Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What Scarred You the Most While Out In the Woods

A grizzly certainly got my attention as she came boiling dead on for a caribou I was field dressing, I didn’t have a gun 🤷🏻‍♂️

My client had a ruger #1 in 7mm mag.

I asked him “how fast can you shoot, reload & shoot again? “

He replied : I’m afraid we’re fixing to find out

Taught me to leave my weapon behind 🤦🏼‍♂️

There ain’t no hell on earth than that of a wildfire. I was an urban/suburban/city firefighter EMT and even tried my hand in law enforcement but I’ve never witnessed forces so powerful and indifferent to life than that of a wild land fire that’s ripping through stands of ponderosa and lodge pole pines. I was young and invincible, ambitious to get as much experience, knowledge and as many resume building certifications and licenses as possible. I took Wild land firefighting 1 & 2 (1990ish) because I figured I never know when that information might prove valuable to me and save my life or the life of someone else. At that time in my life I figured it could save my life but more likely I’d be of more value to my crew and my knowledge would most likely benefit them and they were my brothers, my family....

After getting my Wildland FF 1&2 I knew without a doubt that I’d go into a million fully involved structure fires before I volunteered for a full time wildland gig. We had wildfires in my district or mutual aid which were uneventful. We supported crews in Eastern Washington and on the Tyee fire but I covered the structures and people in town.

Wildland firefighters have my deepest respect and admiration! I felt like I wasn’t defending anything except mismanaged forests and trees, forests with incredibly high fuel loads that needed to burn. I couldn’t rectify the effort and danger with the need for the very thing I was attempting to “contain”. Fire is necessary for healthy forests. I’ll defend (defendable) structures and lives (including stock) from it but in rugged country I’ll leave it to burn.....or call in air....or leave it to more enthusiastic folks. I hate seeing lives lost from a crew that got caught in a burnover while digging fire lines, wrapped in the fire shelter as their sarcophagus. The training films and mistakes of good people served as morbid but effective training. It also made me think that some things just aren’t worth it. For me unhealthy forests that have been mismanaged by the liberals and the courts are not worth the risk.

Sorry for the tangent.

ETA....those were my feelings and reasons 30 years ago and they’re still true today.....perhaps even truerer. 😁

Funny...a couple months ago had a couple of fighters break the sound barrier right above my house at about 3am. Pretty loud and alarming!!!

Aside from that...had some wolves get social and a mama bear get close with her cubs in tow but that’s about it

I almost schit myself once. Couldn’t make it back to camp where I left the TP. Ripped the front pocket off my hoodie.

been some times offshore I didn't know if we would live, a hell of a lot different than being on dry land.

being 100 miles offshore with a boat taking on water can be unsettling but I knew when we got underway it would be sucked out, but the other people thought we were going to sink. Brian and I were like we can catch a few more fish.

Yep...

Most scarred I ever got was from stepping into a concealed rotted pine stump hole. No fun at all.

Most scared was getting lost in a swamp and not finding my way out before dark. I mean utter black darkness, no vision at all. Only guidance I had was hearing the occasional car go by on Highway 31 which was around a mile away and I knew that was west of where I was. By the time I found my way out and back to the truck my waders and clothes were shredded from the blackberry briars, along with my arms. I was a bloody and filthy mess, cold and wet and never as happy in my life to get home to a warm shower and heater.

Just read the whole thread, god damn... 😂😂

Buddy and I, and a coastal brown bear near a moose kill. Bear bawling and snarling like a psycho crazed maneater about 20 yards through the alder thicket as we're unarmed dumbassed 15 year olds... Never to be forgotten.

Ain't never been seriously "scarred" while in the woods or prairies.

Not even really "scared".

Worried maybe the time I fell on a snowy slope and my left leg contorted like a pretzel and as the foot ended up between my shoulders, I heard pop, pop! Mot a good sound when hunting by oneself on a 60,000 acre ranch. My silver 77 Corolla was across a big coulee and just a silver pinprick on the horizon. Nearest farmhouse was nearly as far away with several tight stock fences in the way. 1989, no cellphones (there wasn't coverage there anyways). After the pain died down some, I rolled off my leg. It seemed whole, not broken. I stood up and while not pleasant, I could hobble on it. I hunted my way back to my car. Drove the standard transmission Corolla for the rest of the day, but didn't find the mule deer buck I was looking for.

In 1991 on the same ranch, we were hunting for doe antelope during a very heavy snowfall. We had driven through a small badland area that is questionable for sinkholes when dry and not snow covered. So when I filled out final tag, it was snowing harder with little visibility. We didn't want to retrace our steps and go through the badland, so we left the ranch to head through the community pasture to get to a highgraded county road. No vehicle compass and we thought we were choosing the right trails. We ended up back at the Milk River canyon. We turned around and hustled back as even our tracks were nearly filled in. We made to the road without mishap, but when all you see is a white wall, you do wonder if you will make it out before running out of gas.

I don't panic I'd have your back. the people who know me, know this is true.

Snake encounters and I've had several over the years, the most exciting of which came when I reached under a load of lumber and realized I had hold of a snake. I heard a noise like rattling when I went to pick up the bundle of 2 x 4's and thought I had ahold of a rattle snake. I managed to set the lumber down without getting bit and investigation proved the snake to be a hog nose or puffer snake which makes a hissing noise. Puffer snakes are non-poisonous and basically harmless, but the sound is convincing when you can't see what you've got hold of.

A bullet!

Would you believe a grouse?
I was walking in to my stand in flintlock season about 1/2 hour before daylight.
It was damn cold out, and I was walking on an old road in the woods, which had a 3 foot bank along the edge. I stopped to take a breather. I didn’t want to break a sweat in that cold.
So I’m standing there in the dark, minding my own business maybe about 2 minutes or so, when a damn grouse exploded off that bank over my shoulder!
Everybody knows that rush sound a launching grouse makes, but in the dark, over your shoulder and past your ear, it’s a helluva wake up!
7mm

I came upon a group of hot forest Nymphs and me with no condom. Then I thought, when is the next time I'm going to have the chance to bang a few forest nymphs.

I've caught lots of snakes, some big rattlers. caught my first moccasin when I was 6, remember my mom and aunt chasing me with hoe's telling me to drop it. I got it back to the creek and let it go.
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Two things, meeting a mama bear and her cubs in the woods, some fool putting three slugs into the tree I was sitting under.

You guys are a heck of a lot tougher than me, I've been scared a few times in the woods. The worst was when I head branches breaking, a thump and a big sigh when my son fell out of his tree stand. But then again I was really scared when I ran into the drivers side door of the game wardens car at night in a old jeep swamp buggy. I was a kid not even old enough to legally drive riding around the ranch at night with permission and no guns.

One of three things that made my heart beat a tad faster. The time I got woofed at by a bear while sitting in the dark, the time I accidently snuck into the middle of a pack of sleeping coyotes and the turkey that got down off of roost hitting every branch on the way down just as it was breaking daylight. Damn turkey sounded like someone dropped a bowling ball out of the tree right next to me.