I had a hunting lease with several other guys out in north central Texas some years back near the town of Throckmorton. Good hunting out there.
One night I was out there alone, which was a frequent thing. I'd sit up late at night watching one of about three television broadcasts I could receive and sip vodka and tonics. This one night I decided to step out of the camper to teak a lake and have a look at the stars, which were often spectacular out there. The camper was situated in an opening between two mesquite thickets with the other guys' campers. So I step out there and begin taking care of business on this very dark night, looking around to see what I could see. Off to the east of me I see two glowing red points of light, quite close together deep in the thicket. "WTF" flashed through my mind...the place was infested with large packs of coyotes and the stories of being in those mesquite thickets at night never encouraged me to wander around in there in the dark. I watched for about a minute and "the eyes" never moved. After a few more moments I could see that it was the moon rising in the east, and there just happened to be two very small openings in the mesquite that let a little light through from where I was standing. I had to laugh at myself, but I have to admit that I was startled those first few moments.
Back in the middle 80s I took myself on a tour down to the Big Bend area and camped several nights, then drove up to Guadalupe Peak for a day or two. On the way back to El Paso I took the southerly route through Sierra Blanca and then west on I-10. I decided to spend one more night out and found the dirt roads that would take me to Diablo Dam, which is a flood control structure five ot six miles north of I-10 and about sixty miles east of El Paso. I arrived shortly before sunset and set up camp on top of the dam and made some dinner and ate. When it began to get dark I crawled into the sack and laid there for a few minutes trying to unwind. I'll never know why, but I began to get a very uneasy feeling about the place and quickly found myself totally creeped out. I broke up camp and threw everything in the car and was gone within about three minutes. There are places I've been that seem friendly in some way and other places that give me bad vibes. I don't recall ever going out to Diablo ever again after that.
Don't be the darkness.
America will perish while those who should be standing guard are satisfying their lusts.
Heard some odd grunts and growls heading back to the cabin after last light during deer season. I never unload my gun until I am on the steps, hell its the woods, no reason ever to have an unloaded gun.
Anyway about half way back there was this strange ass sound. Mentally went thru all the animals I could encounter in Michigan and nothing matched up. Heard it again, closer. Emptied a 7wsm in the general direction.
Noises stopped, I reloaded and made better time back to the cabin
So you shot at a sound you heard in the woods?
Holy Chit.
Makes a feller feel safe doesn't it?!?!?!?
Carries it hot chamber with the safety off, too, probably. It's "the woods" - scary shiett out there.....
I've felt "watched" a few times. On USFS trail crew, I backtracked on an Idaho trail once when uneasy...with a running chainsaw. 50 yards back there were big cougar prints over ours. That was spooky, more that we got spooky "for no reason" - but maybe something subliminal? Something similar happened another time , but it wan't us that got spooky (we humans were clueless), but our pack mule. Again we were being followed by a cat.
The first time I heard a moose roar at me, I couldn't explain what it was, but I hunted the rest of the day a couple miles away. I was 30 yards down the trail before I caught up to me. That is the most frightening sound I 've ever heard. A couple years later, in the same spot, I heard it again, but by this time I knew what it was, and could actually see the cow doing it. I've often wondered if it was the same animal both times.
Saw a glow in the dark one time which kinda spooked me out. Only time I've ever hot-chamber stalked a fungi.
Probably should have just shot at it right away, right?
Mating porcupines can be noisily interesting until one figures out what it is. They might have cause....
I guess I’m just unlucky. I’ve done hundreds of miles into the PNW coastal back country. I’ve never seen anything mysterious.
🦫
Dayom. Thats mysterious.
I’m with the Beav….not a single thing unusual has happened in my life that was unexplained, in the woods or out of them. As a kid….I should have realized not to be scared of anything. The ghost are in your head.
I try to tell some of these clowns that there's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the daylight.
Slipping along the Spring River in Southern Missouri doing a little bowhunting I stopped to look around. Got this feeling something was watching, started looking around then up in the tree about 10' from me a coon was situated in the fork of a tree peeking down at me.
We had spotted bear tracks along that river a time or 2 before so I always had an uneasiness about hunting down there. Nowadays I don't think I would get all that uneasy feeling about hunting down there.
