Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Strangest or most interesting thing

This didn't happen to me , but, the buffalo story reminded me. Back in the late 30's (I think), my uncle (back in Louisiana) was going out squirrel hunting on a "very" foggy morning. Getting there before day break and getting too foggy to see, he took a nap. He woke just as it was getting enough light to see, there were elephants walking the dirt road he had parked on. He kinda freaked out at first, then saw that they were being lead.... By their circus handlers!!! memtb

How about heard?

Hunting Muleys in North West Nevada, brother and I camping in the desert with our camp tucked up against a little hill. Nothing but sagebrush surrounding us. Having a night cap around the campfire heard from the other side of the little hill a noise that sounded something like when someone has a flat stick tied to a string and whirls it overhead. Well this got louder and and was obviously coming right at our camp, getting louder and louder. It was so strange we got ourselves armed in a hurry, ran up the hill and saw....nothing. The noise stopped right as we crested the hill. Investigations in day light revealed...nothing.

Once I was standing at the edge of a clearing looking into the timber on the other side. I'd been perfectly still for five minutes when all of a sudden a grouse exploded out of the grass 10 yards in front of me. A split second later a big hawk dropped in but the grouse got away. Another time I was creeping through the timber first thing in the morning and saw a mulie fawn curled up under a tree. I got closer but it didn't move. It was dead, but still warm. I continued on down the game trail and ran right into its mama, coming the other way on the same trail, bleating for her fawn to get up.

A weather balloon in a soybean field.

Uh, where?

What did leo say?

saw a hen turkey launch from the ground and knock a redtail hawk off the top of a 100 foot pine, then fight it in the air for about a minute until the hawk had enough and headed for Montana.
people wise i was sitting at a stop light in Salem Ore on the one nice day of the year. Next to me was a young maiden in a Karmen Ghia convertable. she looked over at me, crossed her arms, pulled her shirt off over her head, tossed it over the seat. had uppity nipples. lost me after about 4 turns!

Back in the 70's sitting up in my climber when here comes a gray fox. Critter gets a little closer and then climbs a tree. Right up the side like a dang squirrel.

Didn't know they could do that, figured I was crazy and never told a soul what I had seen. A year later watching Wild America on tv the show was about foxes and yeah, they climb tree's.

Not the most interesting but true.
I am a Reg. Master Maine Guide, take a few hunters each season that would like to get a deer that dresses over 200# no heart or liver to get into the Me. Big Bucks Club.
Had a fellow in his 20's, set him in a tree stand with natural bait [apples] having seen a big 10 point on camera almost every evening.
His advice from me was [do not leave the stand] he will come in.
I noticed after he left camp his insulin was in a bag on the table, not sure how often he needed it, I grabbed a rifle, the wheeler, headed to the stand, guess what? He wasn't in it, guess what else? The big 10point was standing there looking at me.
What would you have done?
I know what I did, paying customer or not.

Happened all on the same day

I'd taken my lil inflatable canoe and paddled through two ox bows to reach my stand for the evening moose hunt really pretty evening

So I climb 45-50 feet up this tree and begin to call and glass

Out in the willow thickets and meadows I see a few moose but no bulls

Wind picks up fiercely, I'm hanging onto this tree for dear life as trees (mostly poplar/aspen ) are crashing down all around me, wasn't till I got home that I found a twin spruce 90 ft tall had come down on our property

This windstorm only lasted for 45 mins to an hour and things settled right down and I went back to glassing

Saw what I thought were beaver on far side of the back oxbow swimming around turns out to be a muskrat with her kits Saw a cow and calf skirt the back oxbow and go into the one nearest the river

Bout 8:30 ish I climb down and retrieve my canoe and begin to paddle home These dang muskrats swim right for me

When they get within 4-5 feet of my canoe momma and the male kit raise up outa the water past their belly buttons hissing at me

Wtf? I quit paddling and just float watching these goofy fers for minute

About the 4th time they raise up and hiss I lift myself up and hiss back!

Damn they can swim fast! Ok enough of these hijinks sun's setting time to get back to camp.

It's a narrow lead between the two oxbows where your paddling thru grass until it opens up in the other oxbow

At the end of the lead, there's momma moose chewing and watching me

Hmmm where's her calf? Oh there it is about 20 yards further down the bank, good sized calf. As I paddle by it kersplash that sob bails into the water and is swimming like mike phelps headed right for me????

