Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Strange or scary experiences while hunting...

One time, back when I was a little feller, my dad took my dog with him to pick hickory nuts. The place he went was open fields with scattered thickets of hickory trees. While in one thicket, he said my dog went nuts, growling, and was so worked up looking at the next thicket about 50 yards away, that his hair was standing on end. Dad looked over at the next thicket, and saw a guy staring back at him. He hollered at him, and asked him if he needed something. When the guy didn't answer, or move, my dad, who was a Captain in the local police dept, went over to check it out. He discovered that the guy had committed suicide, and was hanging from a tree. Turns out the guy had disappeared about a month before, and had been hanging there ever since. The guy was 5'10 in life. When they cut him down, he was over 7 feet.

Having spent nearly all of my life in the woods huning, fishing and camping I have seen many strange/unusual things. With a little time around a campfire (and a little adult beverage encouragment) I could tell tales for hours of what I've seen and done that were at the very least "unusual". Only a few actually involved "fear" but several were quite startling at the time. Some that come to mind are:

While still hunting one fall, the sky opened up and rain fell like being poured from a bucket. I was in an are with many cedar trees and saw one nearby on which the limbs drooped to the ground. I push under the limbs and sat against the trunk of the tree. Thick limbs above shed almost all of the rain and I was quite comfortable. About 10 minutes later there was movement as the limbs across form me moved aside. A small 4 point buck scrambled under the tree and lay down not 3 feet away from me. Once he'd settled down he looked around and when his eyes met mine he froze. A stare-down went on for maybe a minute until he looked out at the rain, then back at me. I know animals shouldn't be given human traits as they don't think like we do, but I swear the look on his face said, "If you'll leave me alone I'll do the same". We sat there for about 30 minutes while the rain continued, then began to slack up. When the downpour was over and just a slow drizzle remained, the buck looked at me, the stood up and pushed through the limbs. He walked slowly away, glancing back a time or two until out of sight.

A strange and startling happening that was later a bit frightning because of what "could" have happened occured while I was hunting with a flintlock rifle. I prefer to hunt with traditional gear and often dress the part of a 1700's longhunter....just cause I like to do so. On this day I was wearing full buckskins complete with a coonskin cap. I had built a brush blind and was watching a creek crossing as dusk was aproaching....with just my head above the brush. I heard nothing and saw nothing when suddenly I was struck hard on the side of my head. I fell sideways to the ground and caught movement about 10 feet away. There was a huge horned owl sitting on the ground with my fur cap clutched in his talons. He pecked at it a time or two then flew away leaving the cap behind. Apparently he had mistaken the cap for something good to eat and attacked. At the time I was startled, but not really afraid. It was only later that I realized just how bad this could have turned out as I do know the power those big birds have and the damage that those talons could have done to me face/head.

I have hunted hogs for most of my life and although they do have the tools to be dangerous, most encounters are not so spine-tingling as some would have you think. Most hog "attacks" involve either a wounded animal or one that is accidentally cournered....or both. Two frightning encounters come to mind.

The first was a case of an accidental cournering of a boar. I was walking down a narrow trail through a very thick brush thicket. Anything out of the trail was basically impenetrable. Rounding a bend in the trail I surprised a 250 pound boar that was bedded in nook to the side of the trail. It happened so fast I really didn't have time to be afraid as the hog came up popping his teeth and came for me. I flattened myself against the brush and gave the hog all the room I dould to pass by. As he ran by, he hooked his head at me and I felt my leg be knocked from under me. Fortunatly the hog continued on and didn't press the attack. I was feeling quite lucky until I looked down and saw the long tear in my jeans and a bit of blood. Examination showed that my jeans and the heavy leather of my boot tops was cut about 8". The heavy leather had taken most of the damage and I only sustained a shallow cut along my calf.If I hadn't been wearing high-top heavy boots I shudder to think what damage might have occured.

The other hog "attack" involved my own mistake and a "wounded" animal. A friend and I were together alongside a switch-cane thicket where hogs loved to bed. We surprized a small herd and my friend shot....there was mass confusion as hogs scattered in all directions. My friend shouted "Don't let him get in the cane". I saw a large hog just going into the thicket and fired a shot from the .44 revolver I carried. It was not a "smart" shot....at the south end of a northbound hog....but this was, I believed, a wounded animal and was trying to imobilize it. It turned out that this was NOT the hog my friend had shot. His was dead a few yards away. When we looked at the tunnel-like trail "my" hog had taken we found much blood and knew we had a wounded hog in the switch-cane. Not a good situation. This was a truely frightning situation. The cane was so thick that one could only enter on the "tunnels" the hogs had made....literally on hands and knees. After much discussion and an hour or so of waiting, I entered the tunnel with the .44 held in front of me. The blood trail was quite heavy but after 50 yards or so continued into the thicket. I was truely terrified and every turn of the trail was even worse as I peeked around the bend expecting the hog to be waiting for me. Finnally I looked round another bend and there he was facing me at maybe 6 feet. A quick shot and much scrambling to get out of the thicket followed. Another 30 minutes or so with no sound or movement from the tunnel, I re-entered and went back to the hog. It turned out that my first shot had actually killed the hog...the hard-cast bullet traveling through his rump and forward to his chest. he was dead when I found him, although I didn't know that at the time. My quick shot at the turn had also been deadly (if the hog had been alive) to the center of his chest. However this was a very large boar (350 pounds) and I have no confidence that my shot would have stopped him at feet if he had been pressing an attack. This turned out well and was quite amusing later, but at the time it was a very frightning time for me.