Last edited by 10gaugemag; 05/15/22.
The last time that bear ate a lawyer he had the runs for 33 days!
las; Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that the weather's not too bad up in your part of Alaska and you're all well.
Your story of hearing a moose roar brought back a few memories for me for sure, thanks kindly for that and the smiles brought along with.
The first time was a buddy and I were bleat calling for mulies in a spot where "everyone" knew there weren't any moose and the range cattle had been brought down off the mountains already. It was a foggy November morning and "something" came in to our bleats and bawled and screamed at us for about 5 minutes, then left.
For years we wondered what it was, but then years later I bumped into a moose cow with her calf on a different mountain where there were moose. I watched as the cow shuffled off into heavy brush but the calf stayed and stared up at me. After a couple soft grunts at the calf, she let out a roar nearly identical to what we'd heard all those years previous. Then she did it a couple more times for good measure as she came out and nudged the calf away with her head.
Interestingly in the same spot a few years later another cow - likely not the same one?? - roared at me on a really still cold morning when the sound travels so well. That was very cool.
Oh I should mention too that after we'd heard that roaring in the fog on that first mountain on the other side of the valley, a few folks including buddy's father started to see moose showing up there, so "everyone" was wrong about them not being there as it turned out.
Thanks again for the pleasant memories once again and all the best to you all.
I have an explained / unexplained story. I was a sniper in the Navy and was tasked to set up an OP in a valley complex way out in the jing weeds. Most of these OP's involved no shooting, just collecting information or HUMINT. Kind of a bore but yet exciting watching movement throughout these 3 valleys. It was me, my spotter and various optics all nice and tight becoming one with nature on the side of this mountain. On the 3rd night, we hear rotor blades off in the distance and didn't think much of it. Sounds echo through those stone mountains like crazy and you can pick up noise from miles away. The rotor blades disappeared and we thought nothing of it, then about 3 minutes later, a freaking Chinook pops up over the backside rim and proceeds to do an insertion within 800yds of us. My initial reaction was to laze them with an IR laser to alert them to our position but I learned prior that pointing lazers at aircraft in a combat zone will get you a stern talking to. Apparently all kinds of bells and whistles go off and freak the pilots out and make them do things with their aircraft they shouldn't be doing.
At this point our buttholes were beginning the shrinking process. How the hell could another group insert on top of us in this day and age with all the briefing and electronics and TOC's and maps etc.. We started calling home on the radio to deconflict with this new group of people, watching them on thermal the entire time. We hope for the best and that they would patrol away from us until we could do a "handshake" on the radio. As luck would have it, Murphy got involved and they started working the ridge right towards us. Buttholes were ferociously puckered now. We have a team of top tier shooters maneuvering on our position with the aid of night vision and possibly a K-9. My spotter was frantically sending written messages trying to get the TOC to figure out who these guys were and what freq they were on or to warn them they were on top of us. At this point, I am elbowing the snot out of my spotter demanding he unphuck this situation before these guys commence to kill both of us. These guys are all around us at this point and I have resigned myself to fact I am going to die and was seriously trying to think of a unique American word to blurt out that might give pause to these guys before they opened up. At this time, I hear the most easily spoken word in question format that my pea brain never considered, "BLUE???". In my best scared into pissing my pants while being a tough guy voice, I managed to gurgle out "Blue, Blue, Blue godammit." The TOC had finally reached these guys and alerted them they were amongst us. God is good.
After letting my butthole relax and balancing out my blood pressure, we find out they were Army SF working their way up the valley to kick off what became Operation Anaconda we discovered they got a "Frag" order to be on an "X" by a certain time and decided our, unknown to them, "OP" was the best insertion point. I was like, no kidding, that is why we chose the same damned spot. We were due to extract before dawn so we gave them our batteries and food as they were going to be in the wind for an extended period of time.
There was a lot of hell raised when we got back on how this could happen and some things changed and some things didn't. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the SF guys about a month later and we discussed how bad this could have went for both sides. I had mental trauma of getting maneuvered on in real life by a bunch of shooters and he said he couldn't shake the idea that we could have put the helo in the dirt with all of them onboard and that his team could have been wiped out without even knowing they were in danger.
