What is the strangest that has ever happend to you out in the bush I was on stand and watched a mamma Quail walk through with several babys following her shortly after a road runner was following the same path and then all of a sudden the mamma quail shot out of the brush and hit that roadrunner like a fighting chicken and sent it the other way with a few feathers missing I couldent help it and lmfao

I'll never forget the sight of a Fisher. It's movement reminded me of one of those Chinese ribbons you see at festivals, bobbing, flitting, here-then-gone, and at a speed that jolted my sensabilities.

a couple of monkeys.

That'd make a guy double-take.

Second that, and good description. From my perch in a tree, looked like a gargantuan weasel (bigger than a house cat, smaller than a bobcat) wearing someone's mink fur coat, the fur shimmering in the sun as it barreled along through about 12in of snow. Instantly recognizable as "something you don't want to get in the way of."

Was hunting in a treestand on a new place. Had a Dairy Goat walk by complete with an attached cowbell.

Owner later said he didn't own any goats....?

I remember the first Road Runner I saw. We were hunting blue quail in SE Colorado. I was sitting on a big rock with my dog and taking a break. I saw something flitting from bush to bush and then running along between open spaces. Whomever drew the cartoon bird spent a lot of time with real ones. They run just like the cartoon bird.

Midnight, had a few, frog jumped into and immolated itself in the campfire. This was in the desert!

sure did, but the owner of the neighboring ranch had seen them also.

Arnie -- a pal of Uncle Murray -- was a constant for several years of whitetail hunting. While not the strangest, Arnie was near the top of the strange list.

This was in the days before blaze orange, when red was legal, and the red/black lumberjack pattern was as common as snowflakes in Wisconsin's November deer season. Arnie had the grungiest hunting clothes I'd ever seen, the pattern should have been lumberjack, but the grease, dirt, and diesel fuel that loaded the fabric made him look brown. Pair that brown attire with a beard that was Santa Claus-white, and if Arnie was standing still in the woods, he'd pass for a deer - still can't believe nobody ever took a crack at him.

Don't know that he ever fired at a deer, but he would "drive" deer by walking a few steps, pointing his ancient shotgun toward the ground, and firing a shot. Every fifteen minutes or so he'd kill the sod in front of him. Easy to know where he was, and he did move deer!

Hadn't thought of him in thirty years.

Didn't see Arnie in the woods ... but I think I seen the devil.

Suicide.....

Even ol' Arnie would have considered that strange.

A white weasel of some sort frollicking in the snow by my elk stand years ago, no.

I was watching the bobcat stalk up to the whitetail doe and 2 fawns as I sat in the live oak above them with my recurve Ben Pearson Hunter near Refugio, Texas in the late Sixties before my micro-flight 7(?) with a Ben Pearson Razorhead hit it in the neck at 7 yds., no , I forgot, it was when

Larry Wright and I climbed up in the big mesquite a half hour before daylight on his grandmas ranch on the fence that separated it from the famous O'Conner spread that ran from near Victoria to Refugio and down to near Austwell and Tivoli and Bayside in the gulf Coast.

We faced the Gulf and bays to the S.East awaiting daybreak and with my bow secured I shut my eyes to rest and hasten the misery of awaiting the experience of screwing up on getting an arrow in the chest of a big brush country buck heading back into the security of the essentially unhunted O'Conner Empire which rivaled the famous King Ranch to the south and east.

As I drifted into slumber brought on by the inability to sleep the Friday night before while getting gear tuned, Larry (Buck Wright) elbowed my left set of ribs and said, "Hey, what is that?" I was pissed as I opened my eyes looking SEast toward the bays and Gulf and saw a lighted area strung out a few degees long and just above the earliest rays of the dawn. I said, "airplane" and resumed my doze.

A few minute or two later Larry elbowed me and retorted, "That ain't no [bleep] airplane, look!" I did and saw the strangest sight a person could comprehend.

