I was plunked down in front of a bush early one morning in NM with my rifle across my knees. There was a drizzle that was not rain or mist but cool nonetheless. As the sun rose just enough to see, a tiny bird, maybe 4 inches long, flew through the bush and pulled up just in front of me to land on my barrel. It hopped from foot to foot shaking off the water then fluffed it's feathers for warmth and hunkered down waiting for the sun. As the light just struck the bird, it gave a violent wiggle to shed water then rocketed out like it had a mission in mind. I have vivid memories of that morning and that bird but never knew what type it was, just fast.
Sitting in my tree stand, full camo, about 100 yards from Chesapeake Bay. Immature eagle grabs a good sized bluefish, and sits on a dead snag about 12 yards in front of me. The snag broke, and the poor little guy did a couple of back rolls down the tree till he flapped out of it! Of course, he dropped the fish. It was pretty overgrown, and no place for an eagle to get to a fish, OR to get back up if he did. He went from tree to tree looking down at the meal, for about 15 min., then gave up. Also found an Osprey probably forced down by an eagle or crows. He was in too dense a area to get back up. I took my trusty branch trimmers,and cut an open area so he could flap. Threw my coat over him (he latched on too) and took him to the clearing. He took off a few minutes later. Never even said thanks...
Several come to mind. Was sitting on a big rock overlooking a hollow in southern Ohio during deer season. 'Sat there for a couple hours, decided to get up and move, so I jumped down off the rock, about a height of 4 ft. Turns out a turkey was just passing in front of that rock at the time. I unknowingly pinned the turkey between me and the face of the rock. I don't know who was more spooked-me or that crazy bird, but the darned thing about beat me half to death flying out of there. I had scratches, feathers, and turkey schidt all over me. My buddy laughed so hard when he saw me he all most threw up.
The other one that comes to mind was during a BASS State Qualifier tournament in Ohio. Me and my observer are back up in a creek, and there's a camera boat with us. We come up on a beaver hut I'd taken some fish off of in practice, and there's two guys on the bank bumping uglies. Needless to say, we tried some other spots. I lost my composure all together. I asked the guys in the camera boat if they got that on tape, and they were so flustered they couldn't even answer me.
Second hand story from a co-worker. Guy was in the woods at his deer stand. Just outside his range with a shotgun a large doe came by followed by a neighbors beagles. The doe ran from them and then stopped. The beagles ran up on the deer and leapt against its hindquarters. The doe ran ahead a few dozen yards and stopped again.......... and the scene repeated several times until they were out of sight.
Strangest I have seen is two sea gulls from a nearby dump flying at full speed side by side. Strange part was that one of the pair appeared, to my perfect vision, to be flying backwards, same direction and speed.
On some public hunting land I was perplexed by a rectangular area of freshly disturbed soil. Looked to be done with an excavator or at least a bobcat. The area was about 15x25 and from 0 to 3 feet deep. Strange part was that I could reason no reason for it, there were also no tracks in and the trees were too close together to allow passage of equipment, nor was there any damage to the surrounding trees.
I was visiting my daughter, that lived in San Antonio Texas back about 10 years ago. She lived in a kind of rural area North West of the actual city. I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV early one morning, and something caught my attention outside the window.
There was a small face looking in the window about 2 feet from my face, watching me... WTF ??? I was a little surprised to say the least, and didn't recognize it right away, almost spilling my coffee, and choked on a dough nut. It looked exactly like this, 2 feet away...
I jumped up from the couch, and watching it crawl through the rafters of the porch outside the window, said to my daughter, What the hell kind of raccoons you got around here !!??
As it went away into the trees around the house (we ran outside to watch it, but it was gone in a second) we realized it was a Ring Tailed Lemur (normally calls Madagascar it's home). There was a Wild Animal Orphanage not to far from her house (closed now), and the Lemur must have decided to go for a walk that morning. That crazy face so close to mine in the morning was a real wake-me-upper !!
Old Fishermen never die, we just get reel tired.
