I had a guy in my office yesterday talking about how his insurance covers firearms, and I told him a personal story that I thought would be funny to share with you:

Several years ago I was hunting one weekday afternoon by myself on our lease about an hour from my house. I hunted till dark, rode my 4wheeler back to the truck, laid my gun on the toolbox of the truck and began to take off my coveralls and load everything up. I drove up Hwy 431 from Roanoke to I-20 in Oxford, and just as I turned onto the exit it occured to me that I didn't remember getting my gun off the toolbox. I eased over on the shoulder and looked in the backseat, only to see my gun case open and empty. I got out and the gun was gone. Since it was dark I didn't drive back to look for it, but instead drove back right after daylight the next morning. I never found it. Practically new Browning A-bolt .270 with a 3-9x50 Nikon scope.

This is the same gun that earlier in the same year I had laid on the toolbox (and forgot) and drove a good distance up the dirt county road before I saw it in the mirror. That little trip scratched the scope, but didn't make a mark on the gun.

Moral of the story: Don't put your dang gun on toolboxes!!!

I have a 1940's Browning Auto 5 with a broken buttstock due to Big Mud Tire, and having to take a piss in the woods.

Troys Life Rules #5..Never place anything ON a vehicle that you cannot afford to lose. Learned the hard way in 1968 er so. Lost a Ruger Bearcat 22 between Suttle and Bham.

Ouch!!!

Suggestion: If you are going to lay anything on a vehicle, lay it on the hood in front of the steering wheel.

My wife hunted with me last weekend. She called me and said that she had left a bag at her spot and wanted me to go get it. When I went in there to get it I found her shotgun leaning up against a pine tree beside where she was sitting.

all that will do is let you see it slid off and break the stock....

Damn now that's bad to forget your gun.

All about priorities.

Leaving church a couple of weeks ago, I sat my cell phone, Bible, and coffee mug on the hood right in front of the windshield while I unlocked the car & loaded up the wife & kids. When I pulled up at the restaurant down the street, I realized I did not have my phone.

Fortunately for me, the rubber-like otter box kept it from sliding off of the hood for those couple of miles.

My previous cell phone, however, was not so lucky. I had taken a buddy of mine duck hunting for his first time. I was standing in waist deep water adjusting some decoys and he says, �hey, take my picture!� I reached into my waders to pull out my phone. It was then that I realized what that odd splashing noise had been a few minutes earlier.

I like to think that the phone is still recording crab movements in the bay.

So let's hear the REST of this story

lol..... not much to the story. Saturday she wanted to sit on a field all day and read a book while I run and gunned. She came out at dark. The next day I was hunting and she called me about 11 am and told me she had left a bag at her field that had a external battery for a phone and a sandwich bag with some candy and crackers in it. I went back to get it and found her shotgun leaning up against a pine tree.

Kinda off subject but I learned the hard way not to try to adjust a climbing stand while your 20ft up a pine tree!!! left most of my facial skin on the bark on the ride down...

That's why my toolbox has a rail around the top.

Ouch

I have a Taurus Judge that has 9 lives. Have tried every way imaginable to lose it at our lease.

It spent over a week on the side of a County Dirt Road, and no one saw it.

I just leave it at home now.

ONCE, I bought a Mossberg rifle.

When I was about 11 I had snuck out squirrel hunting with my dads single shot 22 that his grandfather have given him as a kid.
About a mile back into the woods I sat down against a tree and in just a couple of minutes the squirrels were a moving.. I shot one and watched where it fell. Waited a little while and another came back in range and shot it watching where it fell. Then did the same on a 3rd one.

I got up and went to collect my squirrels. Picked up that last squirrel, and turned around to go back to "my tree" where I had left the rifle laying at. The 15 minutes it took me to find that tree and find dads gun laying in the leaves seemed like a eternity.

