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Browsing a boating forum today, I was surprised at the number of dead bodies, discarded bales of pot, shipping containers, beer coolers and other stuff that boaters are finding out on the water... Sure, I've found my share of fenders and life jackets, even found the mast and sail to a sailboard one day (but "no board or surfer"), but some of the stuff being found is weird and wacko. And it was one of the most popular posts on that site too... Page after page of stuff being found...
Which got me to thinking...
What stuff have you found while out hunting or hiking???
For me, the top items would be a nice old .410 shotgun that someone leaned against a tree. It was in really great shape too -- on the day it was left, that is -- but that was maybe 5 years before I found it!
My other "best find" was a neat cow moose skull, all picked clean and bleached white, which I carried home in my pack. It was really neat because all the teeth were intact and the mice hadn't chewed it to bits. So I wired it around a tree out in the back yard -- and the red squirrels promptly chewed a bunch of holes in it...
So, let us know your best -- or weirdest and/or most interesting "finds"!
On a management area deer hunt in Georgia about 18 years ago I found a 10 round Eagle brand magazine for a Remington 742 in 30-06 and it was fully loaded.Another time I found a nice flashlight.Then there was the time I walked up on a guy and gal making love.
Stan in SC
The more I listen,the more I hear....and vice versa.
Way back in the early 60s we were hunting around Eagle Peak in California and we came over a hill and found a really, really old campsite. It was weird because the fire pit was still undisturbed after all that time. Rusty coffee pot and grill with cups set up like it was waiting for the afternoon hunt to come home. We found a scrap of paper from 1939 in the fire pit. Needless to say we were all a bit creeped out by that find.
Steve Retired and Living the Good Life No Matter Where You Go, There You Are
COSteve wrote:Way back in the early 60s we were hunting around Eagle Peak in California and we came over a hill and found a really, really old campsite. It was weird because the fire pit was still undisturbed after all that time. Rusty coffee pot and grill with cups set up like it was waiting for the afternoon hunt to come home. We found a scrap of paper from 1939 in the fire pit. Needless to say we were all a bit creeped out by that find.
There is the entrance to an old underground coal mine in our woods, and just outside of it there was a firepit ring of stones and an old coffee pot just like the one in the closing credits of Gunsmoke. The stones are still there but we kids absconded with the coffee pot. There also are two or three wooden pipes- maybe six or eight feet long, hollowed "logs" with the ends made male and female.
We often found storebought deerstands in our woods and the neighbor's woods, as well as traps, sometimes with animals in them. I guess the guy got tired of buying new ones all the time. We knew all along who the culprit was but could never catch him in the act.
"...In this present crisis, government isn't the solution to the problem; government is the problem." Ronald Reagan
"...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Declaration of Independence
Found a hatchet stuck in a tree when I was a youngster. Hadn't been there long, as there was little rust. Cleaned up nicely and I still have it.
My foot found an old trap, the hard way. That was no fun!
I can also remember running around in the woods near my house and almost stepped on a trap of home-made bungee sticks. This was right near the end of the Vietnam war. We figured some teens had read about this and tried to make their own small foot-pit. I was about 9 years old at the time. My Dad was none-too-pleased or amused, but could never find out who was responsible for this dangerous foolishness...
One morning while deer hunting, I sat on the ground with my back against a tree, overlooking a draw below, pulled out a smashed PBJ sandwich, and poured a cup of coffee from the thermos. A sudden puff of breeze moved the leaves, uncovering a bright orange hot seat about 50 ft in front of me. In all the thousands of acres of that stand of woods I had traversed, there it was, right where it'd come off MY belt a year before.
My best find was spotting what looked like the end of a bottle sticking out of the dirt. Well it was a broken bottle. A little bit of digging around uncovered several very nice, very old whiskey bottles, the type that were sealed with a cork. Glad I was wearing a game vest that day to carry back my haul. I later realized that I had probably found a garbage dump that could be loaded with treasures. Years later when I made it back to those woods I could not locate that exact spot.