Coming directly over us were three Pastel white objects exactly the same color as the moon which was up and laying in the sky to the west and behind us and in the direction the three flying saucers were headed. They subtended an angle almost as large as the moon and each was trailed by a hazy mist I estimated to be about 5-7 times as long as the objects they emitted from. Theybwere not perfectly round but were slightly oblong. There was absolutely no sound whatsoever and as they passed by us by about 45degrees to the west they gently faded out of sight.

Later I deduced they had curved bottoms and had no lights we could see other than the reflection back to us from the elevated rays of the soon to rise sun to our east. As the objects circumvented the earth to the west, the suns rays were actually blocked from them by the curvature of the earth and they faded from view.

We looked at each other in amazement and each said, "Did you see that?" at the same time. It took me awhile to figure out what had happened and that earlier my dx of airplane was influenced by the fact that they were low and to the east and the reflection of them to us, and the hazy vapor or dust trail each left behind was colored and looked like 3lights adjoined due to the reflection coming to us through the lower atmosphere, and is what gives the perception of color to the yellow full moon seen just above the horizon.

As the dark gave way to dawn a flock of migrating geese passed over two apparent Neanderthals sat in a fenceline mesquite wi

Continued ). fence line mesquite with bows in hand and neck hair on end, waiting on our previous dream of a dead buck and wondering about the relevancy of our importance in the great scheme of things.

I have told this story to only a handful of people on this earth due to the fear of ridicule some turds on the fire shall shortly henceforth spew, but, the OP asked and i told. Besides, I'm getting old and don't give a [bleep].

Naysayers can feel free to go back and research the articles from 'The Corpus Christy Caller" Sunday editions of October and research the Sunday news stories of all the airline pilots that reported the sightings of the UFOs passing buy on their early morning flight into and out of Corpus that early Saturday morning a long time ago, before I had ever killed a deer with my bow.

when sitting around the campfire at night in the desert during summer and fall the kangaroo rats will come and hang out with you strange?

Be more specific.

Not exactly the 'woods', but at a be-stilted lodge on the Serengeti (it may have been in Tsavo, now that I think about it; just not sure)* in Kenya in '84, I watched an amazing scrap between a black (I think it was a black; not positive)* rhinoceros and a bull elephant, at a waterhole below the camp.

The previous night, terrified, I screamed to my brother to trust me and to not look back but run back NOW and to scale the 18' perimeter fence surrounding the compound. He'd been acting the fool and daring me to go out for a sunset stroll. I told him to piss off, and that while I'd do it in a heartbeat with a rifle, we didn't happen to have one. Well, he went ahead and did it anyway.

Anyway, as I was fed up with his getting us yelled at, at least, I told him to do whatever he wanted, but I was heading in for a drink. While on the steel 'catwalk' heading back to the main huts, I turned to see what Dr. Dumbass was doing. He was tossing rocks and looking around for whatever... I just started to turn back away again when I thought I saw movement perhaps 100 yards beyond where my brother was kneeling down. Well, it was a large female lion, in a stalk, staring at my brother. My screaming frantically and running back down at the fence was enough to convince my brother to act immediately on my say so. She had gotten to 70 yards from him when he hit the fence. Sometimes, I've wished she'd at least raked a few claws across his back, just to teach him a [bleep]' lesson.



True story.

*Edited.

Me and two fishing/hunting buddies were up at uncles camp for the opening weekend of Walleye. We fished all day and drank a case between the 3 of us. Camp was a 30 min. Drive from the lake. Coming back that night I glanced up a mountain and caught something. Told pard to throw the heavy chevy in reverse so I can peep on it. He backed up and the 3 of us nearly schit our shorts. A giant white glowing cross on the SIDE of the mountain face in the trees. We stared for a minute and tried understanding wtf, but carried on anyways.

Got back to camp, uncle called us drunks and asked if we were smokin dope at the same time . Anyways, later found out theres apparentley a Christain Missionary on the g-damn mountain. Not as cool as a goose/UFO story but close.

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.

Love it, and way cool.

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.

Not in the woods, but...

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 !!