I got invited to hunt on some private property during the rut in Bullock county about 6 years ago. This is a very well ran operation and the owner and his family has killed several 150 class bucks off of it. It's was like going to one of them fancy operations you see on TV in Illinois that costed a lot of money to hunt. To say the least I was so excited to get an invite. I drove up from Baldwin county on Friday evening and when I got there and started to unpack my gear I couldn't find my rifle! I left the dang thing! The owner was nice enough to loan me his 30/30 open sites to hunt with for the weekend. Only problem was all the shooter bucks I saw were all on the other side of the green fields some two hundred yards away. I never got an invite back and I won't ever make that mistake again. All I forget now is the key for the lock on my climbing stand.

I always unload it, lay in barrel down in the drivers seat. That way I have to put it away before I can drive.

A lady came by me with a purse on top of her car, I honked the horn to get her attention, started pointing at the purse... she shot me a bird, I smiled and waved her on.

Gonna start calling you Ivan

I ran outta gas the other day. That was purdy stupid!

Can't tell a woman nothing!

I told TC and Josh about my deer camp.

and your life has been forever changed for the positive

Trusted my teenage son with ratchet strapping my generator to the trailer. Bout 5 miles down the road I glanced up to see the gen fall off the trailer and tumble itself into a gazillion pieces. Sick sight!
Didn't even turn around to see if anything was salvageable, just kept my foot on the gas and went and bought a new one.

I'll never trust ANYONE with ratchet strapping again.

My wife laid her cell phone and my lawnmower keys on the hood of her car one day. And she took off to the store. I get home and she tells me what she had done. Her and my son had found the keys about 3/4 miles from the house. No luck on the phone. So I decided I'd walk down the road calling her phone every so often. Lucked out and found it in some pine straw. As speed racer was turning a curve, it slid off in the pine straw. Not a scatch on it.

We don't have the time or the capacity for mine.

Rode to a asa shoot in Gainesville fl. With shaw driveby and Delmar.

I lowered my bow one evening not knowing that it leaned against the tree I was in.When I came down the tree I heard a sickening crunch noise.It was all 4 arras pinned between my bottom part of the climber and the tree.They were acc's so it was an expensive lesson

Not using condoms

I never do stupid things.

I done that with an Old Man climber bout 20ft up.Tried adjusting the bottom.DONT EVER DO THAT CHIT!!

Several girlfriends/wives come to mind......

Thats exactly what I did with my ol man. Leaned to far forward while i was doing it and I was at the bottom of that tree in 0.2 seconds. Learned my lesson well...

Now THAT'S funny!!

The most stupid thing I have ever done was SMOKING CIGARETTES,trying to quit, and man is it hard after 35 years.

Tried to not pay my taxes one year....

Climbing without a harness. When I was 16 or so my dad bought an ole man climber and let me use it. I would climb 50' without a thought in the world about my safety until...... One day I climbed a pine and was about 35-40 feet up. I climbed facing the tree and wanted to sit with my back to the tree so I had to step over the netting. When I picked my foot up I slipped and my body lunged forward away from the tree. My foot somehow got caught on the netting and saved my life. I haven't climbed without a harness since.

Had a party at my parents house as a senior in high school. It got a little out of hand and some things were stolen. I regret that every day of my life. The disappointment in my parent's eyes still haunts/hurts me to this day.

I once got so excited about turkey hunting I left my gun. Got everything settled, decoy out, made a few tree yelps and realized my mistake. I am sure the majority of us have done this.... right?

I was climbing a new tree one day in a prime spot. I left my saw and pruners on accident so I thought I could make due with my survival pocket knife as it had a serrated edge. I got to about 15 foot and was a whittling on this limb when the blade slipped and came down on my opposite hand. The blade (factory sharpened) went to the bone. It was one of those wounds that doesn't bleed for 10 or so seconds. I was amazed that I felt no pain and could see bone. Next thing I know there is blood literally pouring from my hand. I scuttle down the tree just in time for that warm fuzzy feeling you get just before you pass out but I never did. The bottom of my climber was nearly completely covered in blood.

Same story as above but was whittling wood in a shooting house... I passed out this time. It was below 20 degrees that morning and I have never sweated more than I did just before I passed out.

