Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Have you ever been spooked?

THis season I had a buck walking circles around me as I knelt stationary in a field. That's a little un-nerving, sharp antlered buck walking behind you, sizing you up.

Last week, I had a skunk pop out of a brush pile about 10 feet behind me.

That spooked me too.

Peered into hole beneath a large decaying spruce at timberline and noticed a black bear about 3 feet from my face. I went about 100 yards across the contour in a little less than 4 seconds before I remembered I had a 7 Mag in my hands. I think it took 2 hours for my heart rate to return to normal.

The real cause of most scary stories.

Cats have always bothered me. I'd rather face a grizzly.

Arrowed a UT Henry Mts bison bull (wild herd) about a 14 years ago. He piled up and I followed right up. I was standing by him when the other 16 in the herd came charging back down the hill right to him (and me). I crouched down using his body as protection until they left. Then they smelled my buddy down the hill, spooked and charged right back up to us. They finally got the heck out of there about dark.

I've had Alaskan grizzlies sniff the backpack tent I was in (not sleeping) on two occasions. They were two of the most terrifying moments of my life! Makes for long nights after that happens.

But the most scared I ever was happened again over in UT on a solo archery mule deer hunt in the Bookcliffs. I was sleeping in the F150 truck canopy and had just popped open the back hatch to get up but had not lowered the tailgate (good thing). As I was putting on my pants I heard a black bear sniff my nearly empty cooler in the pre-dawn quiet. I yelled "Get out of here". She came right to the back of the truck and stuck her head in about 12" from my face! She had been eating current berries by the smell of her fragrant breath. I screamed an obscenity at her and she dropped down. I quickly snatched the canopy hatch closed! Then she got back up and tried to break in as I picked up my only weapon in the topper........my D-handle round point gravel shovel! After a bit she left so I got dressed and got out of the box. As I threw the lawn chair and cooler in the truck to depart, she approached to 20' out of the oak brush popping her teeth!

I jumped into the cab and started the engine. When I turned on the lights I saw her cub up in a small aspen right in front of the truck. Although this happened in 1995, I am still convinced that if I'd have had the tail gate down she would have come in and mauled me. Probably should not have yelled at her as it spooked the cub and made her damn mad.

I have had a few other incidents like elk nearly trampling me as I slept on the ground with no tent, getting sniffed by a skunk in a similar situation and stepping on a porcupine the Vizsla had pointed, etc. None rival the bears though.

Aside from incidences with mountain lions and brown bears, it hasn't been the animals that spooked me the most...it was the airline travel going on hunts and the use of boats in SE Alaska that puckered me the most.I can shoot my way out of animal encounters,but I gotta depend on other people when flying...and that Alaskan Coastal water is some of the worst shidt to deal with day in and day out that I've ever bumped into.

One time, the flight got delayed,and they don't tell you anything of what's going on,but the guys in orange jumpsuits were in and out of the cockpit too many times, which told me something wasn't right,so I asked the stewardess..."We aren't going anywhere real soon are we...?" and she said "No...",to which I replied..."Well, I'm getting off...".She said my baggage was already loaded and I said "Who cares?See ya later..."

Even spookier is the security personnel when you cross over into Vancouver,Canada,who is hostile to bear hunters arriving from the states.....she wanted to know why I was in Canada and made some comment about hunters coming from the states to shoot "our bears",and seemed only mildly comforted when I said I was merely passing through on my way to Alaska to shoot one of "our" bears,so she didn't need to worry.I thought the fresh comment was gonna land me in the pokey...

It's happened a few times,walking to my blind,morning or evening,running into a sow pig with little 1's.When they start squealing,momma becomes very angry,I've killed more than 1 with my Glock 35 in 40cal.

I hunt the Divide trail on McDonald pass. One night while walking back to my rig, I spied a set of eyes in my headlamp. We sat and watched each other for a few seconds,and then it moved off in the opposite direction.I never figured out what it was, but I was thinking it was a cat. Blue eyes, not sure of size. Just far enough away I couldn't see any body. I paid closer attention the rest of the way.

deer......

Coming down a steep trail above Durango the saddle on the horse I was riding slipped off and I was tossed head over with my rifle sailing in front of me. The horse tumbled down behind me and came to a stop on a little jut-out on the edge of the trail with the saddle hanging over its' head. I wasn't spooked but the horse sure was................

I was 11 and a big brown pushed in the front door of our little hunting cabin near Larson bay on Kodiak. It was just my little brother who was 9yrs old and I. He saw us on the top bunk with our backs against the wall crying and ran out. Dad was on the little lake with my Mom in a canoe.

My wife and I were hiking on the Kenai by Cooper lake and a rock slide started up about 600ft above us. We started dodgeing bolders while they knocked down trees around us. We both came out unharmed.

Caribou hunting on the denalli hwy in 2008 my son (who was about 13 at the time) shot a small bull. I left him to start the quartering and left to get a one of our 4 wheelers to help haul it out. The distance was approx. 3 miles away from camp. When I was about a half mile from camp I heard 3 shots about 4 seconds apart in his dirrection. I started running to camp toget the fourwheeler. A father doesnt know fear until he knows something is wrong and he isnt there. Once I returned I saw his face pale white. He was walking twoards me and he was about a half mile from the kill site. A bear had shown up, and charged him. He missed all his shots and the bear (thank god) didnt finish his charge. Instead he dragged the caribou 150yrds into the brush and started to stash it under some logs and branches. Walking up to get his Caribou back was as spooked and full of adrenaline as I have ever been. Never saw the bear myself.