May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May you stay......Forever young
On some public hunting land I was perplexed by a rectangular area of freshly disturbed soil. Looked to be done with an excavator or at least a bobcat. The area was about 15x25 and from 0 to 3 feet deep. Strange part was that I could reason no reason for it, there were also no tracks in and the trees were too close together to allow passage of equipment, nor was there any damage to the surrounding trees.
A couple years ago, during firearms deer season, I had a regular visitor in a hen pheasant. She would come out from a nearby thicket at about the time the sun was fully up and hang around for an hour or 2 before wandering away. One of the mornings that she was hanging around I was eating pistachios. I started tossing them in her direction from my stand and man and beast enjoyed a shared mid-morning snack.
Another odd instance occurred while I was driving South on a divided interstate highway during late winter. The snow was mostly gone and they were picking over the winters' roadkill and various highway litter. I saw one particular crow flying overhead that really made me do a double take. This particular crow had a one gallon plastic milk jug on it's head. I couldn't tell if it had gotten his head down into the mouth of the jug and couldn't get himself free or if it was simply gripping the mouth of the jug with it's beak. Whatever the case, it was flying straight into a brisk West wind and still making good headway.
While fishing a large private pond in my boat a mother otter swam by with her babies. The otter hissed at me & made a rush toward my boat. I grabbed the paddle & was prepared to prevent her from boarding my boat. She swam away hissing. Later I saw a free roaming hog (not a boar) on the shore in heavy weeds. Apparently, the hog got close to the baby otters & was attacked by the mother. One hell of a fight erupted & the otter bit & scratched the hog until it finally ran away. About an hour later I saw the bloody hog again come down to the shore. The otter attacked the hog once again & this fight was brief. Obviously, this was one mean mother otter. Never realized they could be so aggressive.
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Almost too many to list. But one still as fresh as yesterday's sunset.
Had a stand on the edge of a dirty bean field. Every day that I hunted that stand, about 4:00 a covey of birds would come from the thicket behind me, under my stand and work the edge of the bean field. Maybe 20 birds, but I got a ring side seat to how quail interact. Was fascinating to me to observe their social order. One thing that I saw repeatedly was when they saw any other bird larger than a crow they would freeze and somehow manipulate their feathers so they would almost disappear even as I was looking directly at them. Totally different from when they were at rest. Almost a 3 D camouflage effect like a Ghillie suit or something.
Killed two foxes that tried to injun up and eat them birds.
Three of us were camping in the Sierra Anchas. We were sitting around the campfire in the evening. A truck was slowly descending down the rough dirt road towards us. It stopped nearby and a man hailed the camp. He wanted to know if he and his friend could warm up their coffee pot on our fire. We invited Bill Curtis and his friend Cheno to our fire. They were wood cutters on their way back to Globe.
Bill asked us if we were hunting. We said yes we were hunting bears. He suggested we visit his small camp where there were lions, and cougars and bears....
In the course of the conversation Bill told us he and Cheno had seen some very strange things while spending time in these mountains. One time he and Cheno were lying in the back of his flatbed and saw a strange light near Aztec peak go up into the sky then down several times. I happened to look at Aztec peak while he was talking and THERE IT WAS! A bright light was ascending several hundred yards then descending as he spoke! Excitedly I said there it is now! We watched as the light repeated the movement several times then was gone.
There has to be an explanation and I have a few ideas. To have Bill talk about it and then see it was most interesting.
In all my years in the woods I have seen lots of strange stuff but one of the strangest was like this. I was riding fence and in one place the youpon had grown up too close to the fence to go down it. Had to ride around the thicket to get back to the fence. I rounded the thicket and when I hit the fence there was this damn ape sitting on the ground eating mustang grapes off the vine. Horse snorted and ape looked up. This thing stood up, stretched like a man would stretch, hopped over the fence and ambled off through the woods. Wasn't a sasquach it was an ape like you would see in a zoo. Never saw it again but did see a loose ape in the east Texas woods one time. Close to fifty years ago now.
Sitting in a goose pit one morning listening to rooster pheasants waking up cackling and beating their wings in the cattails. A large hawk dropped out of the sky and the ruckus knocked down a patch of cattails about as big as a pickup. The rooster flew off and the hawk stayed on the ground for several minutes before unsteadily flying off.
