Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Ever get spooked going or coming from your deer stand??

I hunt with rifles only, no bows, so I figure if I've got a loaded rifle, there's nothing to be afraid of, in Missouri, anyway. There are some black bears, though much further south of where I hunt, and the odd mountain lion passing thru, but with a good rifle, who cares?

One year I was guiding in the NWT, where you arrive in the capital, Yellowknife, and then take a float plane for an hour and a half to get into camp. This particular camp is on the edge of a lake, and is made up of about 10 large grain bins (large metal grain storage houses) that are about 20 feet tall. Those grain bins are used to sleep in, for the cook house, the meat shack (surrounded by an electric fence), etc. The outhouses are about 100 feet away from the bins, inshore.

Well, there's a camp rule that you ALWAYS have a rifle with you. The reason for this rule, as well as the reason we use metal grain bins for sleeping in rather than tents, is that there's a real grizzly problem around this area. The bears like to travel and explore, looking for food (caribou), and usually follow the shoreline along the various lakes (there's a ton of small lakes in the area), which brings them right into camp a lot of the time. More than one problem bear has been shot, and we usually end up having to shoot at least 1 per year when they're just too stubborn to get away from the meat shack and leave camp.

Well, one particularly dark night, I had to get up in the middle of the night to relieve myself. I got up in my long-john's, grabbed my rifle, a lantern, threw on some shoes, and headed out of the bin. The only light available was the starlight and the dancing green northern lights in the sky, as well as my lantern. I start heading towards the outhouse, and get about 10 feet away from the bin with my rifle slung over my shoulder, the lantern in hand, and I hear some grass move about 15 feet directly to my left. Well I quickly shine my lantern towards the sound and look over. First I can just see two green, beady eyes staring at me in the pitch black, then as the lantern's light lands on the object, I realize that 15 feet away is standing a big boar grizzly, facing square-on towards me, and is just staring at me. I looked and him and he looked at me, and in the split second that we locked eyes I thought to myself, "If he decides to charge me, there is NO WAY I can possibly get my rifle unslung from my shoulder, get him in my 2x scope, and get off an aimed shot before he's on top of me". Luckily, it only lasted for about 2 seconds before he decided to swap ends and high-tail it for the hilly tundra away from camp.

I've thought back to that moment a few times, thinking how fortunate and blessed I am that the bear decided to run AWAY from me, instead of towards me. It was a great year for grizzly bears; I came into contact with 16 of them during the 5 week caribou season.

Yes, the first time you hear the catamount scream it does curdle your blood a little.

I had a raccoon INSIDE the bucket that I sat on in my classic Wisconsin "Treehouse" deer stand. I climbed up the ladder and poked my head up through the bottom of the stand with my headlamp on... and the little sombidge was right there squealing in my face! I fell right off the ladder. My hunting buddy Gary laughed so hard and so loud that we had to pack up and go hunt the other side of the farm.

Well grouse have gotten me a few times in the dark and so have pheasants, but the worst one was in the daylight when I was about 14. My dad and 2 cousins were hunting moose in NW Minnesota. i was along to help and take in the experience. We were gonna do a drive and i was in the middle. It was really thick and I felt I was falling behind. There was an overturned tree with a big mound of dirt at its base. I decided to jump up there and try and see the other guys. Problem was, when I jumped to the top, I overshot a whisker and fell down the back side...and landed both my feet on the southern end of a northbound doe. I really didnt know what it was when it exploded out of there and I am quite confident it never did figure out what landed on it. To be honest, I kinda think I owed it an apology...but it didnt wait around for me at all I will tell ya.

A fisher will make a noise like a woman being strangled. Pretty unsettling when you're 2 twelve year-olds canoeing on a remote lake at sunset waiting for dad to come with the truck...

We stayed right in the middle of that lake til we saw headlights.

We were hunting just outside Brownwood,Texas.I was down there by myself,after evening hunt walking back to trailer after dark,heard a loud scream like a mountain lion,real close by.I pulled out my 357 and shot into the ground 3 times.I made it back to the trailer,shaking like hell.My hunting pardners finally got there at 1130pm and I told them what I'd heard.They both proceeded to tell me I was crazy and was hearing things.We were sitting on the porch in front of the trailer drinking a beer at about 1230,it screamed again.We all jumped into the trailer,their eyes were as big as silver dollars. We all went outside as and fired our pistols into the ground several times.We saw it 2 days later on a ridge top,it was a full grown mountain lion.We called Texas Parks and Wildlife and reported the sighting.They came out and took photos of foot prints and confirmed what we thought.they had not heard or seen 1 in this area in several years,I don't care if I ever hear 1 that close in the dark again period.