Brook Trout fishing in Michigans UP while wading a small stream. Very quiet morning with just the sounds of the babbling stream. I came upon a spot where there was a canopy of brush making a low arch over the stream. I bent over to go under it when a black bear exploded out from the other side, about ten feet away. Oh yeah! I was spooked!

In 06 or 07 was hunting above Grandjean Id, east of the highway. As is typical for me I was hiking back in, well before daylight to get up on a point so that I could glass for elk at daylight. As I eased along the ridgeline I caught a glimse of a set of eyes in my headlamp and then they disappered. I started up the hill again when the pack started Howling at me. You know you can read a thousand articles how wolves "do not" attack humans. But when you are standing next to them in the dark while they are howling its a bit "spooky". Especially when you cannot see them. I worked my way over to a couple of large pine trees got my back against the largest one and set down. All of the hair on my body was standing up. I set there until their howling moved away down the hill, then I howled at them for a while, and then went on my way. Never saw them, I didn't have to!!!

Couple of times.

One summer day, we were working up along the continental divide in the Animas Mountains. Finished up early afternoon and started back down to our shady camp just below Turkey Spring at the head of Indian Creek. It was a hot afternoon and as we worked our way down a talus slope, there was a lone Ponderosa Pine right in the middle. We stopped in the shade, drank the last of our water and took a break to cool down before starting again. I found a "soft spot" among the talus, put my day pack down for a pillow and stretched out for a short nap.

I was just drifting off when my eyes were attracted to something on the trunk, 20 feet or so above me. I was trying to decide whether to ignore it and get a quick nap or go ahead and decipher what about it had interrupted my dozing. Clearing my eyes, I focused on the dark spot. Two more dark spots came into focus and I was looking at three small black bear cubs staring back down at me.

We gathered out traps and packs and got the hell out of there. Will relate the other instance if the thread persists...

A beaver tail slapping the top of a still pond right behind me in the boat nearly had me walking on water...

Probably not the same as really being spooked, per se, but I sure did jump hard!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! Familiar with those buggers but what really spooks me is Yeti's and politicians.

Backpacking with my first wife.
Packing up a steep trail.

Looked ahead and saw a brown cub running toward us down the trail. Momma sow was bellering at that cub to come back.
Momma was BIG and brown - looked to be the size of a living room sofa.
Finally the cub heeded his mom's call.

I recall thinking that I don't need to outrun the sow, just outrun the ex-wife.

Couple times. I reckon anyone who hasn't is either absolutely clueless, hasn't spent much time in the woods, or isn't honest about it.

Y' know that "predator vibe", the one where you start to relate to how the mouse feels in the middle of an open room when it knows there's a cat but not sure where?

Got one spot I like to hunt but there was a little section about 200 yards short of being back to the truck that downright intimidating for no visible reason .. but only in the late evening. Its on a little skid road that runs just under a rock rim, hell of an ambush site.

I think the best "spooked" I ever got where somethin' really happened ... well, it was dark, heard some crashing in the brush below our house, so I grabbed the ol' Colt SAA and a flashlight. I got down on the road and I could hear something BIG coming up. Crash, crash, crash, smash through brush, comin' up, comin' up, then all of the sudden a massive black shape nearly 3 feet wide, 6 or so feet tall, with glowing blue-green eyes about 6 inches apart lurched up out of the gulch ... whatever it was, it HAD me, ya know? The hammer came back, front sight was lining up ... recognition clicked about a half second before sending my sister's horse to horsey heaven.

It just doesn't pay to scare me.

Nothing to compete with the OP but at about 7 years old my brothers and I had stayed out too late and were walking home through the woods. I suddenly felt something glide by my head making a popping sound. Don't really recall my feet touching the ground the remaining 1/2 mile to my grandmothers house where my dad told me we must have passed under an owls nesting tree and she was trying to drive us off by diving at us and popping her beak. Really weird you just felt something glide by and then click click click. Oh and then there was the grouse that flushed out of a cedar as I walked to my deer stand in the dark and the flock of turkeys that had roosted in the tree my tree stand was in that waited silently until I had just gotten settled to suddenly flush in masse.

I'm reminded of Daniel Boone's response when asked if he had ever been lost. He denied that he had ever been lost, but admitted he had once been "powerful confused" for three days...

In this spirit, I have never been spooked, but I have been powerful concerned a few times. Once, I sat on a hillside for a few hours overlooking an area of fresh hog sign, and stayed a tad late, as in "Crap, it sure is getting dark fast." It was a three-mile hike back to a cabin on a skinny trail surrounded by tall brush. Cloud cover moved in to block out the moon. The wind came up, and the brush on both sides of the trail was whipped by the wind and making enough noise to hide an army. I had taken only about 20 steps and turned around a sharp bend when I discovered some huge kitty tracks directly on top of my own. That cat had clearly trailed me, and had left the trail to circle above and behind me. I had no idea how long he had been watching me.

That was quite a long hike back, rifle on my hip at the ready, flashlight alongside it insulated by a couple of fingers. It's amazing how long it can take to cover three miles when you're constantly turning in small circles...