I have since picked up several early soda bottles as well as medicine bottles laying here and there in the woods.
I am always on the look out for arrow heads or "points" these are really a nice find. When you come across one which is not too often for me it really makes you reflect on the Hunters who walked the land before us.
Being in a flood plain, we find both 'land' and 'water' stuff - mostly stuff that floats onto our property during a flood and then hangs up in trees or brush in the river bottom. Pop bottles, tires, etc., mostly, but one time a nice four-barrel (55 gal) plywood raft I towed up to my pond, and recently a huge archery target (the kind that is a spiral wrap and about 6" thick).
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws "first do no harm" - gun control LAWS lead to far more deaths than 'easy access' ever could.
well...I found my wallet I lost while hunting in upstate New York....
Found it about 1 hour or so after dark....on the edge of an overgrown hayfield...
I also lost my camo grunt call in a Florida swamp...found that after carefully
retracing my steps....
Lets see....what else....antique clay terpentine pots in the middle of a swamp
while turkey hunting...at the base of these huge pine trees...
I found a bunch of lost army guys in the middle of the ocala national forest...
in full gear...I slowly came up behind them.....got within 20 yards or so
and said........ Howdy boys...ya lost?
My nephews found a dead guy in the woods fairly close to the road in upstate NY...
Ran into a retired co- worker two weeks ago who told me that while playing with his new metal detector by the county hunting land parking lot he found a nice S&W 29 stainless buried under the leaves. Talked to the County Sheriff , nothing was reported missing. He said it was in great shape and probably was dropped just last fall.
OS,no that was way out of my territory at the time but the roving watchman at the local drive in when I was ,ahem,much younger used to periodically check several of us for hemmrhoids much to his dismay.And considering your current penchant for pleasing looking members of the feminine populace I am not surprised at your younger behavior.You are the perinneal babe magnet.
Stan in SC
The more I listen,the more I hear....and vice versa.
I've found an Indian tomahawk head, a couple good knives, an original 50/70 cartridge with no headstamp, and a rock containing fossils of some horn corals that I have had a Professor at the University tell me are something like 335 million years old.
Besides tons of fired cartridge cases and some live ones the only thing of interest I can think of was a 50 BMG bullet with a bent nose I found near a military aircraft crash site back about 73 or 74. My cousin and I were hiking in the Bradshaws in AZ and found it. Still got the bullet.
Joe
***Be sneaky, get closer, bust the cap on him when you can put the ball where it counts .***
Mostly trash left by those too lazy to carry it back out with them. I wear a game vest just for that purpose. Have found some nice old bottles. Once found a digging tool of some kind, similar to an adz, or mattock but not quite the same. Have found lots of old fence wire laying just at toe level under the leaves, especially at night when running the hounds. Empty shot shell casings. And as some else said above the occasional guy/gal secret rendevous.
While taking a walk on a two-track road near our property on Beaver Island, I found a nice Bass Pro sleeping bag. It was just laying there and it had a elastic back brace tucked inside it. I washed it and have been using it ever since.
"Every day a holiday, every meal a feast, every paycheck a treasure."
I've found a bunch of tools on the trails around our cabin. Figure they fell off someone's four wheeler or truck. Lots of railroad spikes.
Several antlers, some small skulls. Some old traps and a couple arrows.
And my sanity once in a while!
jb
jasonB " Another Dirty Yankee"
" Tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"
I found, right on top of the ground no less, a perfect "turkey tail" field point. I sent pics to a local archeology professor and he dated it from 2000-5000 years old. This is on our hunting property in Humpreys County Tennessee. I think about it every time I go hunting there.
Derek aka "shootnfan"
Middle Tennessee
24 hours in a day.....24 beers in a case. Coincidense? I think not.