I could go on and on.....but these stories come to mind first.

I have a few:

Very first deer hunt ever, right at day break, I had a fawn run up the hill and under my stand followed by a 12 ga. slug that hit the tree a foot above my head. It was fired by one of the drunk "cidiot's" that we encountered sitting around a fire passing a bottle on the walk in before dawn.

Sitting with my back to a big rock while bowhunting. I seen the tall grass moving and something was getting closer. A big boar coon emerged and stepped right between my legs and stopped for a few seconds then stepped over my left leg and continued on his way.

Sitting on a log while bow hunting in a hardwoods. Seen a shadow and instinctively lifted my bow to guard my head as a big Golden Eagle braked and veered off. Made me think of the story of the Montana game warden that was killed by a Great Horned Owl while bow hunting. Talons went right through his skull.

Got chased by a PO'd cow for a 1/4 mile as I walked across a pasture in the dark to get to my stand. I was wearing bulky clothes and boots and the beaotch almost caught me right before I jumped the fence.

*Edit* Actually it might have been a Wyoming game warden. I read the article in a Montana paper though.

Yer damn lucky it wasn't Jewish Bankers! you wouldn't be talkin' about it today.



Had a squirrel sit on top of my hat for about 10 minutes once, I'm pretty sure he was wearing pants cause he schit 'em when I lifted my hand and waved it.

Dayom.

Still waiting on that story outta Corpus Christi newspaper! Doc!!!

Well?????

Hunting whitetails out of a tree stand on my own property shooting hours ended and I lowered my empty Savage 99 to the ground and my pack. When I started to climb down there was a ruckus and low moaning sound coming from a patch of brush about 50 yards out.

I missed the last two steps of the tree stand, hit the ground, turned around to see a very large Brahma bull mix coming fast. Grabbed the 99 and loaded two cartridges in the magazine and stepped behind the tree just as the bull missed me and hit the tree stand. While he was butting the heck out of the stand I jacked a round into the chamber and stepped from behind the tree and put a 87 grain Hornady in his right ear.

The bull was owned by a bucking bull operation two farms down the valley from me.

One incident that remains clear happened a few years back...

I had haded up to eastern Idaho in the middle of nowhere to do some photography. Seems I drove on gravel forever and then backpacked in a few more miles. Saw moose galore. One bull about thirty yards away belly deep in a pond eating and then I saw two large shapes swimming across a lake. Without binos they were too far off to identify but I was immediately thinking a grizzly and cub! Wasn't till they clambered out the far side I could see they were moose shaped...

Anyway, the next morning I head out to hike a few more miles up to a canyon with waterfalls on both sides...my final destination. I was packing my Nikon, a backpack with lenses, filters, etc and my tripod for some long exposure shots. I had no rifle with me and I honestly can't remember if I was carrying my SIG 220 or not.

I get to the canyon and there are dense thickets scattered about. As I'm walking through one I hear the sound of something large moving close. I'm thinking, "don't panic, Chris, but it might behoove yourself to get your ass outta there...pronto." Thinking 'bear' and not really having any means of self defense, I scrambled out and headed to the sides where I could climb some large boulders. When I got high enough I could see down into the thicket....Mama moose and her calf!

I was relieved but it dawned on me a protective mother moose probably was above my unarmed combat proficiency...

I try not to go too deep in the wild anymore without some sort of Big Bang Theory on my hip...

Never been skeert in the woods. Heard some weird eerie scream in AZ once on a Coues hunt...Figured a coon got into the hot sauce but somone said is was a fox species they have there. Weirdest dang night scream I ever did hear.

My Dad and Granddad always said:

'Cheechakoes fear bears, but Sourdoughs fear moose.'

I think that they were right.

I can't do it until I go fishing in Corpus and get a chance to go to the library and get a copy of the newspaper report. I figure lots of folks require proof to prevent being called a liar or loon.

A Sunday front pager in october bow season probably in '66 but possibly '65. I wanted to and almost had enough whiskey last night.