Marijuana grow site.

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.

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.

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.

let me guess- you were hunting with a .270?

A deer

We did not see that many where I hunted...

They (like Ninjas) came out mostly at night.

But

When one messed up and came out early or stayed up late...

�Strange things in the woods"


Snake

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.

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.

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.

Twenty years ago I was hunting in the fog South of here outside of Quilcene in a clear cut and as the fog started to rise there was at least four Albino deer in the clear cut. It was known they were in the area but it still will get your attention especially in the fog.

In that same area their also was also a buck that was at least a 5x5 about the size of small German Shepard. When I first saw him I actually thought it was a German Shepard with as set of horns tied on top of it's head but I got a dood look at him as he was within fifteen feet of me.

I'll throw in another fishing story. My brother was pulling a lure back and forth alongside the boat and we were admiring the realistic action in the clear water. From the depths a decent pike made a high speed rush at the lure and startled the crap out of us - by reflex my brother jerked the lure out of the water.

That's no way to catch fish.

My strangest 'woods' happening was night turning into day. Four of us were scattered across the woods deer hunting, about an hour before sunrise. Night turned into day for a few seconds. It was the damndest thing and I couldn't figure it out - I thought maybe I fell asleep and dreamt it. Later in the day the other three guys sheepishly admitted to the same experience. At least it was nice to know I wasn't having an aneurism or some such.

A few days later I read in the newspaper that a meteor had exploded in the atmosphere over a nearby town causing a night-into-day flash of light.

My grandmother told me that she saw what appeared to be a
squirrel "migration". Squirrels appeared to be everywhere
and were all headed in the same direction.

Our camp in Pennsylvania is in Clearfield County, and not real close (at the time) to the Elk herds further east from us. My brother was still hunting down the mountain one night and came upon an elk calf bedded down on the lip of a bench looking down the hill. It took him a while to decide it wasn't a whitetail doe, and when he jumped it up, it definitely was an elk. Now they've moved closer to our area and sightings aren't as unusual.

One of the strangest things Ive seen was the guy in this pic...we kinda called each other in one september many moons ago. This pic shows him to be what he was, a beautiful proportioned bull elk, what it doesnt show is that he was a dwarf, I doubt he stood 36 inches at the shoulder,right in every regard but one..he was a 'miniature'...

Rubbish - he was just twice as far as you thought.

I believe you...even if everyone else in the whole world is laughing at you.

My grandmother had a neighbor that had a small petting zoo
and in the evening when the peacocks would start cackling
it sure scared me when I was a kid.

Dat elk was laffin at me, cause he did most of the calling...I had to move to him....and found him layi ng in that little park, bugling from his bed!

And if we really want to get a laff out of the rest of the world, they can check out this dude, who chased me around in my underwear....




How he got into my underwear..I'll never know....

I had a big 5-point bluff-charge our pickup in Yellowstone about 1990. A week or so later I read that a big bull had gored some woman (I believe she was from Europe)in the same area. Can't help thinking he's the same bull in your picture, and was still mad as hell because you wore the shorts in your family. Jealousy.

Wel, as luck would have it, I was in Yellowstone to take those pics, back in the day when you could legally call elk in there. The sound of two bulls fighting is what woke me up in my tent, they were in the timber on the other side of the Gibbon River when the harem of cows waded across to my side...I was already out there in my BVDs with my camera, so I thought Id work to inside the harem and let out a little bugle....thats when the chasing in the underwear started, but I got that one pic snapped before I had to show him a clean pair of heels....and buns....

You say your heels were clean but you don't specify about your buns... How close was he?

It was after hunting season. I was driving alongside a mountian stream when we rounded a curve and caught a small 4 point buck crossing the stream. He dropped down into the water with only his antlers, eyes and nose above water. Had I not seen him before it would have looked just like any other rock in the stream with water running over it.

I stopped the truck and watched him. After 10-15 seconds he figured he had been spotted, got up, shook off and ambled on across and disappeared into the woods.