Now I'm all for swimming with bow legged wimmin, but taking a dip with a moose calf at dark in cold sept water ain't my idea of a good time

I put my back into paddling, but took a sec to get up to speed and that damn calf got too close for comfort, and began to make me wonder if I was gonna go for an evening swim

Put some distance between us and the calf tuckered and swam to the other side of the oxbow and came outa the water on an island, momma joined him

As I approached the end of the oxbow I came upon two trumpeter swans with their two immature offspring. The swans raised a helluva racket and the two adults and one juvenile (maybe his first flight ) went airborne but the other was stuck there with me, paddled the boat up to the grass unloaded and turned my boat over and tied it up, dug out my head lamp and put it on as there was barely any light left

Here comes the swan air force dive bombing me as they attempt to reclaim their left behind bird

If they'd have asked I only had a moose tag I wasn't hunting swan

Hike back to camp, at this point it would not have overly surprised me to step over a rattlesnake here in Alaska

Pard is already back in camp and says "damn that windstorm was something else, see anything ?"

Told him pour us a drink, I saw a couple things outa the ordinary

Onna sheep hunt in the Alaskan Range about 13-14 years ago....we hunted for a bit around Nabesna.

There is an old gold mine in the area.

We spotted a nice round mine ? shaft on side of mountain...about 5-600' feet up.
We climbed up to have a look-see. We found the 10-12' diameter shaft full of Bumble Bee Dander, with a few human skeletons in the back,....looking a little further I found a bunch of business cards. They were all used car salesmen.

We got the hell outta there...

We did not have a permit for the Alaskan Bumble Bee.


Now in 2015 on the Innoko ...........

2legit2quit,

Quite a day - That made me chuckle.......

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 (Buck) 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 west.

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 S East toward the bays and Gulf and saw a lighted with 3 bright spots strung out a few degees long and just above the earliest rays of the dawn. I said, "airplane" and resumed my doze. 

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

Coming directly over us were three pale white objects exactly the same color as the moon which was up and hanging 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 were emitted from. They were not perfectly round but were slightly oblong. There was absolutely no sound whatsoever and as they passed over and a little to the left (north) of us and got to about 45 degrees past us and to the west they gently faded out of sight while in plain view.

Later I deduced they had curved bottoms and had no lights we could see other than the reflection back to us from the high, overhead 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 included their misty trail and the hazy vapor or dust trail each left behind was colored and looked like 3 lights adjoined due to the refraction from them and their trails coming to us through the lower atmosphere, and which is what gives the perception of color to the yellow full moon seen just above the horizon when it comes up full at dusk.

As the predawn gave way to dawn a flock of migrating geese passed over essentially two Neanderthals sat up in a 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 shall spew, but, the OP asked and i told. Besides, I'm getting old and don't give a damn.  

Naysayers can feel free to go back and research the articles from 'The Corpus Christi 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. Either Oct 1966 or 1965.
I cant remember if i was a junior or a senior in high school at the time.
We had sworn not to tell anyone but by that Saturday afternoon i couldnt stand it and had to tell my mom. She was an RN and i could tell the story had her a bit concerned about her son.

Imagine my relief when she woke me Sunday morning with the Corpus newspaper and headlines of airline pilots reporting having seen UFOs on their early morning flights into Corpus Christi the previous morning.

me too later, but that evening, I was primed for that cocktail!

jag, I know a guy that's a solid citizen in every way.


he claims to have seen a UFO too. but he's cautious about who he tells it to as well, he's taken a lot of ribbin over it.


helluva thing

I'll bet

Pre-dawn waiting for shooting time in a duck marsh.
A small herd of elk enters the marsh and walks right through my duck decoys.
Some of their legs tangle on the decoy cords.
When shooting time comes I an still following the swath they have cut through the reeds and picking up the decoys they dragged out and throwing them back into the water.

Stumbled onto several beavers over the years. For the most part quite attractive ones too. Happens mostly on fishing trips. Something about river rafting makes their clothes fall off.

Best story comes from a backpacking coworker. She and a friend were doing a Seleway/Bitterroot trail mid-week on a hot day and decided to rid themselves of their tops. Rounded a hairpin turn on a rim like trail and ran tits first into a whole troop of Scouts. They decided to tough it out and said all kinds of Instamatics appeared as they passed.

The Scouts though were quite polite and thanked them profusely for making their day.

Had a couple friends of mine while coon hunting one night come across a guy that had been hung by the neck, said it scared the crap out of them. They just happened to stop and take a break so they could listen to the dogs, turned around and he was about ten feet away swinging from a tall branch.

Was fly fishing on the Tongue River near Dayton, Wyoming. I cast an Ausable Wolff dry fly into a riffle when a Phoebe swooped down and picked up the fly and then hovered overhead. It figured out it was a fake and dropped into the riffle where it grabbed it. What would have been perfect if a trout would have taken the dropped fly. Didn't happen, darn.
V