The best thing I found was a beachcraft twin airplane, better known as a C-45 or beach 18. Right after christmass of 1976 I was flying from searchlight nevada towards southern california. I spotted it groundlooped on a remote desert strip that really wasnt much more than a gravel trail or road. Soon as I spotted it I knew it was a drug runner. I buzzed it, checking the area and was satisfied there was no activity or a human in many miles and decided to land and check it out. I had spotted vehicle tracks going to and away from it before I landed. I was in CB contact with a couple of friends I had just left at a strip just south of searchlight and let them know what I was doing. I could see where the pilot had to land long due to a rain washed gully or ditch about a quarter way down the strip. That caused him to "run out" of strip and he had to ground loop it on purpose. He knocked down a jousha tree just in front of the rudder and emperage area when he spun it around. It bent the fueslage sort of like a broken wrist. The door was unlocked and I got in the plane. The dirt tracks all looked fresh and the 8 day clock was still running. The passenger seats were gone to just haul cargo. I got info off the paperwork and the plane was registered to a female in burbank california.
One of my pals that I dropped off at searchlight was also a pilot. My other friend was a aircraft mechanic and inspector and we all worked for lockheed aircraft at palmdale. We had been on a lark just boondocking over the holidays. They had a 4 WD with a camper. About a week prior we had flew the area known as the old woman mountains etc. They had a fantacy about exploreing, finding old buidings or a mine or whatever else. Really they were just getting away from their wives for a few days to do a little boondocking, gambling and drinking and had talked me into this adventure. The plan was they drove out first and was going to flnd a spot I could land in. I was working OT on christmass eve and going to fly out to them christmass day. Christmass eve before I was going to work (security guard) they called me and said they couldnt find a suitabel place for me to land as it had been raining hard and there were rain gullys all over. They said for me to just land near the town of searchlight and they would pick me up.
I took down the info on the plane and got up in the air and radio`ed them. They had the same flight sectional I did. I flew back to lancaster and reported my find to the FAA. They hadnt a report on it. My buddys got into it latter that night. They even fired up one engine. They were drunk and one fell into a cactus and the other pulled spines out of his butt! They were leaveing the area the next morning and met a truck with 2 men and a woman about 10 miles out headed towards the plane.
They turned around, gave them some time and drove back. They said they had the nose cone removed and was takeing stuff out!
They yelled over to them that they should leave the plane alone as they had a buddy that reported it. They said the people were armed and swore at them so they left. They drove out to I think essex and called the sheriffs. They had to wait hours on the sheriff to show and make a report.
The next day I got ahold of some FAA offical and asked about fileing salvage on the plane. He put me in touch with a los vegas detective. After a number of back and forth calls the detective told me he had been following this drug gang for over 6 months and that they had killed people etc. We went to a lawyer and basicly she said there was no "paperwork" to file! She pulled out a book on shipwreck laws and basicly said we could recover the wreckage and if the owners showed up we could charge them storage!
We did get back to plane a few times. I figured the first time our best bet would be new years eve, and 4 of us went in at midnight armed to the teeth. I even walked in the last mile or so by myself to see if there was any activity. Never will forget that hike! I did have a AR-15 though. No one was there. All the instruments were already removed! My buddy with the truck built a hoist on the back and we went again about a week latter at night again, another hike in and out by myself the last mile. I was dissapointed to find the plane laying on its belly with the engines gone! Oil was still dripping out of cut lines!
A few years latter I was at california city and spotted a similar plane. I made some joke to the FOB that I once owned one like it for a day! I told him the story and he told me he got burned on the deal too! Someone had hired him to recover the airplane and he did get it and got stiffed on his work!
We got next to nothing, but it was a good adventure!
Were it to happen again I would have put guards on it, get friends to repair it and fly it out! Some of that I did plan, but ran into trouble convinceing my friends in time.
One died many years ago young, the other has cancer today and is on his deathbed.
A puppy in a leg trap where know one had permission to set traps. Heard him barking as I was going into the woods. Didn't take long to find him. Found him a good home.
