Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire why you zip up your tent when camping in arizona

That's funny. Reminds me of trying to get our old dog off of our sleeping bags when tent camping. He stunk too...

I once had a skunk raise the zippers on our tent and enter at 2:30 am while camping at the Basin in Big Bend Park. It scared the girl friend by putting its snout about 2 inches from her face to smell her makeup or something she was wearing. She screamed and luckly it didn't discharge. I tied the zippers closed with a shoestring the rest of the trip.

Only funny since it didn't spray.

That's pretty funny - except as bad as javelinas smell, I doubt they thought it funny

Actually, that would have been funnier, just not to quite as many people.

Damn Arizonans git all the good lookin' Mesicans

Classic!

Sure a lot better than a snake!

Not funny at all. Skunks are notorious for carrying Rabies. They are known to bite people in the face when they are sleeping outdoors. Back in the old west days they were greatly feared by cowboys, buffalo hunters and the like.

Cole:

The park ranger told me that they evidently do that pretty often even with zipped doors when they smell cosmetics etc. The bears are back in the park to the point that there are bear boxes at all the mountain campgrounds. The skunk evidently smelled lipstick or something in her purse which was on the far side from the skunk.

We have a rabid skunk problem here in College Station. I have killed two in my shop yard during the day with a .22 LR I keep there for just that purpose.

The newspaper Sunday said we are having an epidemic and they have baits out. I've always been told that a lot of perfumes use skunk essence as a "fixative".

Better than a rattler, scorpion, or a centipede! Bears in close proximity can also be a problem! (BTDT!) Tents also don't deter bears, much - ask the folks at Philmont.
Mark

Man that's out of the ordinary.



So you were hunting with Scott, coues7?

Keeps the bears out in Alaska. Mostly.

Which is why I have a hunting partner who is twitchy and sleeps with a .44 Mag. in his bag.

I was totally unimpressed (in one way) when, after foot falls approached the tent in the middle of the night, circled it, then went away, his dog got up from an outside position and then re- bedded down between us....

My dog, on the other hand, had already chosen his bed carefully...

I've been campin and sobered up and found a pig ( or two ) in the sack with me....

He sure looks comfy. Got a problem?

you really don't want to sleep on the desert floor in arizona, with all the things that can bite, poke, stick and so on. Use to be common of putting tin cans filled with fuel oil under the legs of a bed because of this issue. Javalina's are generally not an issue but they are a pack animal with poor eyesight but a good nose. Had a friend that had a rottweiler a few years ago got disembowelled from one of these critters. If prepared properly they are good to eat. Having said that javalina hunting is one of my favorites. You sleep late, have a good breakfast and a good hunt is one in which you don't see them. Typically a desert animal, courtesy of game and fish they are now all over. They took them north to see if they would live, and they did. There was a herd of them up the street from me in prescott last year running yard to yard. This is about two blocks up from the city square in towntown prescott. I have a fence around the property so it wasn't an issue with my dogs. I was watching people chase them out with brooms, which is a big big mistake. Those cutting teeth are like switchblades, they will slice and dice.

Hey that's not a Javelin that is actually my ex wife!!

Another good video!

There's a story of my brother sleeping under the stars some fifty years ago on a camping trip and there being a commotion in the middle of the night with my mom, dad, and an other family getting up to shine a light on the source of noise. It appeared to be a skunk standing on my brother's chest nose to nose with my brother about 2:00 AM in the morning.