Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Craziest or coolest thing seen/found while

hunting or scouting. Every once in a while one of these threads starts and every time they are interesting. Lot of people spend lots of time in the wilds.

Full body apparition, UFO.

Baked potato, loaded.

A headstone marker at the site of the killing of two Union Pacific employees, by the notorious outlaw Big Nose George.

Coolest thing to ever happen to me while hunting. One evening I was sitting in my 14 foot tripod deer stand that was tucked into the edge of the wood line where I could overlook a 50 acre field. I felt a small bump against the stand and at the same time heard what sounded like claws "tink" against the metal. I was thinking that surely one of those big-ass fox squirrels that are always playing in the woods behind me was getting ready to climb up in the stand with me. I'm bent over looking all around the ground and don't see anything. As I raise back up and sit back in my chair I catch something out of the corner of my eye and whip my head around to see a full size frigging barred owl sitting on the rail just behind where my shoulder was. Scared the schit out of me. He looked at me for a couple of seconds and then hopped off and over to a nearby branch where he sat for a couple of minutes before leaving. I believe he was just curious about me and was checking me out. I've seen what I assume to be the same barred owl several times since when walking the woods out there, but he's not let me approach any closer than about 25 yards.

We had an illegal walk into our camp after dinner one evening a couple years ago. Saw our 45's and just sat straight down. He was in bad shape so we called the border patrol and they came in about 10 minutes and picked him up. Then a little adrenaline flowed.

Several weather balloons in the 80's

Forgot about an old moonshine still that was all hacked up

20-30 big azz pot plants

That keep you supplied for a bit?

Latitude and longitude marker on top of a big hill in Cisco Texas

Two stories your post reminded me of.
In early Muzzleloader season I was sitting in a platform tree stand, watching a couple fox squirrels hazing each other around. One finally ran up the opposite side of the tree and came zipping around to come face to face with me, about a foot away.
The look of surprise on his face was funny as hell. He never expected me to be there!
In the late muzzle loader season I was headed back to my stand a half hour or so before daylight. It was damn cold, in the teens, and I was dressed accordingly. I was walking an old township road through the woods, had a 3 or 4 foot bank on the side. I stopped to take a breather so I wouldn’t start to sweat. I stood there probably 3 minutes, in the dark I never saw the grouse on that bank. He got nervous with me standing there, and exploded off that bank past my head!
I damn near had to go back and change underwear!
I never really found anything out of the ordinary, but I have witnessed hawks and owls taking small game critters for dinner numerous times. One hawk took a rabbit while my beagle was on the track!
7mm

Twice since 2008 major tornadoes have hit parts of Alabama 60-70 miles to the SW of where I live in GA. Both times during turkey season I've found debris from those tornadoes. In 2008 I found someones W2 forms and mailed them back to him with a note telling him where I found them. I had hoped he would contact me, but he never did. After another tornado I found parts of a metal storage shed in the woods.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/galleries/14446541#Post14446541

This is the 1st section I found. Over the years I've found 3-4 other sections of it spread over about 1 sq mile. It's hard to imagine stuff like that traveling 70 miles.

lol, i'll keep my mouth shut.

Lava

A big chunk of so. Idaho is lava flows. I've run across some interesting things out there.

There are lots of these lava bubbles but most aren't open to get inside. It was just high enough inside to stand up.





This lava rock is about 6' high. It sits on a granite ridge at least 50 miles as the pigeon flies from the nearest volcanic activity. A long time ago, a volcano must have a real upset stomach to belch this big of a blob that far.



How about this tree? It's about a foot across at the base. It must have had a rough winter at some time in it's past.

This happened 34 yrs ago, 1985. Walking back to camp in the dark carrying a flashlight of course. A buddy and I had been deer hunting all afternoon in the wildlife area known as Land Berween The Lakes (LBL). As I walked along an old logging road, the beam of my light flashed across something shining back at me. I bent over and picked up a nice, engraved silver cigarette lighter. It was partially covered with leaves, so it was pure luck that I saw it at all.

And now the rest of the story.......I walked on to our camp (about a quarter of a mile) and found that my buddy was already back and was mad as a wet hen. When I asked what was up, he said that he left his stand a little early and as soon as he hit the logging road decided to light up. He lit a cigarette and thought he dropped his lighter into his pocket, but now he couldn’t find it. What are the odds? Yep I had found his lighter that he evidently had dropped! It was a gift from his kids, so he was proud to get it back.

We were dragging a spike elk downhill through the jack pines and were sitting taking a break. Looked beside me in the leaves and saw some cloth. Dug in the leaves and found a camo sweatshirt and a camo day pack. In the pack were several things including some .300 Savage ammo and a set of Ford truck keys. We figured it was probably at least ten years old/lost. Guy may have sat down and then forgot and walked away, then couldn't find it because they were camo. Not sure how he got home with no truck keys in the days before cell phones.

A bench mark. I've run across quite a few of those out in the desert. It's all been surveyed. Most of them are set in cement and look like this:

I like how you were nice enough to spell out what LBL is.

People out west wouldn’t do that, they think we’re suppose to know who Fred Hermit is when he gets arrested on Pissant Ant, BLM sector 16B

Exactly