That is the scariest thing I ever experienced in the woods, and I have had the Taliban put on a "deer drive" to flush me out of a patch of tree's. That was somewhat funny though.
That is the biggest be story of all time
A sniper in the Navy huh??? Guess that means we have a SEAL in our midst men!!!!😂
I've never seen anything but I sure did hear something I can't identify one time. I was out in state land about a mile from the road when an ungodly sound erupted from down in a ravine off to my right. I don't really even know how to describe it. Kind of a cross between a big, pissed off dinosaur and a space alien maybe. Other than that it was LOUD, real LOUD. I was small game hunting at the time and armed only with a .22 rifle so was at least somewhat concerned about being under gunned for a meeting with whatever it was. Still, after listening intently for a few minutes, I held my ground and continued the hunt. About 20 minutes later I heard it again only this time off to my left and obviously closer. Whatever it was, there were either two of them or it had circled around me out of sight. The woods are thick in that area and visibility is limited to 50 yards or so at best but I don't think it was more than a few yards beyond sight. At that point I decided it might be best to leave the area and headed back toward the road admittedly on red alert. Never heard it again and never saw anything but was sure glad to get back to my Jeep. I saw no unusual sign/tracks/scat in the woods that day and still have no idea what it could have been.
Couple summers ago, I got up about 3:00am to let the dog out to do his business. It was a nice night with a lot of stars so I decided to do my business too. All the sudden, a loud wailing howl? erupted from, what I could tell, a big swamp 1 1/2 miles away to the south.
UUUUUUAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH is the best I can describe it in the written word.
It was continuous and went on for at least 45 seconds. Whatever the hell it was had some serious lung capacity. The dog didn't bother sniffing around the yard like normal that night. He wanted back in right now.
The deer hunter does not notice the mountains
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve" - Isoroku Yamamoto
There sure are a lot of America haters that want to live here...
If I see a naked mom, dad, and kids walking around the woods referring to each other with gender fluid pronouns I'll have observed a JeffObama siting.
Just look for the next rainbow shîteater gathering this summer. Almost worth it to go just get a pic of the beta bitch.
But as to the OP, yes and no. Never seen Bigfoot, or sign but plenty weird feelings. Seen things that are either angels, or faeries depending on your theological bent. And no I’m not kidding.
Heard some odd grunts and growls heading back to the cabin after last light during deer season. I never unload my gun until I am on the steps, hell its the woods, no reason ever to have an unloaded gun.
Anyway about half way back there was this strange ass sound. Mentally went thru all the animals I could encounter in Michigan and nothing matched up. Heard it again, closer. Emptied a 7wsm in the general direction.
Noises stopped, I reloaded and made better time back to the cabin
Few times for me. Biggest head scratchers are these two.. living in Bandera deep and high in the hill country. 5 am leaving for work steep and slow down the hill I saw something white ahead of me. Got closer and came right next to it. Was an old very skinny woman. Her hair looked wet and she was naked except for a blanket around her mid section. Looked like she was covered in baby powder. Took my eyes off her for about two seconds and she was gone. Second one is hunting in Blanco county on the border of Hays county. On my belly under a tree waiting for hogs to come to a water hole. About a hundred yards to my left I heard someone call out in a language that sounded very slow and crude if that makes any sense. Never heard anything that sounded like it. Few seconds later I hear a response from the opposite direction. Happened again a couple of words were repeated then they stopped.
A sniper in the Navy huh??? Guess that means we have a SEAL in our midst men!!!!😂[/quote]
There are are at least 5 here on this board. I told them about the campfire site about 10 years or more ago. One thinks he is kind of special because he was an overachiever. l wouldn't even speak to him if he didn't have a ranch in Montana.
Few times for me. Biggest head scratchers are these two.. living in Bandera deep and high in the hill country. 5 am leaving for work steep and slow down the hill I saw something white ahead of me. Got closer and came right next to it. Was an old very skinny woman. Her hair looked wet and she was naked except for a blanket around her mid section. Looked like she was covered in baby powder. Took my eyes off her for about two seconds and she was gone.
l told my pap and mam I was going to be a mountain man; acted like they was gut-shot. Make your life go here. Here's where the peoples is. Mother Gue, I says, the Rocky Mountains is the marrow of the world, and by God, I was right. - Del Gue
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