The other one that comes to mind was during a BASS State Qualifier tournament in Ohio. Me and my observer are back up in a creek, and there's a camera boat with us. We come up on a beaver hut I'd taken some fish off of in practice, and there's two guys on the bank bumping uglies. Needless to say, we tried some other spots. I lost my composure all together. I asked the guys in the camera boat if they got that on tape, and they were so flustered they couldn't even answer me.
Dammit, you win... or lose, I don't know which. But
I'n the mid-80s, I was on a bear hunting trip with Foggy Mountain Guide Services in Dover Foxcroft, Maine. On the last day of the hunt at around 3:00PM, perhaps a dozen animals/beings started laughing about 50 feet into the woods around my stand. I never saw anything. They seemed equally spaced around me. Whatever it was sounded exactly like humans laughing. I assumed it was wolves or coyotes. I was miles from civilization.
In the areas where I currently hunt, we hear and/or see coyotes almost every time we hunt. I've never heard them make any noises that sounded like what I heard in Maine.
1st Special Operations Wing 1975-1983 919th Special Operations Wing 1983-1985 1993-1994
"Manus haec inimica tyrannis / Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" ~Algernon Sidney~
The strangest looking critter I've seen was a piebald possum.
Other stuff:
On November 15, 1989 a tornado struck along Airport Rd. in Huntsville, AL. There were several fatalities and significant property damage. Several businesses were demolished, including a bank, medical offices, etc.
The storm containing the tornado tracked directly over my Dad's property in the mountains on the western side of the Paint Rock Valley. The storm dropped debris from the tornado strike all along its path.
The ground in the woods along the storm track looked like the streets of New York after a ticker tape parade. Among the bushels of shredded paper we found pieces of text/library books from a school, Sunday school materials and song books from one or more churches, financial record (including cancelled checks) from the banks that were hit, and medical records from the medical facilities that were destroyed. We also found a good number of family photos. We gave the photos, and anything else that looked like it might be something someone would want back, to a local news station so they could return the items to the owners (if possible).
We also found several pieces of insulation, parts of a trailer (or motor home), and a good sized chunk of someone's bass boat. For sometime afterward we could describe locations on the mountain by referencing prominent chunks of debris like the ridge with big piece of blue insulation stuck on a limb, or the tree with all the aluminum siding wrapped around the trunk.
===================== Boots were made for walking Winds were blowing change Boys fall in the jungle As I Came of Age
I was Bow hunting in upstate NY and I heard a deer aproaching. When I could see it and new it wasn't looking my way I stood up so I could take a shot.
As it got closer, It didn't look like any whitetail I had seen. In fact I swear it was a cow or calf elk. It was have been bigger by any whitetail with a neck darker than its body and as it walked past its butt was tan/brown not white. I didn't shoot it, although the only member of the deer family that lives around there are whitetails it just didn't look like a whitetail.
The entire encounter maybe lasted 30 seconds and to this day, I wonder if it was my mind playing tricks on me and it was a odd whitetail. Or perhaps an elk that escaped from a local elk farm or one from Pennsylviania that was on a very long walk. I would guess that the spot I was hunting was 300 miles from the Pennsylvainia elkso that doesn't seem reasonable. I wish I had either shot it or had a camera availible.
I am sure that if I were in Colorado I would have identified it as an elk in a second.. but there arn't elk in NYS.
The collection of taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this Republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them. Coolidge
I was small game hunting in PA several years ago and kicked up a grouse at the edge of a partially grown up field. Anyone who hunts grouse know that you have to be a quick shot as they usually take off like a rocket. This one flew straight up and kind of "hovered" for a few seconds and then flew away. I was hunting with a 22 magnum and didnt even think about shooting it, although it would have been easy if I had a shotgun. Never saw a grouse act like that before.
One of my uncles told me that he was hunting deer many years ago and had a fox walk past him and brush against his leg like a house cat would do. He didnt see the fox until it rubbed against him and startled him.
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