I was hiking out of a canyon at night after elk hunting to my truck about a mile at the top of the canyon. It was pitch black, no moon, but I had a head lamp on. I heard something following me guessing about 40 yards behind me. Having trapped coyote and foxes, I figured that is what it was. So I stopped, yelled, and threw rocks toward it as they often trail people out of curiosity. So I kept walking. It continued to follow me. I did the yell and throw rocks thing again. I started walking again. I heard fairly large branches breaking behind me. At that point, I realized it was likely a mountain lion. That fricken thing followed me all the way back to my truck. It never quit following. I thought about shooting in the air to scare it, but I had partners waiting at the truck - they would have thought something was wrong and would have come looking for me.
Maybe it was Bigfoot... ;-)
Actually had a similar experience many years ago on the Naciemento River in central Calif. A buddy had a small cabin he let me use occasionally for hunting deer, pigs and quail. On one afternooon, while scouting, I came upon a fresh pig wallow and decided to stake it out until sunset in case any pigs returned. They didn't show, and it was just about dark when I started to hike out. As I rounded the first bend in the trail, my flashlight revealed an unsettling sight: very large kitty tracks on top of my tracks. That cat had followed me, left the trail just out of my sight and circled above the hill behind me, and had likely been watching me for some time. Just then the wind came up and started whipping the thick brush all around me so I wouldn't have heard a tank approaching. Then my flashlight died. It was a very long hike back to the cabin in the dark with my rifle on my hip... serious lesson learned that night about toting multiple lights.
