"DUH!" Moment

[grunt_doc]

If we can't laugh at ourselves, then what good it laughter at all?  What is your best "DUH!" moment.  The situation where the light bulb comes on and you realize that the answer to your problem was staring you right in the face.  This might be good for the newbies....like me. 
 
Mine best so far was when I was watching an instructional video on calling.  The guy said that you should never lift the paddle of the call off the box.  Just slide it.  If you "chop" it, it won't sound natural.  Oh!...that's why my box calling sounded horrible...DUH!  I tried it and low and behold...
I never even heard that before.  I think I would have trown away a perfectly good box call before I ever thought of that.
 
Anyone else have anything like that?
 
Doc

[JPH]

Great topic, but it's going to be hard to choose just one. I had two big ones this season.
 
The first was when I called in a mature gobbler to within 20 feet of my buddy (a first time hunter). I was on the back side of the tree and could not see the bird when my friend shot. By force of habit, I thumbed the eject button on my own shotgun as I came around the tree to celebrate. Amazingly, the gobbler was still on his feet and looking right at us. My buddy was really rattled now and missed a second time! As the bird began to run, I thought "enough of this". I rose to one knee, took careful aim and squeezed. "Click!" I had forgotten that I no longer had a round in the chamber. "Doh!!"
 
The second was less dramatic but even more agonizing. A boss gobbler was newly on the ground and strutting right to me when a tom droped from his roost and landed ten steps from me. My stock was still in my lap and he had me pegged. As he began to run I tried to swing to the right and shot right over his head. He was flying two steps later, as was the boss gobbler. "Doooh!!!!"
 
I know I'll think of more. I've got a million of 'em.

[bandit80]

Lord knows I have plenty of those in my life, and many in the turkey woods. 
 
The best had to be my first season of hunting by myself.  In Kansas that age was 14.  (It might still be the same.)  That was only about 14 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.  I sat down on the edge of a crop field that turkeys frequent of an evening.  I heard birds walking up the creek bank behind me headed in my direction.  Ended up being 2 mature gobblers, and one walked right up to me and stepped up on a log close enough I could have reached out and touched him.  I was obviously not in a position to move, but miraculously the birds moved out into the field in front of me.  Problem was, I had sat down behind some thick brush and could hardly see them, even though they were only 20 yards away.  I ended up shooting anyway, it kind of knocked the bird silly, he got up and started running so I shot again.  Long story short, 2 more shells later, I had my first gobbler.  1 1/4" spurs 11" beard 25 pounds!!  One I will never forget.
 
But after rethinking the events that lasted a whole 5 minutes, I learned some valuable lessons. 
 
1.  When you hear something coming up behind you, get gun in position to shoot once you have ID'd your target.
 
2.  Always get setup in a position that you can shoot in all directions, and never try to shoot through too much brush. 
 
Had another duh moment about 4 years ago.  I was usually overaggressive, always trying to get close to gobbling birds.  If no gobbling was going on, I would go until I found one.  Figured out it is sometimes better to set up in a place where turkeys frequent and see what happens rather than spook every turkey in the county when they aren't gobbling. 

[Fan Club]

I was on the back side of the tree

 
My "DUH" is similar to Joes-
 
When hunting in pairs, not being able to see each other is awkward at best and at it's worst can be dangerous. Back in 1994, my brother-in-law, Chris, was calling for me in Missouri. He was fighting a bad case of bronchitis with a lot of hacking and coughing. We got a tom to answer on the opposite ridge. I set up facing the gobbling and he elected to lay face down in the leaves just over a slight rise to my right to supress his coughing while trying to call.
 
The bird was double gobbling at every call, but after about 20 minutes it was evident that he wasn't getting any closer and that they were just courtesy gobbles. In the meantime I saw turkeys working down the creekbed 30 yards below me. Two hens followed by a gobbler. The first hen crossed an open sandbar in the creek at about 25 yards. The second hen crossed in the same spot as the trailing gobbler went behind a small bush. I had the bead of my shotgun on the sandbar and only needed the tom to take one more step when I heard a rustling in the leaves to my right. Suddenly the turkeys started to putt loudly and sprinted up the far creek bank and ridge. I glanced to my right and could see Chris from the waist up, standing behind the small embankment, mouthing the "F" word. He had tired of the unproductive call trading and decided to try something else at precisely the wrong moment, totally unaware that we had silent birds right below us. One more second was all I would have needed to bag my first longbeard!
 
We still talk about that hunt and we learned a valuable lesson:
 
The shooter and the caller should always have the same field of view, or at least be able to see each other.
 
The only exception that immediately comes to mind is when the caller intenionally drops straight back to try and pull a hung up gobbler to the shooter.
 