Here's a pic of an albino doe that I spotted two years ago while out with my son, scouting a spot for bowhunting. As far as I know, she's still out there too!

There have historically been such when large areas run out of mast and squirrels move to other territories.

I have been lucky enough to have seen this happen twice in my life. Both times in the fall and in the Piney Creek river bottom of Polk County.

I limited out in short order one evening and couldn't believe the numbers of squirrel traveling through the timbered bottom. I met my dad at dark a mile away in the same bottom but across another creek and he had seen not one squirrel the entire pm.

well, no aliens, mutants, or mythical beasts, but I once opened a blind door and found a ringtail cat comfortably curled up asleep in the chair. I almost hated to disturb it.

Saw a metal contraption out in the woods in North Carolina, couldn't figure it out, and then finally realized it was a moonshiner's still, and a large one.

But probably the best one was a large metal box, on a brushy hillside in the Sierras. About as tall as me and a couple feet square. I knocked on it, shook it, walked around the other side, and found a sign that read, "earthquake sensor, University of Nevada" I guess I probably distressed a grad student, somewhere

Tarantula migration, across a rural 2 lane road through a forest, somewhere in east Texas. About a half mile of road with a spider every two feet. Each car must have killed hundreds.

Sure glad I wasn't on foot.

Bruce

Beers on me if we ever cross paths, BCR. I about hurt myself laughing reading that. A million dollar picture that'd have been. Not of the ape--of your face at seeing him!

.45-70 T/C Contender

Hers is another strange tale. About 1950 I was hunting with my dad in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This was wild country then. At that time there were no deer in most of Virginia. We hunted squirrel, rabbits, quail, & an occasional turkey. There were a few bear around, but we never had a shoot. I was about 8 & hunted with a .22 & my dad had a 12G. shotgun. I had a game bag that my mom made out of a flower sack over my shoulder. Hunting was good & I had quite a number of squirrels & rabbits in the bag. Suddenly, bobcats began to scream & a pack was every where in the trees. Both of us began to run & the cats followed screaming. I was terrified. My dad screamed to start throwing squirrels & rabbits to them. As I ran I threw perhaps 4-5 squirrels & rabbits behind us. They chased us for over a mile all the way back to the car. My mom had prepared a picnic lunch & had heard the screaming of the cats & us running & shouting. She threw everything in the truck & jumped in the car. When my dad & I reached the car the cats were still screaming & all over the trees. My dad drove away in a big hurry. Several weeks later he returned with a friend & never heard or saw a bobcat. We hunted the area many times after & never saw a cat. With so much to eat why would the cats chase us?

About 10 years ago I was turkey hunting on my buddies land. I was about 5 feet into the woods on the edge of a small field where I've previously seen gobblers come out and strut around. Had a hen decoy out in front of me near the edge of the field and every so often I would do some hen noise with my call. It was a slow day; wasn't hearing anything. After about 2 hours I was getting ready to move to a different area when out of the corner of my left eye came a flash of red. A fox had stalked up just to my left and leaped out of the brush and onto my decoy. The instant he hit it he realized it was bogus and spun around and hauled butt out of there. I bet he was more surprised than me! I wonder how long he was stalking up to the edge of the field on my left thinking turkey dinner. He couldn't have been much more than 10 feet left of me in the brush and I'm sure he must not have been aware of me or he wouldn't have been there. His concentration must have been totally on his prey which turned out to be a collapsible Delta turkey decoy.

I thought this was a little strange...last deer season by my blind in the the UP...

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You are right, it is strange. Too green for deer season in Michigan. miles

Well one time at the beach...

So TLee, what did you end up doing with the ivories?

Reading all of these reminded of a time a I was turkey hunting near Trinidad Colorado. It was Spring and about three inches of snow had fallen. We had roosted a few birds the night before and wanted to get close to the roost area. We went in early while it was dark and set up on the side of a small ridge that had a five foot or so rock cap creating a good place to sit out of the wind. At legal time we started calling and were getting a few gobbles from the birds who had stayed in the trees pretty late. When they flew down they went the other direction from where we were sitting and further up the draw. We tried calling them in for a time but with no success. When we decided to move we went up a crevice in that rock cap to get on the top of the ridge. There in the snow were the tracks of a mountain lion who had come in, either checking out the turkey gobbling or our calling, and stood right above us. We never heard a thing.

