What’s the most valuable thing you’ve lost?

[Loper]

I shot a nice bull elk on a steep hill. He took a couple steps and rolled down the hill into the creek. Belly up with his head under him. I had to stand in the creek to open him up.

I was using a old timer pocket knife and would cut for a while and then pull and tug. When done cutting I would stick the knife into the stream bank temporarily.

When I rolled the last of the guts out I reached for my knife and it was gone. I struggled to move the elk and couldn't budge him. When I returned with a horse I set up a block and tackle in a tree and let the horse pull him out.

Once the bull was hanging I returned to the creek and searched for the knife but never found it. The endeaver was further complicated when I got the quarters stacked up and was loading them on the horse. I reached for a hind quarter and a weasle had claimed the meat and would run out and bite my boot and then run back under a log and protest. Your meat ain't yours till it is hanging at the house.

It’s not fun losing a knife, especially while field dressing it, but perhaps someone will find it in a few years and mentions it in one of the “things found in the woods” threads.

Or it gets found several hundred years from know and is treated like a relic, similar to arrowheads.

I lost an Outdoor Edge knife in the field after dressing my first antelope.

 

[cbat]

Brand new first hike up the mountain Sig rangefinder. OIL in the Valle Vidal in NM. Tiny and I hiked our butts off to the top of the mountain and he looked down at the holster for my rangefinder and it was empty. Never found it. My camera with years and years worth of pictures on the card. Yep sit it on the truck bumper and drove off.

 

[06 SB]

A set of Swarovski binos in SW Colorado in the San Juan National Forest NE of Ground Hog Lake. I never did find them. The strap broke as I was walking through a thick area.

 

[AK4570]

Firearms instructor here... I left an ammo can with over 800 RDS of 9mm sitting in the grass behind the truck at the end of a Women's Self Defense training day. Took me a week to realize it was gone.

Still hurts. (My pride, mostly)

 

[Loper]

Took my young son fishing in a lake. Had cellphone in chest pocket of fishing shirt. He caught a fish and went I bent over to grab it the phone went to the bottom of the lake.

Worst part was we were several hours from home and my wife was worried sick by the time I got home. Crazy how much constant contact we are used too

I was fishing with a buddy out of a canoe at a local lake. At first I thought I was snagged on the bottom because my reel wasn’t cranking and I wasn’t getting a pull at the end. Turns out it was the biggest bass I’ve ever caught. After about 10-15 seconds it started ripping line out. As I was fighting it, my buddy saw the 8 lb bass jump up and break the surface. He got so excited, he completely let go of his rod to grab the net and his rod fell over board to the bottom of the lake. He had just spent about $200 on that rod and reel a week or two before.

 

[WoolyBugger]

I, too, lost a benchmade recently while wading and fishing a creek. It was a griptilian and not one of my nicer models but what really hurt is I bought it for $60 quite a while ago and now that same model is $150+

Back in college, someone posted a benchmade afo II for sale on Facebook for $15 clearly not knowing what it was, just said it was a folding knife. I quickly went and bought it from him. Said he recently bought a used car and found it under the seat and must have posted it too low because he had a of messages. I flipped and made a good profit to cover the bar tab that week but I guess my knife disappearing was some sort of karma.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

What’s the story on this? Leave it at the river?

The story is both tragic and improbable. I was fishing from a float tube and hooked a nice trout that came completely out of the water and snapped my 4x tippet in the process. About an hour later I hook another fish and fought it for about 5 minutes before landing it. A 23 inch rainbow. I couldn't believe what I saw though, stuck in its jaw was my fly, and my fly and tippet from earlier. It was the same fish. I landed it on a leach but an hour prior it took my snowcone chironimid. So I removed both flies and took pictures not believing I had caught the same fish. This was a large reservoir and I was at least a hundred yards from where I had hooked it earlier. Anyway, while I was taking photos and removing flies and being amazed at the situation I had tucked my fly rod into the corner of my float tube next to my leg. The float tube had openings in the corner so my rod slowly sank into the reservoir while I was distracted with the fish. Hard lesson. It was also a Sage Rod with a Ross Reel. Felt like an idiot kicking my way back to shore in a float tube with no rod. Got a few weird looks from other fisherman. Still have this photo of the fish though!

 

[Sccritterkiller]

I have lost a few knives and few pairs of Maui Jim's but I have also found complete fly rod set ups, range finders, releases, ammo, ect....I like to think in the grand scheme of things I am even steven..lol

 

[syoungs]

I don't let myself purchase pocket knives that are more then 30-40$, ive lost way way to many.

When I was about 12 I saved money and bought a set of motorola talkabout radios, I had an infatuation with 2 way radios for some odd reason. Used them about 2 days, then lost one of them.
A year later, we were back hunting in the same area that I had lost the first radio. I was sitting on a stump thinking it was dang close to the exact spot I was sitting the year before. Right at my feet, I noticed a bit of yellow plastic, my lost radio! Went through a winter on the hills outside of Chewelah wa, and continued to work when I put fresh batteries in it.

More recently, left a Victorinox game processing knife set in a little hotel room in Wyoming, remembered them about 7 hours into my drive home. I'm hopeful the next tenants of that little room put them to use. 250$ lesson in packing...

 

[CorbLand]

My dad passed away when I was young and he had an original Leatherman that my mom would let us take on our first camp out with scouts/church. I was probably 13-14 when I took it. We were cleaning up and opening a girl scout camp and in the evenings we could use the archery range. One evening we were up there probably about third to half mile from the main cabin area and my stomach turned upside down. I took off running to get back to a bathroom, about half way realized that wasnt going to work so I took off for the trees. Did my thing over a log, and then made the march the rest of the way to the bathroom for toilet paper. Get to the bathroom, clean everything up and realize that the Leatherman is gone. My best guess is that when I undid my belt and spun to sit over the log it went flying.

I hurry back to look for it and cant find it after looking for about an hour. I run to get a friend of mine and him and I searched for an hour until it was too dark to see. I accept the fact that I get to go home to tell my mom that I lost it and head back to the main cabin area. I get there, decide to grab a headlamp and go back looking for it. Spend another fifteen to twenty minutes looking, nothing. At this point I have trampled the area for over two hours total and probably 100 yard circle around the area. Decide to test the whole praying thing that you are taught in church. Kneel down, say a short prayer asking for help and I am not kidding you when I say that I opened my eyes, head still bowed and in the light of the headlamp, that Leatherman was right there.

In the end it was a lost and then found but that was single handily the most valuable thing that about got lost forever.