Jeff

[STEROIDCHICKEN]

the one that always comes to mind is my hunting partners duh moment. he had just taken a very nice bird and came back to camp to show it off...after the celebration, he along with everyone else left camp for the weekend. that was on sunday, well come wednesday morning, we had planned to chase the birds again. i drive over to pick him up and he is waiting outside...pacing. i asked what was wrong and he said that he had left his GUN propped up at the gate down at camp that past sunday. now this gate is off a very  heavily travelled dirt road. needless to say, we were late getting into the woods. we had to travel 35 miles out of the way to hopefully retrieve his lost gun...luckily for him, it was still propped up where he had left it.....people don't think straight sometimes after a good adrenalin hunt. 

[Fan Club]

left his GUN

 
Roger-
 
Many years ago the lead guitar player in my blues band left an electric guitar, in it's case, propped against the side of the jukebox at a Honky Tonk after a long night of playing and hard drinking. The bar was in the next county and he didn't have a telephone or a driver's license at the time. When he returned with the band to play two weeks later, the guitar was right there where he had left it!
 
Jb

[Dank]

I've got my own version of I "left" my gun. This happened during deer season but it's pretty good. So, I get back to the truck and I've got my climbing stand, my gun, and backpack with binocs. etc... well I go to sit my gun down behind my truck to load the rest of my stuff into the back and I stop and think to myself, maybe i shouldn't sit my gun down behind my truck, then I thought I'll never forget my gun. Well, I finish loading my stuff up, taking off and storing my camo in a scent proof bag (I only wear my camo in the woods) so I get in my truck and back out on to the powerline row turn around and start to come back up the road and see something. At first I was kinda wondering what it was, then it hit me I loaded everything other than my rifle and I just ran over it!!! I get out and rush to it and somehow I got lucky and just ran over the butt end of the stock, leaving nothing more than a little mud behind. It still shoots as straight as ever. For me this ranks up there with my best blunders although I would call it more of an "Oh Shit!!!" moment than a "duh" moment. lol. But it makes for a good story anyways.

[JPH]

ORIGINAL: Fan Club
The shooter and the caller should always have the same field of view, or at least be able to see each other.

 
Solid advice. I am almost always in physical contact with the shooter when I call. But I have found that in cover, sharing the same field of view can be almost impossible. Which leads me to another "DUH!" moment.
 
Last year my son and I were working a pair of toms, hung up on a ridge. We set up on the side hill as close as we dared. I put him against a small tree and I laid on my side, right next to his left hip. I was touching him but my head was about 3 feet below his b/c of the slope and my posture. After working them for 20 minutes, the gobbling stopped. Pretty soon my son whispers "I see them." Unfortunately, what I heard was, "I hear them." I'm thinking that they are just out of sight, so I look around for a stick and begin to scratch, cluck and purr. Meanwhile my boy is looking at two strutters at 20 yds, but without an open shot! He thought I had lost my mind. Finally, I hear one of them spitting over the racket I was making and turn my head. There they are in all their glory, closing inside of 15 yds. Like an idiot, I whisper "Okay...wait until he-BOOM!" Feathers flew, bird down and my son pulls his mask down and looks at me like "What the heck is wrong with you?"
 
Big "DUH!" on my part, but it all worked out.

[grunt_doc]

I have 2 more.  one funny, and one sad (for me).  Opening day I walked up to a clearing and let out a few clucks.  I got 2 gobbles in response right away.  They sounded CLOSE!  Not wanting to be stuck out in the open when the turkeys came into the clearing, I dove for the nearest tree.  The nearest tree, however, was a 6 inch diameter apple tree.  A 6 inch diameter, DEAD apple tree.  I got lucky because it was 2 jakes that came out.  A seasoned tom would have seen the apple tree with the giant camouflaged tumor growing out from the base and split! 
 
The 2nd happened about 15 years ago.  I was given my grandfather's 16 ga Browning Sweet 16 with the Buck Special barrel to shoot my 1st deer with.  My father and I went out to the woods to shoot some slugs and see where I was hitting.  All went well and we wnt home.  3 weeks later (1 week before opening day) I got out the 16.  It was still in the gun case from the woods.  I opened it upo and started to cry.  seriously, I cried.  Rust.  All over it.  I was soo scared to tell my dad.  He wasn't as mad as I thought he would be.  I guess he saw the look on my face.  We got it reblued, but I didn't have it back in time.  I shot my 1st deer with another gun.  Now  I obsessively wipe down and clean all my guns, shot or not. 
 
Doc

[ct swamphunter]

I would have to say my greatest DUH moment was a few years ago when I was going deer hunting with a friend and his brother. We had planned to meet up of course way before daybreak so we had time to walk in and get into position.
I woke early and took my time to make sure I had all my gear and proceeded to head to the area where they already were. Standing there having coffee we exchanged hello's and as I was pulling my gear out I realized one important thing I forgot to do before I left the house.

[8|] Take the trigger lock off the gun! [:@]

Of course I didn't have the key on me so I had to drive all the way back to my house just to unlock the lock. By the time I got back the sky was just starting to lighten up.