A rusted 22 rifle barrel and action left by an uncle who was squirrel hunting. Busted the stock against a tree in anger. Gun wouldn't fire. Still wouldn't fire after thirty years in the woods. Worked fine for a kid playing Cowboys and Indians though.
Used to find scads of broken Anasazi pottery in the hiils in Az, some had painted designs, some solid colors, some that looked like a basket texture, but when you looked close, it was finger tip marks in the clay, some you could clearly see the fingerprints of the potter that made it. Once in a while a point, and would find little tiny corn cobs, knots of yucca fibre and such in small caves and overhangs. Found a few old cartridge cases, a 40-82, a 405, and a few others. Many have found inside primed 45-70 and 50-70 cases around this area. One neighbor found a loaded 50-70 inside primed round in their yard last summer. Found a buffalo horn in my yard. Found bits of bridle and various harness parts and lost horse shoes all over. Used to see ax cut stumps in the Verde Valley in Az, probably from the days when Fort Verde was a going place. Weren't close to any houses or towns. As time went on, they'd have to go farther out from the fort to get firewood. Used to find anasazi stone walls here and there also. Most were pretty well ruined, but now and then you'd find some that were in fair condition. Used to camp in one small cave up on the side of a butte that had a low wall built to level the floor, and metates ground into the floor for grinding grain. Found a few metates and manos also. Find tipi rings all around where I am now, one spot had 30 or 40 of them in one spot near a river.
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt-
Isnt it amazing how many people post without reading the thread?
When I was fourteen walking the woods of my uncles farm, outside of Austin, I leaned up against a tree to steady a shot on a rabbit. I raised my rifle up after the I shot and felt the barrel hit something of metal. I looked up and I could see the back end of a revolver sticking out of the fork in the tree. I reached up and tried to pull it out but it was stuck. I went around to the other side and could see that it was an old Colt SAA that the tree had grown around It until you would have to cut it out. I loved Guns and cowboy hats as a kid and forgot about the rabbit and ran to my uncles house. I told him what I had found, He got all excited because he was a collector then like me now. We took off to the tree, yes I found it, and he studied it and said for me to go and get his tree limb saw. I was so excited on my way back thinking he was going to cut that Colt SAA of that tree for me. He cut the top and bottom of that fork in the tree with the gun in it and we carried it to his house. The gun was very rusty and the tree limbs had grown completely around it. We could see that it was partially loaded with two shots fired. Then I got the bad news, he was going to leave it in the wood and display it on his coffee table. His coffee table was made by him and it had 100s of old coins inlaid in it with glass on the top. He cleaned up the wood a little and put some kind of finish on it and made a stand for it. He just put WD40 on the Colt SAA once in a while. I saw it every time I visited him and my aunt. He always retold the story of how I found it to anybody that would listen. They are both gone now and his kids sold the farm for 2 1/2 million dollars. His guns along with the one in the tree went to his son in Australia, as they should have. The only problem is he can't get them over there, so they set in his sisters closet and have for 5 years. I just hope they are taking care of them the way they should for the grand-kids. My Uncle was a history/coach teacher, just like me, that I always enjoyed and miss the both very much. They both lived to a ripe old age. I still wonder how it got there and what the story was. It was a 45 BP Colt SAA.
Found a logging camp fron 1895 and dug up axe heads and chain, some ox shoes and old milk cans and junk walking on the old narrow gauge RR grade. Found traps left by trappers from years past.
When i lived in Ariz. used to find indian paintings out in the desert.
A lot of old homesteads out in the woods around here that turn up bottles and sometimes interesting stuff between the wall studs that was used for insulation.
We enjoy treasure hunting a lot but don`t get to do it as much as we`d like.
Because I Can, and Have
-------------------------------------------------------------
USAF-72-76
God Bless America.
Disclaimer, not responsible for anyone copying or building anything i make.
Always consult an expert first.
Around 1991 or '92 I found a buffalo skull in a creekbank where I used to squirrel hunt. It was in pretty rough shape. I still have it.
