What's the most valuable thing you have found hunting?

[EastHumboldt]

Cold Steel Hunter knife. Had some rust and pitting on the blade, but it cleaned up OK and is my camp/survival knife for all backpacking trips.

Two years after I found it we were camped in the same valley and a group was camped next to us. They came over for a drink, and somehow it came out where and when I’d found the knife. One of them said he was sure it was his knife that he’d dropped in the snow 3 years before, and I believed him because this is not a heavily traveled spot at all. I asked if he wanted it back and he said for me to keep it. We argued over it for awhile but he refused to take it back. Said he’d already written it off and had too many knives anyway. Pretty generous.

 

[highcountrymuley]

Found a nice orange quilted jacket. In that area you want full orange! Lots of nice pockets with only one glove ... think it flew off someone's atv and blew around in the wind to where I found it about half mile from road. Not valuable but I wear it

 

[6mm Remington]

In the Little Belt Mountains of Montana one cold snowy November day back in about 1969 my father found a 300 Weatherby rifle leaning up against a tree. The hunter wandered off and left her rifle against the tree after going to the bathroom. He figured that the rifle belonged to someone who had a camp not too far from where he and some friends were camped so he walked over with the rifle and asked about it. There was one very happy woman with tears in her eyes when the rifle was returned!

I helped some officers from Great Falls one day as they came over to Missoula to recover stolen property from some of our pawn shops. In one of the pawn shops they had three or four Ruana knives on display. This officer thought the logo looked familiar. He told me that a year or two before he had found a knife laying on the ground where he was hunting. He took it home and used it around his house for various things to include "cutting sod"! He told me that he thought the knife was one of those you might buy at a truck stop. He said he had the knife still and it was in a box in his attic. On the way out of town I went with them and stopped at the Ruana shop in Bonner and had him look at their knives to help see if this might match what he had at home. He was not certain but thought it might be. He happened to like the Ruana's so much that he purchased one that went home with him that day.

He got home and got the knife out of his attic. Sure enough it was one of the old Ruana's made by Rudy Ruana himself! I told him to contact Ruana and talk about it because it was a very valuable knife. He did not tell me how much he made when he sold it but he did say that it paid for two more Ruana's for his sons. Now that was a find!

 

[Geewhiz]

One time I hunted an area and while I was in there 3 guys had chartered a helicopter to drop them off right beside where I was camped, which was cool. They had a big cargo net that hung from the helicopter that carried all their crap. Well a few days later they got flown back out and I was watching the helicopter fly away through my binos as they left and I saw something fall out of the cargo net but I could not tell exactly where it hit the ground. A while later the chopper returned to the pickup spot, a guy got out and looked around and then they flew slowly along their previous flight path and I assumed were looking for whatever it was that fell out. I went looking and have since been back to look more than once and never did find it but I assume it’s got to be of some value beings as they took another round trip with the chopper to look for the missing item.

 

[6mm Remington]

A friend of mine somehow misplaced a pair of Swarovski binoculars one day. He is not sure where they went missing from. He never did turn them up either! I was with him hunting one day when he lost a nice $500.00 GPS unit. We searched quite a bit and never was able to turn it up. We both went back in the spring when the snow melted and still were not able to locate the GPS,

 

[Pony Soldier]

Knowledge and understanding

 

[Britt-dog]

I’ve never really found anything valuable while hunting.

I run a lot on the roads around my home and I bet I’ve picked up a few thousand $ worth of tools/sockets over the years. I find a socket or a wrench or a hammer almost every time I go for a run. I found a Ryobi impact driver once. That’s the biggest item I’ve picked up.

I run a lot also. I'm always finding shit along the side of the road and stashing it so I can come back. Knives, tools, you name it. Once I found five brand new rolls of 12-gauge Romex scattered along about a mile stretch.