I have since learned not to whittle on things in the woods.

I see the results of setting items on vehicles or not securing them all the time. The other day in Pennsylvania, I saw a brand new, still in bubble wrap, double bowl stainless sink laying in the edge of the road. I've seen Yeti coolers, boat seats, tons of tools,mattresses, couches, recliners, new refrigerators, and all kinds of stuff in the road.

The only problem is, I can't get this rig stopped in time to pick this stuff up.

This happened to me two years ago. I bought a stoeger 2000 shotgun from a member on here and decided to go do a little shooting. First I tried the stoeger with turkey shot, and propped my shotgun up on a target while I admired my pattern. Then I walked back to the truck and unloaded 100 rounds of 9mm at some random targets downrange. When I packed up to leave I didn't see the stoeger in the back seat of the truck and I started to get a sick feeling. I looked and there it was propped up on a target behind some I had just shot at with my 9. It took one bullet to the barrel (ruined it), and one to the forearm (ruined it and broke a guide rod). Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Using weed eater in a dog fence and had my mouth open. You can imagine the rest. Threw up for a solid 30 minutes.

Man where do I begin? I guess the stupidest thing I have done several times as a teenager and in my early twenties was rejecting the relationship that Jesus pursued with me. My thinking was that I could always deal with that tomorrow and so for today, I'm gonna do what I want. Then one day, God made Himself very clear to me and He saved me by His grace.

Read my book. Well, I could write one.

Skinny dipped when it was cold not one of my best shows if you know what I mean.

once I was a productive member of society... then I logged on to ALDER and learned about clorox stumps and snakes. (You know, people get bit messin with snakes)

Rolled with a Mexican Hooker.

Damn dude, that was a good shootin' shotgun.

Dangit man!

I put a wrench and a cheater bar on a crankshaft pully nut one time to loosen it so I could replace the seal.The idea was to hold the bar and get my wife to bump the starter.It worked like a charm loosening the nut.Just like an impact wrench.Problem was that the wrench slipped and the cheater bar went right through the radiator and put about a 2 inch hole right through it.

When I was 11 I saw a movie were a guy stuck his tongue to a pole and of course when it snowed outside one day I stuck my tongue to the pole and couldn't get it off man was I stupid. My parents took pictures with one of those old Polaroid camera that printed the pics I never lived that day down every time my friends would come over.

I might pay to hear that story

I was turning and threading one end of a shaft in an old Bridgeport EZ Path CNC lathe. The shaft was made of one inch diameter 304 stainless steel, and was about 6 feet long. To chuck near the end I was working on, that meant that I left about three feet of slender shaft hanging out of the tube. I wrote a program to do my turning at 400 RPM, before slowing the spindle for the threading. Well, I fat fingered the 400 RPM and keyed in 700 rpm instead. When I started the spindle and it climbed to 700 RPM, all hell broke loose. The machine literally started jumping up and down and bouncing all over the place. Two of the foot pads were not even under the machine when it was all over. The control is mounted on an arm that will swing around for convenience. And about the time I was reaching for the E-stop, there was a loud bang and the arm came swinging towards My face hard enough to relocate my head. I did manage to hit the e stop and drop back just in time, as the keys were launched throughout the end of the shop behind me, and the monitor came to a rest on the chuck and tool post, hanging by the wires/cables.

304 stainless is tough, but it is very flexible. The tail end of the shaft had started bending, therefore causing the machine to be extremely out of balance, and it got progressively worse quickly. In just a couple of short seconds the shaft had bent to near ninety degrees. It was this that had knocked the controller straight at Me. Imagine a three foot long piece of one inch dia. steel swinging at close to 700 RPM and hitting the control box. Scary stuff.

I guess I'm really blessed that I wasn't hurt except for a very slightly mashed finger nail. Still not sure how that happened. When I walked into the office to tell my boss about it, I was fully expecting that a few minutes later, I would be loading my tool box on my truck. I kept my job though.