In 1966, when my dad was stationed at Evreaux-Fauxville AB in France, my brother found an M1 Garand barreled action out in the woods at the base picnic area (our Boy Scout Troop used to camp there). The stock and the trigger group was missing, but the bolt was still there. There was still a little wood around the barrel bands but the rest was gone. I was really disappointed when I found out that my dad had thrown it away when we were transferred to Rhein-Main AB in Germany.
Mostly assorted skeletons (possum, raccoon, etc.) and antlers. But a few years ago, walking around a private game reserve in Africa along the bed of an ancient river, I found a 1.5 million-year-old stone hand tool, slightly oval, almost round, with a double edge for 2/3 of the circumference, about 4" in diameter. I also have found a number of fossils, generally sea life, captured in shale/limestone.
I suspect I have lost more things than I have found.
Last edited by alnitak on Wed May 04, 2011 7:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
"From birth 'til death...we travel between the eternities." -- Print Ritter in Broken Trail
6 .50-70 Benet Inside Primed cartridges, predecessor to the 45-70, used by cavalry troops prior to 1873
Blue and white metal coffee pot complete with lid and two cups, sitting in some rocks atop a little hill. Been there since dirt, one cup was half buried.
30 miles out on the desert, following a barely discernable two-track, I stopped and got out for a whiz, looked down and say a very nice Buck hunting knife, complete with sheath. Looked like only been there a couple of days. Hunting season not open at the time. No other tire tracks on the trail since last year .
When I was about 15, Dad and I were rock fishing in a boat along the central coast of Ca and found a maybe 50 or 60ft Tuna Boat that was beached on the rocks below steep cliffs.. The boat was broken in half with the rear portion very close nearby... Luckily the tide was right and we edged in close enough for me to jump out and have a look... The place stunk to high heavens as there were tons of rotting tuna everywhere... when I got into the deck house I could see we were not the first ones there as the wheel and radio were missing... But it appeared that everything else was still there... In the little time I had before the tide started washing in I cleaned out all of the charts that were still in their overhead racks and snagged a bunch of feathered jigs that were strewn about...I noted that there were six nice brass port holes still in place and ready for the taking.. hundreds of feet of new nylon ropes.. a huge coil of thick manila rope wrapped around the exhaust stack... A one lung diesel deck wench.... When we got back to the landing and showed our treasures to the folks we rented the boat from that my dad was friends with , they said they had heard a boat had gone down...but didn’t know it was on the rocks... We went back the next morning toolbox in hand with them and loaded up all we could... port holes, rope.. stainless steel water kegs... I got all the running lights & still have the clear one that was on the top front of the wheel house and all of those now long obsolete charts that cover most all of the Pacific coast... We sold the gear to the Marine supply and split the money... Our friends went back and almost salvaged the boats’ main engine but the raft they had it on swamped when they hit rough water rounding the point for the run back to their landing... I’ve got a few slides my Dad took of the event...
"IT IS MY OPINION, AND I AM CORRECT SO DON'T ARGUE, THE 99 SAVAGE IS THE FINEST RIFLE EVER MADE IN AMERICA."
WIL TERRY
in 2004 I found a Garmin hand held GPS out in the woods when hunting. Picked it up and the darn thing worked been using it ever since. In 2007 my oldest boy and I were out rabbit hunting and we came across a nice fork horn mule deer scull that now sits on top my gun safe.
Last edited by JReed on Thu May 05, 2011 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jeremy
GySgt USMC Ret
To err is human, To forgive is devine, Neither of which is Marine Corps policy Semper Fidelis
Lots of shed antlers, a set of shooting sticks in the case and after a long day of doe deer hunting, right in the dirt parking lot was a Ruger M-77 300 Win mag that was left bolt handed. You could see the tire tracks as someone leaned it against the tire and then backed out and drove away tracks right over the rifle. Cleaned it up, advertised it as found and after a year traded it on a right handed rifle.