Can't remember KW, I may even have posted it a couple years ago.

Off the same island I earlier described, however. I once in high school camped and waded over to the bay side of Mustang island one night with a Coleman lantern and reflector to gig flounder. After a few hours my left arm wore out and I switched it to my right and figured I'd try a first and gig with the left arm.

I waded up into a little cove and could hear the water splashing up ahead from thousands of mullet, mud minnows and piggy perch. About then I looked up and coming toward me was a 10-12 foot big freaking shark afte the baitfish coming to my lantern. His jaws were open and he was swinging his maw back and fourth slashing the crap out of the schools of mullet as he turned the water red as he sucked them in and swam straight on to me. I thought of turning the lantern away but couldn't stand the thought of not seeing if he got me before feeling those teeth. Just as he got to me I made my first ever left handed gig stab at his moving head.

By the grace of God the gig hit him dead center between the eyes and just knowing i had penetrated it's brain, but instead the sensation reminded me of what it would feel like gigging a concrete block. In a huge splash of blinding water and sizzleling from the hot wet lantern the shark had miraculously disappeared.

I've seen two quite strange sights deer hunting in quite remote areas.

I saw a very big and orderly square stack of large animal bones, the next morning, just beyond a camp that I got to and made after dark the night before.

On another deer hunting trip, long after elk season, as I still hunted along I saw an elk cow and large calf dead ahead just a few feet apart. After a careful approach in case something was guarding its kill, I could find no mark on either elk. The only tracks in the snow were elk and birds, and not even the birds had fed on the elk. I have no idea why two elk in apparent perfect condition would just drop dead, nor why the birds inspected but did not feed on the carcases.

Pretty sure you posted that story before. Flying saucer i think.

I can relate to that. Went out to Death Valley just to say I'd been there with some time off from a business trip. Death Valley isn't what I expected - or at least the part of it I was in - it was just basically a parking lot as far as the eye could see with little to no distinguishing landmarks.

I parked my car off the road and walked a ways over a small dune but had the car out of sight. In just that short walk it was easy to see that if I hadn't been 100% sure that I had parked on the other side of that dune, I could have easily just started walking in the wrong direction and gotten into trouble fast. Everything looked exactly the same in every direction.

Siting in a ground blind on a opening day moring of gun deer season, about an hour after day break, snow on the ground light snow falling, no wind, a large bumble bee whissed past my head, then i heard the shot! it came from a long way off, kinda ruined my moring!

Not really scary....

In college I was both skinny and swift. One summer I worked at an education/research station on Cranberry Lake in the Adirondacks, only way in or out was by boat across the lake.

Every evening it was my habit to go for a run up a trail along a stream. This was in the late seventies and I forget now how far it was, some distance in miles, maybe a six or ten mile round trip. I would love to be able to run anywhere, let alone through the woods like that now (think "Last of the Mohicans").

On a steep part where the stream was rushing and loud the trail ran between the stream and this large boulder. I came around the boulder and.... a big friggin' male black bear, right there. I coulda reached out and touched it.

First image I had as I skidded to a stop was the big head swinging down and around as it turned to run away. It ran about thirty yards and then stopped to look back. I called out "Hello bear!" to let it know what I was and it beat feet over a ridge, "wuffing" and spraying a shower of leaves with every bound.

Geeze, I actually continued the run, and did so every evening thereafter, but after that always made a point to holler out periodically to give notice I was coming.

That same summer I used to sleep out on the boat dock, and would peer out from the blankets in the misty mornings to see tree swallows sitting on the dock just feet away. That was the summer the Northern Lights put on a spectacular pale green show across most of the sky one July night (only time I've ever seen 'em), to the accompaniment of calling loons on that lake.

Looking back to that night, and all the many other good things that would befall that guy on the dock between that time and this, I have indeed been blessed

Birdwatcher

Ha. There you go BGG. What a memory you have. it still runs chills down my spine to think of and that was about '66.

I guess that night i posed that I had a few too many. Well, it feels good to have it off my chest.

Well, you can only keep the truth from coming out for so long a time.

Walking out to my deer stand early one morning in the dark, I had a grouse get up right up under my feet and touch my face with its wings. I screamed out loud...and then I had to laugh at my self.

And then there was this time my we stopped at waffle house for a huge breakfast before the deer hunt. I had just climbed the tree with a new summit tree stand, got all settled in and the perk in my gut told me I was in trouble.

Ever try to work your way down the tree while clenching your cheeks together? I get with jumping distance, fly out of the tree stand and barely get the layers of clothing off in time....

Walking up a rise in a field pheasant hunting. The dog put up a bird on the top of the rise and the shooting started. And then came the rain of birdshot from the hunters on the other side of the hill.