I walked up to a 30 gal feeder mounted on a post about 10 ft in the air and decided to shake the pole to see how much feed was in the feeder. Well, I can tell you, it was lights out. When I came to, I was bloody and thought I had been shot. Turned out, the lid with 3 solid bricks that held it down had came off on my head. Wasnt to smart......

Used to carry a Colt stainless Series 80 Officers .45, did the classic lay it on truck roof to unlock door, realized where I'd left it five miles down the road. Found it in the middle of the road. Holster had kept it from getting beat up. Possibly the worst was when in Vietnam - me and another kid ran across 150 yds of open rice paddy while under cover fire from our tank to grab two VC hiding in the tree line. Got on them, jerked them up, walked them back to tank, secured them, then when I cleared my M16 before putting it back on the rack realized I hadn't chambered a round.

Hunted a power line with a bow during the rut... yep, he crossed about 120 yds following a doe... called a gobbler in one morning at about 10 yds. and had forgot to chamber a shell...jumped off of a bridge in my teen years on a dare... STUPID !!!

Took my daughter to school on my personal truck. Came back home and got my work truck and headed to the office. Was talking to a friend on my cell phone and got 3 miles down the road and realized I had left my phone in my personal truck.

Turned around, went back home and as I approached my truck, I saw my reflection in the passengers window - there I stood talking on the phone I went back to get. Don't know if that's stupid or just crazy as hell. Had a good laugh at myself.

Thinking I could out run the pack of yellow jackets on my tractor (I had just run over the nest with my disk).

FYI You cannot out run yellow jackets on a tractor.

FIFY

I shot an inflated basketball with my Red Ryder BB gun from about 10 feet when I was about 8 years old. BB hit its mark and ricochet back and hit me right between the eyes. Dumb!

After learning SO MUCH from that experience, about a year later....

I was target shooting my Bear fiberglass recurve bow, fortunately not with sharp point tips. I began to wonder just how high vertically an arrow would go. So I lean back, shoot straight up in the air, and let it fly. It was impressive to a 9 year old...arrow traveled so high, at noon in the summer, that I lost sight of it. It dawned in that instant, that I had learned something in school about Newton and things going up will also come down.....I better get away or I'll get hit with that arrow! So I run straight ahead about 30-40 feet...not sure how far...just a burst run. I cover my head with my hands and turn around to look at where I shot from waiting for the arrow to fall. WHACK...next thing I know I'm laying on the ground with blood flowing down my face. I had shot myself, arrow grazed my head and cut me open...had three stitches. Dumb!

As a teenager I went coon hunting with a family friend and neighbor all the time. He owned a saw mill and had red bone and blue tick hounds. We treed a big boar coon one summer night in the Big Black River Swamp of Carrol County, MS. He has some young dogs he wanted to get their first taste of coon blood and get a kill. My job was to hold back the older and seasoned two red bone hounds. So I leashed them up, wrapping the leather leads around my wrists, moved back about 10 yards and sat down at the base of this enormous water oak--digging my heels in. Ronnie (a college kid home for the summer) climbed the tree, shook some vines and butt shot the coon with some rat shot. Out the coon jumped right into the pack of young dogs and the fight was on. When that coon hit the ground, those red bones took off like race boat...pulling me up to a standing position...launching me in the air and onto my stomach and drug me kicking and screaming into the fight. In 2 seconds I went from watching the coon jump to up in and amongst them. I got scratched, bit, trampled, clawed by dogs and or coon for what seemed like an hour but was only about 30 seconds. Still had leashes wrapped on my wrists. A True Jerry Clower Moment...I needed some relief! Rabies shots back in the 80s were not fun. Dumb!