I found two motorcycles. Both probley hot. There was a freeway that wasnt yet officaly opened, next to no traffic as it yet didnt go through. My buddy and I were rideing. He had to pull over to take a whizz. While he was doing that I rode up on top the road cut and found a norton scrambler. This was in the mid 60s and it was almost new. There was a little rust on it from recent rains. I checked the area and found paint scraped on it from a road sign I also found. It either was stolen or he got scared of rideing after he dropped it. Probley hid it where I found it and collected the insurance as a stolen bike. Never did follow up the story. Another time I found another bike, a triumph sticking out of a deep mine a ways down. It looked old and may have been just the front end. It was sticking out of some dirt far below me, and it looked like the mine might have went down a lot farther.
I had a friend that was hunting in california (antelope valley, old savage, towards the old grapevine). He found a old wood airplane propeller on the side of a mountain with no other evidence of wreckage around it. Sure would have liked to know the story on that one!
I found a beautfull old case folder knife by a gut pile deer hunting. Also have found a few points etc. Another good story, back around 1938 my folks ran a small bar/resort at pearl lake wisconsin. Pear lake isnt all that big, but it was very deep and cold spring fed. Someone found a old dugout canue no telling how old, obvisley from native indians. It was displayed in the bar for many years while I was growing up.
Another time I was deer hunting in wisconsin with my dad. There was a old fallen down log cabin with most the roof intact on the ground. We got pokeing around and found old newspapers and a 1916 indian motorcycle catalog all intact! The headlines was about Poncho Villa raiding columbus new mexico!
The very oddist, oldest artifact I ever seen was back home near eureka wisconsin. Eureka sits right on the fox river and was a main water way for voyagers etc many years ago. A guy that had a hole in the wall hardware store there had hanging on the wall a very strange object I belive from the vikeing days. It was a object that was maybe big as a mans hand. It was a formed moulden aged green copper dragon body looking with three goose heads swirling out of it. The back had spines like a dragon, the body looked like fish scales. He thought perhaps it was attached to a staff or was on the prowl of a small vikeing boat. His sons had dug it out of a gravel pit near the river on a farm my dad was raised on many years before. The last I knew it was hanging on his wall 50 years ago. That should have been in smithsonian for sure!
One more. I had a now deceased nephew I raised for a number of years. He was born mentaly challenged. He would just prowl all over the country, he would walk the boonies and sometime not give himself time to get home by night or many times just get lost and call me to come rescue him. I seen a totem pole looking facemask made out of very old dried out gray wood. It was very light, carved like a aztech fierce monster looking with eyeholes etc. At the time he lived near camerillo california, thats a little less than 10 miles from the ocean. He said he was walking the hills and seen it partialy expossed out of the ground and brought it home. I should have but didnt take it from him. I latter was VERY dismayed to find that he just gave it away to another nut! I belive it probley was a chumush or earlier indian cerimonial mask!
In 1963 a couple of us were pulling cinnabar samples from the old Mariposa mine near Terlingua Texas. Down several levels I found an old 5.5 foot long steel pry bar. I carried it out and had it for a number of years before it went missing in one of my many moves. Hundreds of feet down in abandoned mines is very creepy. I always had my trust 1911A1 with me for moral support, but I knew better than fire off a round way down there.
While glassing a caribou herd up near the Alaska/Yukon border, I happened to glance down to my left at some rocks. Saw a chain connected to a rusty wire. I followed it and pulled out a rusty, but well preserved trap. It doesn't open, and makes for a neat yard decoration on the back fence.
Found the remains of a small aircraft up near Indian Valley on the backside of the Mokelumne Wilderness a few years back. It looks to have been there for a couple of decades.
I've found dive knives, flashlights, weight belts, and other assorted tools while freediving for abalone off the California coast near Ft Ross.
Some people just need a sympathetic pat on the head.....with a hammer. Repeatedly.