2010 Spring Turkey season in Pa.
This doe stepped into my blind twice to get her neck scratched. Crazy stuff...

If they were your Leopard Skinned Leotards I can understand why!!!!

What the...? Raised by human beans, you think?

I was camped in Yellowstone Park on a fairly cool night. I had a fire going and was sitting close to it to keep warm. The fire had been burning for a couple of hours and had a good bed of glowing coals built up under it.

I was just sitting there,..staring into the fire as people will do, and I noticed some movement coming up out of the coals.

It was some sort of salamander.

It crawled out of the fire, apparently none the worse for wear, and continued its journey on off through the grass,..steam rising from its back.

I've had several odd things happen. One of the odd one's was while I was at work. I work for the BP in S. TX. One day last year while chasing some smugglers, I thought I would get in front of my guys who where chasing them towards me. So I parked about a mile out, and took off running through the brush about a mile from my truck to get in front of the trail (tracks) coming my way. Once I got to an area that I thought would be good to lay up, I laid down in the tall weeds to wait. It was about 100 degrees with lots of ticks, so it was pretty uncomfortable. I was there laying in the weeds for about 15 minutes when I heard a noise right behind me. I thought that the smugglers had found me so I turned around with my gun out and about 10 feet away in a dead mesquite was a black vulture looking at me. I laughed and thought he must have mistaken me for a dead guy. I waited there for a while longer and overheard on the radio that my fellow agents had caught the smugglers. So I got up and started walking back to my truck. The vulture was about 6 feet up in the Mesquite and I walked right past him within about 5 feet. He just watched me walk passed him. I laughed again and figured he must have been wonder how this dead guy was up and walking. Well, as I continued my mile trek back to my truck, I noticed that the vulture was moving from tree to tree following me. Once, he landed right in front of me and again, I walked to within 5 feet of him; he just watched again as a I walked by. When I got to within 30 yards of my truck, he must have saw it. He flew ahead and landed on it! I walked up to my truck and within 5 feet again, I did a little "shew bird" but he just looked at my with a, "what are you doing you stupid human?" look. I had a camera in the back seat, so I broke it out and took a photo to document the odd occasion:

While I was standing there, one of my fellow Agents emerged from the brush looking for a ride (it was hot, in the middle of no where and we were all pretty much dehydrated). He see's the vulture on top of my truck and says, "I think someone thinks we're gonna die from the heat". I did another "shew bird" right by him (about a foot) and he jumped to my roll bar on my truck. I told the other Agent to just get in and figured he'd fly off when we started the truck and began to drive away. One of our other Agents had called and said that he had become stuck in the mud near a stock tank and needed our help to get him out.
So we got in the truck, started it and began to drive away, the dang vulture jumps off the roll bar to the hood of the truck for a ride! I had my cell phone mounted on a windshield mount so I decided to document the doofus riding on our hood. We were on our way to pull a fellow Agent out of the mud so I decided to do a Lassie parody and upload it to youtube for my co-workers to see.
http://youtu.be/CZqda35xN14
Sped up to about 40 and the vulture finally tired of the game (and deciding we weren't gonna die) flew off.:)
JP

An Aggie buddy of mine and I were squirrel hunting down Piney Creek when we started hearing splashing. Rounding a bend we saw a couple of girls playing in the creek au natural. I headed that way and was startled to realize he was headed back the way we came. Thinking he must have seen someone else I caught up to him and asked what the deal was.

He said his mom told him not to do something like that or he would turn to stone, and that part of him was turning already.