I was back pack/puptent hunting elk with a bow in the San Juan nat. forest about 35 mi out of durango back in the early 90's. It was my one and only time out west and was by myself. I had just taken a spike elk about a mile from my tent camp. I took the hind quarters and headed back to camp that evening and planned on going back for the rest in AM. I hung the meat up high in the tree and went to bed around 10 pm as the fire died down. I had no pistol but slept with an arrow tipped with a broad head just in case. I was awakened to a pack of howling and fighting coyotes just outside the tent. I hollared and they took off, but returned making the same fuss and racket 2 more times that night. They were litterally just feet from the door of my two man tent. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night. Fortunately, when I got back to the carcass the next am, the coyotes had not touched it.

Story # 2. An uncle and some of his buddies back in the 70's were headed into the national forest in Mo. to camp out the night before opening morning of deer season. Most slept in the truck or stationwaggon but my uncle, being the "bright" one, thought it was clear enough and no chance of rain, figured the grass strip on the logging road would offer a nice soft area to place his sleeping bag. Well, about 4 am, some hunters come driving down the road and everybody is awakened by my uncles screaming. He was litterally under the 4wd truck that didn't see him in his kakhi colored sleeping bag and had run over his outstretched arm as he slept. To this day, it's still the funniest story about this uncle. (And there's plenty of stories about this one )

I was leaving a stand one night and a Mountain Lion screamed near by, it was an eerie feeling.

Been there...done that, few things in the woods make more noise than a turkey scared off the roost. I was really glad that I hadn't forgotten to strap in that morning or I probably would have done a back flip off my climber....I'm sure the landing would have been ugly:)

Ran head on into a "800 pound" big boar black bear who was feeding in some corn which was standing in the corner of a huge corn field in Beaufort County NC in the mid 1990's. It was pitch black, no moon, and I wasn't using a flashlight (to keep from spooking the skittish bears we were hunting). I never saw bro' bear until he screeched, popped his teeth, and began tearing up the corn like a bull about to charge - even then it was all I could do to see him. It was a high pucker factor event for me! I had an empty .30-06 rifle (in compliance with NC hunting regulations) slung over my shoulder which I flung off and kept thrusting at him while I hollered (shades of bayonet practice!) and kept backing further into the field, where I reloaded and turned on my light (to hell with skittish bears). I had forgotten that I had a voice activated radio on which broadcast the entire event to the cabin and other hunters at our camp (to include my initial profanity rich description of the bear). Don, our camp cook, kept asking if I was alright, but I didn't hear him until I was well out in the field and re-armed. When they came and picked me up the pickup truck lights shone on the bear who had come back into the field to resume feeding - he was about 200-250 pounds, but I would have sworn he was big as a tractor and weighed 800 at the moment of encounter. The event caused me to buy my first M88 (.308 WIN) so I could carry a loaded magazine in one hand and I decided the hell with the regs, I would unload at the truck from then on.

Odessa, that bear in the dark thing would only scare me long enough to clutch my chest, then he would be free to fatten himself on my lifeless carcass.

I was sitting in my stand one morning waiting for the
sun to come up. About 20 minutes after sunrise, I turned
my head to the right and about 5 feet away from me is
the biggest owl I have ever laid eyes on, perched on a
tree limb. Yes, I did scream like a little girl when it
flew past me.

cosco wet wipes!

I spooked myself when climbing into my tree stand one afternoon. I use a combination of screw in steps and branches to climb into the stand. I had gotten chest high with the base of the stand when the branch I was standing on cracked. I felt like I was in a Wile. E Coyote/roadrunner cartoon. The deck of the stand passed my eyes like in an open elevator. fortunately when I landed I fell flat on my face on a small mound of dirt. No broken bones, but knocked the wind out of me. I figure I fell about 12 feet. Sore.........I had to roll out of bed the next day onto my knees, I could not even sit up in bed.

Story#2, I used some estrous doe scent as a drag getting into my stand one morning before light during bow season. I heard crashing in the brush as I hurriedly tried to get in my stand. As I sat in the stand, for a few minutes I heard crashing back and forth in the brush ahead of me. Closest I can come to figure is a buck had coaught the scent of the doe and was crashing around looking for her in the dark.

1. A Ringtail cat staring me eyeball to eyeball as I tried to enter MY stand that he had claimed as his own. Those little critters are vicious and will scratch your eyes out.

2. Crossed paths with a Mountain Lion which was way too close for comfort.

3. Left my stand in the Texas hill country after dark headed to the main road to wait on the jeep to pick me up and realized I was being stalked by an illegal alien. I quickly found a little bluff to get my back up against and stood there for about 10 minutes which seemed like 10 years. When the jeep arrived everyone saw him run across the headlight path roughly 40 yards from me.

I'm worried about moving before/after dark and running into a banana spider web and its occupant. Seriously, I would rather come across one of the local bears than go through a banana spider web! Those guys are huge!

What's a banana spider web?

Brett (Mac)

They can be as big as 5 inches across and freak you out because their webs are very strong and sticky.