Yep, no kidding. I was watching a particular herd of elk about 4 miles in with one absolutely fantastic bull, for a Roosevelt. I had left the truck about 2 hours before daylight and was hustling in on the trail on foot with a flashlight. Wanted to be in at the meadow just as dawn broke. I just made it. Meadow was probably 200 acres and surrounded by alpine fir. I sat down at the edge and as soon as it was light enough I started glassing it. All the sudden at the edge not more than 50 yards away where I didn't even notice the green tent, I heard a zipper. I just swing the binoculars around in time to see the door open and a young (very fit!)woman stepped out completely, and I mean PLUMB, nekked!
So imagine this. Here I am, probably in my mid 20's, looking through 10x binoculars at a woman 50 yards away, nekked as the day she was born. This is where I am different than most raised the way I was. My face I'm sure turned beet red and not many seconds later when I realized what I was seeing had sunk in, I durned near crawled out of there! My elk scouting trip was a bust but danged if I didn't have a good story after that!
2x22
"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction." - Thomas Jefferson
I have found metal falling wedges from the original logging, various tools including an old double bit axe, an ejection seat out of an A-10 that crashed years earlier in that area, lots of antler sheds and skulls with horns, old crosscut saws, and my brother found a Ruger single six pistol.
When I was 15 I took a young hunter safety course and that allowed me to take my dad and hunt the weekend before pheasant season started. Dad parked the car, got out and took about 5 steps. He stepped on a Remington 1100. It looked like it had been in the high grass for about a week. We took it to the Sherriff because one week earlier a man had been killed by a shotgun. When we turned the shotgun in the Sherriff said it was not the murder weapon because the man was killed by a 20 gauge and this one was a 12 gauge. 6 months later the Sherriff called and said it was ours - no one had claimed it.
Where we hunt in New Mexico there are Indian artifacts all over the place. I've found Indian campsites, hide scrapers, arrowheads, and a myriad of other tools. There is also a bunch of petrified wood out in that area. I've found pieces that were 3 ft long and 6 inches in diameter. Sometimes I almost forget about hunting because there is so much other neat stuff to look for.
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen" - Samuel Adams
Many years ago in a political climate far, far away...
I took a group of high school geology students on a desert field trip. On the side of a mountain one student found a Marlin semi-auto 22 rifle. (There was a large pile of empty beer cans nearby as well).
The lad brought it to me immediately to ask what I thought about it. The wood finish was completely gone and there was a good coat of rust, so I figured the gun had been there three months or so (but it's a dry heat). The magazine was loaded.
I unloaded the tube magazine and found the action was not locked up. I told him it would probably clean up all right.
We took it home and I checked with my principal and he agreed that if it was ok with the young man's father, the rifle was his.
When I was a young'un, my cousins and I would hunt on the outer ranges of Eglin Air Force base near Ft Walton Beach, FL. This is where they used to test various air-to-ground weapons. There were many unmarked roads thorough these ranges of pine woods. I remember how there were these simple red steel gates that someone would go around and close across these roads when these ranges where "hot". Otherwise when the gates were open, all were welcome. Simpler times back then.
There was one open field that had the frames of several korea-area jets parked as on a tarmac. On the side of one road was a flat bed trailer that was loaded with railroad wheels -- of all things -- that appeared to have been knocked off an embankment into a creek by something. Those were all easy to "find"
The oddest was when we were stalking through some thick pines to find the hulls of 6 tanks (Shermans?) completely surrounded by mature trees and covered by the canopy. Two had the turrets knocked off. They were totally coated with a layer of rust so that there was no paint or markings on any of them. There is not much chance you could have seen them from the air, and they were at least 1/2 mile from any road. They had to have been sitting there un-disturbed for at least 10 years. Who knows they may still be there now.
I've never found much when hunting only a Deer call and a brand new leather 12GA cartridge belt.
I once had to chase two naked men out of one of my woods when I was a gamekeeper!!
But I have found this thread really interesting, thanks Darryl for starting it.
Whatever you do always give 100%........... unless you are donating blood.