Since I was such a fast learner, about three weeks later we were walking back to the truck around 2am after chasing coons all night. I had Katie, the sweet blue tick, who was the best dog of the bunch...she never lost the trail--dang good hound! I had her leash wrapped around my wrist....again. The truck was in sight at the edge of the corn field. All we had to do was cross over this creek on a huge oak tree that had fallen across the creek. Had done this countless times, as this was a place we hunted often. This night had no signs of being any different....hunter and dog easily walk the log. I was first to cross, with three others behind me. Well half way across, there was a sudden splash and scamper in the very shallow water creek directly below me. I was about 10 feet up from the bottom of the creek bed. Yep... Katie launched from the log into the black unknown. It was like a cartoon where Wiley Coyote looks at the camera right before falling...slow suspended motion. Since I was so smartly attached at the wrist to Katie, on a log, over a creek, that barely had any water in it....where the dog went I by default followed. Off into the creek I went....THUD. Glad it was river bottom land and not a rocky stream. I sprained my ankle and wrist in that landing. The laughter behind me....well I still can hear it. Funny now, but dumb back then.

I've got more that involve a barb wire fence and a Brahma bull named Freddy, why one shouldn't drive across a pond when the water is low, and how well water conducts electricity from and electric fence. But I'll spare you from my stupidity.

I think I'm smarter now. Maybe.

Hahaha! Those are some good ones stray cat. I did the shoot my bow straight up thing as a kid. My arrow came down on the roof of our house and Daddy came out soon after......that was the last time I tried that.

Same here except ours stuck in the roof of the neighbors camper. Ass whippings ensued....

I also remember stealing a can of Copenhagen Snuff from my uncle when I was about 10-11 yrs old. I hid it strategically and told my parents I was going to ride the four wheeler. I get out of site and put probably half the can in my front lip as I had seen my uncle do and I start driving. I thought I was something else for about 100 yds.....then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was spitting, slobbering, and throwing up all the way back home and went straight to bed. Told my parentsiI had a stomach bug.

My 9th grade year, a buddy and I were riding 3 and 4-wheelers in a dirt pit down from our neighborhood one Sunday afternoon. I saw a dirt mound that looked perfect for jumping on my Yamaha 200 3-wheeler. I got a good ways back, hit the throttle lever with my thumb, and took off for the jump, expecting to jump 15-20 feet, hit the landing, and nothing go wrong.

I was mistaken...I hit the mound, in 5th gear, throttle lever bottomed out, and it was at the exact moment I became airborne, that I realized that the 3' tall mound of dirt I was jumping, dropped about 30-35' on the other side. I landed, front tire first, my left hand came off of the handlebars and somehow got wedged between the bars on the front rack. As soon as the rear wheels hit, my left arm snapped about midways of my forearm. Meanwhile, when I "landed" the jump, my right thumb somehow got wedged between the handgrip and the throttle lever, causing the 3-wheeler to stay at full throttle. I traveled probably 200 yards before I was able to get control of the 3-wheeler. I don't know which hurt the most on the way home...my left forearm being broken and in a V-shape or my right thumbnail being ripped off when I finally yanked my thumb out from being wedged between the throttle and the handgrip.

I also had to ride a pine tree down when my stand fell out from under me.

It was a couple of weeks out of hunting season and we were pulling our stands out. My buddy had gone to get his stand and was going to meet me back at truck. I got my stand down and realized that I had left my safety strap around the tree about 30' up (this was in the days before wearing a safety belt was normal). I decided I would just use the foot climber and shimmy up the tree and drop the strap back down and shimmy back down the tree. I got up, dropped the strap back down, and had just started back down when the foot climber dropped out from under me. Here I am, 30' up a tree, and the spaghetti that I ate for lunch decided it was ready to work it's way back out in the form of a gut bomb. Instead of shimmying back down, I loosened the bear hug I had on the tree trunk and slid the 30' down the pine tree. Upon hitting the ground, it was time to drop the gut bomb. My buddy about lost it when I showed back up at the truck, looking like I had been attacked by a bear, arms, face, and chest all scratched up, and missing the shirt that I had been wearing that had become emergency toilet paper.

Driving over Lurleen Wallace bridge in my jeep with the top and doors off, me being completely naked and drunk.

I may or may not have left a revolver in the pocket of a backpack this weekend. It may or may not have gotten rained on. I may or may not had to take the sidle plate off and clean it inside and out.

Thank goodness it was stainless. (Assuming i left it in there)

Got married