That's what I thought.
But.. Too many Amish right there. They would have clocked her in the noggin and threw her in the stew pot if she pulled that with them.
And that was a day after I saw a pair of Mallards land in a maple tree.

lol. You need to get back there with a video camera. No telling what's next, but you need to film it, whatever it is. Just think: a poker tournament with Sasquatch, a talking pig and three blind mice on film'd be worth a few bucks!

Way cool Sir and you are lucky he didn't puke on ya.

One of my uncles was hunting in PA back during the old doe
season of two days only. He was sitting on top of a strip
mine over looking a small field that had been cleared during
the past summer and had a couple of brush piles in its center.
It was an ugly rainy day and he didnt see any deer at all, towards the end of the day a group of hunters put on a drive
and several of them walked across the field in front of him.
It was towards dusk and another drive came through the field
again, as the two drivers crossed the field and entered the
woods, a black bear with cubs emerged from one of the brush
piles and slowly walked in the direction the drivers had came
from. This was back in the late 50s or early 60s and bear
were very scarce in PA, the next day my uncle said that nobody
at his work would believe that he saw 3, let alone 1 black bear.

wAS SITTING IN A BRUSHY FENCE ROW TRYING TO CALL A TOM OUT OF A CREEK BOTTOM AND i CAUGHT MOVEMENT {woops, caps loc} and got ready and 3 critters pop out of the brush. 2 dogs and a flipping goat. The first dog walked over to a weed and hicked it's leg and watered it good. So did the second dog and the goat squatted on the weed and gave it a squirt to go. I think he thought he was one of the guys....

Just read the buzzard story.... I have a front deck on my house that is over the drive in basement/garage. On the west end, the deck comes close to the ground and makes a little hideyhole. I walked out the basement door one morning and saw something big under there. A BUZZARD !! Darned thing had broke it's wing and decided to hang out at my place. WELL, I figured it was hungry and I had some old fish in the freezer and every few days I would give him some. This was early fall and I kept that old buzzard alive on fish all winter. He stayed out in my old tractor shed under the brush cutter and would come out to get the fish and then go back in. Was a long bitter cold, nasty winter, but he made it and one day he was gone. Never said thanks or anything.....

I believe you.
Dad and one of my uncles saw a perfectly formed 8 point Sika stag once that would have only been 18 inches tall. If it can happen to Sika it can happen to Elk.

Has anyone ever seen a Hummel? A male deer that naturally doesn't grow antlers.... ever.
My uncle saw a Red deer hummel years ago. They usually grow a lot bigger than a normal stag because of not having to burn energy growing and carrying round antlers. They fight like a female deer, kicking with the front feet and using their size to bulldoze other stags.
The one my uncle saw was huge he said, he reckons it was almost as big as a draft horse. He called it in one morning when he was hunting.

Back in the 70's I saw a hen woodcock fly off with a chick about 20 feet or so. Then she came back and picked up another and flew off with it. I think if she hadn't come back for that second one I would have questioned what I had just seen for the rest of my life.

we had a weasel ..."check out" our boat while moose hunting,in and out of the gun cases!!...he could not get a grip on the alumium lol!!!! "peel'ed out" as he ran around....best part was when he was trying to jump on the "boat dash" ...the glass of the windsheild was "in the way"... lol... laugh so hard forthe 20+ minutes .......while trying to be quite/we could hardly breath.

Don't know if you'd classify it as strange, but it's a memorable archery experience.

Had a doe decoy out, along came this little dink buck. Proceeded to sniff around her and than started to mount the decoy. About the 3rd time after slipping off the decoy collapsed/tipped over.

The buck jump off to the side and started to look around like "what the hell happened, I hope nobody saw that", as he slowly walked off he kept looking around hoping none of his buddies saw his EPIC fail at breeding.

Wish I would have had a camera/video, had a hard time not laughing out loud.



Another time up in the North Woods of Minnesota, I had an Ermine that was coming along the trail of a Ruffled Grouse that I had just scene go by. I was sitting in tree stand and he came right up into the stand and come over to my boot and went up it a short way. Just kind of looking at me like "who/what are you"?