I canoe and hunt in Central Florida Lakes , Rivers, and ocean. Through the years I have found 4 fishing rods 2 tackle boxes an abandon canoe, hog scull brought it home and some animal ran away with it. An abandoned 15' aluminum boat in a neighbors yard after they moved out of state, got a title on it and that made a nice fishing boat for years. I also walk my dogs at this ball park near my house, i check to see what is thrown in the dumpster and I won't get into great detail all the stuff i have found that people throw out after a family member dies but one time i find this potable TV size large box and in it is at least 80 porn vcr tapes yes i looked but i put it back in and buried under some other junk. At that bark I walk at 7:00am and after ball games I have found shoes, clothes, hundreds of balls bats, bags, sun glasses, towels, ball gloves, toys, folding chairs. The list goes on and on, How can you be at a ball game and forget the shoes you wore in. Oh ya there was this nice size cooler full of ice and beer
geobru wrote: an ejection seat out of an A-10 that crashed years earlier in that area
Is that the one that went down up toward Dog Mountain at the upper end of Riffe?
2x22
"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction." - Thomas Jefferson
Quite often I come across old logging and mining sites. I've seen collapsed and abandoned railway trestles, boilers, a logging arch, a stamp mill, and lots of rusty cans and broken glass where the camps were located.
I once came across an area where a small plane had gone down. It had been mostly cleaned up, but a few pieces still lay about.
I've found old weather balloons, telephone line insulators, a rusty old pocket watch, arrowheads, shed antlers, spent cartridges and plenty of other neat stuff.
A couple of my favorite finds were on a deer hunting trip in the McCloud Flats area east of Mt. Shasta, CA. a few years ago. This area has been logged several times, so I was very surprised to find a magnificent fir tree ten feet in diameter at the base, and not far away, a 30's vintage car slowly rotting into the ground.
SHASTA
Last edited by Shasta on Wed Jan 16, 2019 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
California Rifle & Pistol Association LIFE Member
National Rifle Association BENEFACTOR LIFE Member
The most interesting things I've found while walking around the woods in northern PA were:
A ledger or logbook/diary of some sort kept by the cook of a late 1800s logging camp. The covers were pretty well covered with mold, but the pages inside were mostly intact, dry, and legible. The cook wrote down supplies purchased, number of meals served, etc., and recorded significant events. The cook also recorded when the camp hunters brought in game or fish, and what they brought in. There were several recipes or recipe changes jotted down, too. I gave the ledger to the local historical society, and you'd have thought I gave them the Holy Grail.
Another time I was picking wild blackberries and kicked something that was hidden in the brush at the base of the blackberry briars. I cut some of the brush away and poked at the object, a very rusty but somewhat legible zinc or tin plated baking powder can with a slide-on lid. I pulled the lid off expecting to see powder, but there was something circular inside amber-colored wax paper. I pulled away the wax paper and the object was a "tight one," -- a roll of cash tightly wound on itself and expanded against the inside of the can. It went into the knapsack and I resumed picking berries. Once home, I took tin snips and cut the can away carefully. There was $837 in bills of assorted denominations, none larger than a $50. The majority of them were blue ink silver certificates, and some red ink United States Notes. All of the bills were from series issued before WWII, and there are a couple-few dozen large-format bills, the highest denomination was $10. The large format bills were next to the inside diameter of the can, and the smaller format bills (after 1929) were toward the center of the can. Then after pulling out the greenbacks, there was a piece of folded blue-lined yellow tablet paper in the bottom of the can. Inside it were three gold Double Eagles and a couple each $5 and $10 gold pieces.
I went back to the site a couple times, poking around here and there but never found anything else. Having inherited my late maternal grandmother's coin and paper currency collection, I kept the entire contents of that baking powder can and merged it with my grandmother's coins and bills, and later with my late father's collection. All of it now sits in two of three bank safe deposit boxes I rent.
Noah
Might as well face it, you're addicted to guns . . .
