step.

 

[roadrunner]

My new favorite response to "where?" is, "You know, in the Rocky Mountains"

When someone asks me where I shot an animal, I tell them where on the animal which is usually the lungs.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Deer on the private hillside came into the public field the prior night, we crawl up a drainage ditch to close to 250yd from the fence to wait for them to cross. Subsequently elmer fudd is walking accross the field in full view 1/4mi off to our side with the deer staring at him and balking at crossing the fence before shooting light ends.

 

[finner]

This was a new one for me this season. Watched these two savants miss, spook, or generally terrorize every muley doe in this field for an hour. One was holding a Montana muley doe decoy in front of him the entire time, while the other walked a few feet to his side. They did not kill a deer, and killing a deer would have been pretty damn easy.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

Carrying around a decoy in rifle season, that's a future darwin award winner.

 

[finner]

Carrying around a decoy in rifle season, that's a future darwin award winner.

Good news there was no chance of any human or deer believing they were actually a mule deer doe. Bad news? They vote.

 

[ReaptheHeat]

When I'm shooting anything over 270 win and not a 6 CM, 6 UM, or small cartridge flavor or the month.

 

[va_to_co]

November 8th (a Saturday), public land, out of state. I'm the first one to a parking area on a piece of public, get there around noon. Scouting as I go, to see if anything looks better than where I plan to sit. End up setting up where I originally planned, at a creek crossing. Have two guys stomping down the hillside, scouting, at 4pm, on a Saturday, during the rut, without their bows. That's how you upset other folks and also see a giant, with no way to kill it.

Upside is I expected the deer to come from another direction, which they did, and I arrowed one at 21 yards. Got back to the parking area after dark to grab my pack to haul it out and run into the guys, who apologized and asked how I did. One said "oh man, we'd help, but our e-bikes are dead". I got in there and out of there on foot, it still works, I promise.

 

[dtrkyman]

Was already set up in my climber, well after daylight fat boy comes down the trail, I start to whistle, after a few time she loudly replies I hear ya, walks up to me and says I have a stand back here, I say well your late, he walks right by and hunts anyway, par for the course hunting public whitetail!

He drove in on a 4 wheeler from private, was really tempted to go over and let the air out of all his tires, that slob would have likely had a heart attack walking out, so I left him be!

 

[htlt_surfboards]

A few years ago my hunting partner and i are headed out to a spot we like to go to. It’s about a 7 mile bike ride on a closed fire road and then another mile or so hiking. About 2.5 miles up the road is a small camping spot with a picnic table that we have to go by. When we get to it there are two other Fudds sitting at the picnic table so out of politeness we stop and say hello.

They ask us where we are going to be hunting and I point up the road and say ohh were going out over there a ways I don’t think that we will have any effect on each other. The one guy is looking a little concerned and disappointed and says ohh well we were going to be hunting that way also. Ok i say well how far were you planning on going, im ok with adjusting my plans so we aren’t on top of each other. He says ohh im going to be hunting the green gate. My hunting partner and i look at each other a little confused, and ask where is the green gate? He points over my shoulder and 100 yards further up the road is a forest service gate that is always open and i pretty much have just never even paid attention to because we always just blow right by it. I tell him no problem the green gate is all yours.

We go out hunting and a few days later coming back out see the guys again. They ask if we have been seeing anything and i tell them we have been which to their disappointment say that haven’t seen any deer the past few days hunting the green gate on the road. My hunting partner and I regularly make jokes about hunting the green gate now.