Most expensive thing you lost while hunting

[Cady Creek]

Winter before last I was coming home from ice fishing 40 minutes away with the GF. Had the trailer on with snowmobile and my Otter Lodge Pro flip over ice shack. Inside shack was rod locker with half dozen custom ice rods, all tackle, my Garmin EchoMap, ION auger and other misc. supplies. Got home and when I got out of the truck, first thing I noticed was gate was down on trailer. Latch had broken. Ran over to look and sure enough, shack was gone. I stood frozen in disbelief trying to hold back the tears. GF yells at me, don't just stand there, we gotta go! I'm thinking in 40 miles of highway driving its either gone, or worse, somebody smashed into it on the highway in the dark.
We only got about three miles down the road and there was a Dodge picked pulled over. Younger dude standing in his truck bed holding the tow bar of the shack trying to get it in his pickup. Claims he was going to post online and try to find the rightful owner. Who knows if that was the case, but that was a close one. Easily 3k worth of gear. Lesson learned, and everything gets a strap since that day!

 

[Cady Creek]

Oh, and I have lost a wife, house, 401k while hunting. But that took years of trying

 

[GSPHUNTER]

My one time hunting friends. One by one they are no longer hunting or, don't let me know when they are going. We hunted together for near 35 years. One has just got to old and has health issues to be able get out anymore. Two have moved, and they also have health issues, not debilitating just time consuming with Dr. and hospital visits. One always look at hunting as a social activity and did not spend a lot of time actually hunting. He seldom goes anymore. The other two who are real close neighbors, father and son, have this bad habit of going and not informing me about it. I asked them about it and they tell me they didn't think I would have wanted to go. I just looked him in the face and said, tell me the real reason. He stuck with the, we didn't think you would want to go. These two are the ones who have hunted with me many, many times, and we always had great times. We do other things together, but when it comes to informing me about hunting trips ?????. I'm not really sure what is going on with them, but I intend to find out.

 

[TheGDog]

Rangefinder.

Bow Release.

And I almost lost an on-board quiver. Thankfully I'd notice it had come off during the hike-out, and backtracked and found it caught on a bush. It was a poor design, so bought a replacement with a better way of fastening to the bow.

 

[hunterjmj]

Saved up and bought some Leica LRF's about 20 some years ago so I thought I'd go drive around and try these new things out. My dad was with me and we stopped at a big switch back to eat lunch and I set them down on a big stump we sat at. We ate our lunch and went back to driving around looking for animals when about 10 miles down the road I had a small panic attack when I couldn't find my brand new $500 rangefinders. We were on a fairly busy county road and that stump was obvious to anyone driving. I hauled ass back and thankfully it was still sitting on the stump were I left it. $500 is a lot of money but back then it was more like $2000 to me.

 

[CorbLand]

My first wedding ring made it two months. Its in a gut pile.

I am super paranoid and double check everything before I leave a place. It has saved my ass a time or two.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

*ALMOST* lost my wallet. Thank goodness for Onx. I was able to backtrack in the dark and find it by the poop log.

 

[P dog]

Lost a KUIU Guide jacket in Idaho. Fell off my pack elk hunting.

 

[Sccritterkiller]

Wading/trout fishing floated my hat so many times and lost some much gear I don't keep track...Lost a pair of Maui Jim's last spring...lost my wedding ring taking my boys fishing in a private pond, I did go back with a metal detector and find it....

 

[JakeSCH]

Iphone fell out of my pocket. Battery died and I plugged it in to external battery to charge and the chord must have got caught up in brush and pulled it out. At least I killed a buck that night.

Two years ago when chasing a bull through thick oaks, the oak branches pulled my down jacket off my pack (strapped to back in a hurry).

 

[Mcnasty]

I left a very nice Ross reel on the bumper and drove off a few years ago. Heading out one night after dark and passed a truck with a very nice spotter sitting on top the tool box. Guys clearly hit the trail in a hurry and left it on top of the truck box. It should not have been a though but I would be lying if I said did not have a wandering thought about a nice spotter... I felt crappy enough about thinking it, that drove back a mile or so and placed in it the truck bed so some one else did not see and snag it or they accidentally get back late and drove off with it still up their. I still don't own a spotter and I am no saint.... but a week or so later I found my spyderco knife at the bottom of a pack that had been mising for a few years.... sometime things come back to you.

 

[MNGrouser]

Neither of these stories *quite* end up being "lost it" stories.

First one my buddy calls asking for help tracking a wounded white-tail. Easy to track in the 2 feet of snow but poorly hit and he knows he'll need help getting it out of the god-forsaken swamp it was headed into. We take turns breaking trail and I intermittently pull out my cell phone to check proximity to nearest road. Next check my phone is gone. We stop and his boy attempts to send me a text message. VERY spotty cell service. No calls go through; only every 3rd text or so. My text ring tone was a turkey gobble. So every so often we hear a faint turkey gobble in extreme northern Minnesota cedar swamp. Eventually get it narrowed down and I start digging through the snow to finally, at last, get my phone and save myself nearly a grand.

The best part of that is when we resumed the tracking and got to higher ground, all those texts that did not go through in the swamp were delivered. I think there were 70-some. We had to pause the tracking...again, to wait for 70 turkey gobbles to stop. By the time we quit laughing we got back on the trail and caught up to the buck. Nice heavy 10-point.

When I was living much closer to a bigger town, I got up on my birthday to go grouse hunting and drove the 1/2 hour to some decent public ground. There was a jeep parked on the north side of the road so my dog and I picked the trailhead to the south and got to hunting. Not much for birds and the woods were still pretty thick. After a few hours we stumble back to the truck tired but happy. The jeep was gone but the guy had cleaned his birds right next to my truck. Big pile of guts and feathers immediately outside the driver's side door. No way that wasn't intentional. I loaded up the dog and cased my shotgun. As I was stepping over the gutpile to get into my truck I notice something shiny. Reached down and pulled a folding buck knife from the pile. I still have that knife. I still wonder when the jerk realized he left it behind if he recognized the karma behind it.

 

[Afhunter1]

I lost a brand new pair of Kennetrek Mountain Extremes. I picked them up from mail delivery and put them in the bed of my truck under cover. Wife had also put a bunch of boxes in there for me to throw away when I got to work. I forgot the boots were in there and tossed it all.

My boy drove off with his bow on the trunk of his car. A neighbor found it and gave it back to him but it was trashed.

 

[Weldor]

I am in the lost this club unfortunately, 1989 Kiabab north rim mule deer hunt. Lost my 8x30 slc's somewhere on Saddle mountain. Broken strap. I'm still bummed out about it 24 yrs later.

 

[adventure907]

Other than my sanity, I'd say it was an outdoorsman's tripod....

 

[WCB]

My wallet with $5K in it on a butte guiding deer in MT. Long story short an issue came up and a day off turned into a guiding day about 10minutes before client and my boss were supposed to leave the lodge. I was headed to town to do some errands and deposit the cash but gathered my hunting gear and jumped in the truck with the client and headed out not thinking to throw my wallet in the center counsel or pack.

While chasing the buck I sat down and instantly realized my wallet wasn't there. Searched for about 30minutes but went back to hunting for the clients sake. 1ft of snow that night that didn't melt for 3 days. Went back up the day before we were shutting the lodge down and found it in 10 minutes. Funny thing is the first thing I did was open it up and count bills like a raccoon sniped my money or something. hahaha

 

[fatlander]

I know some guys that have lost their wives over hunting, very expensive.


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[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

A BOAL, it was priceless to me.

Solid use of the Rokslide dialect. If you had a meme to go with this, it'd be A+.

 

[RocketRob16]

Cheap rangefinder is the only thing that comes to mind off the top of my head but I know there’s more. Had been bow hunting whitetails a handful of times then left for work out of town for a month. Came back and started gathering up all the gear for a mule deer hunt and the rangefinder was nowhere to be found. Even looked around the trees I had been hunting out of. Best to forget those moments if at all possible in my opinion. Luckily this one was easily replaced between hunts.

 

[intunegp]

My one time hunting friends. One by one they are no longer hunting or, don't let me know when they are going. We hunted together for near 35 years. One has just got to old and has health issues to be able get out anymore. Two have moved, and they also have health issues, not debilitating just time consuming with Dr. and hospital visits. One always look at hunting as a social activity and did not spend a lot of time actually hunting. He seldom goes anymore. The other two who are real close neighbors, father and son, have this bad habit of going and not informing me about it. I asked them about it and they tell me they didn't think I would have wanted to go. I just looked him in the face and said, tell me the real reason. He stuck with the, we didn't think you would want to go. These two are the ones who have hunted with me many, many times, and we always had great times. We do other things together, but when it comes to informing me about hunting trips ?????. I'm not really sure what is going on with them, but I intend to find out.

Maybe just let this one go? I don't see how it helps anyone to push the issue. If you have already confronted them, they know you want to go. If you're still not getting invited, they don't want you hunt with you. Maybe it's not you, maybe they just need the father/son time. I know I'd rather hunt with just my dad than my dad and his neighbor. If you guys already do other things together but you're not getting the call to go hunting, maybe they've chosen hunting as the thing they do together without inviting other friends.

Edit to contribute to the thread: Had a limb steal my orange beanie while tracking an elk through some thick nasty juniper/sage scrubs. Left a bone saw in a gut pile but went back and found it the next day, and I've done the same with seat cushions a handful of times.