Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your close encounters with wildlife

How about telling us about your closest experiences with wild animals, dangerous or otherwise.

When I was a kid we were making a drive for deer in a large cornfield. A whitetail doe who was motivated by a couple shots fired at her by another hunter came past me at a dead run in the next row to the one I was in. At under 36 inches between rows that put her pretty close. Always wondered what would have happened had she been in my row as one couldn't even see 20 yards down the rows, she would have been dang close before she saw me. Think I'm glad she picked that row.

I was sitting on a stump during bow season with my face mask on so the damn bugs would stop biting me. A doe and her fawn came in at 15 yards, then 10. The fawn slowly came closer and closer, at around 5 yards. They never I knew I was there.

It was a pretty neat experience.

I've probably had 1/2 dozen times I've been close enough to moose to take one more step and reach out and touch them, mostly calves. This summer we had a calf in our yard and some neighbor kids stopped by and said they were scared to go to their home because the moose was near their driveway. I walked them home, keeping myself between the moose and them. After they ran down their driveway I headed back home and the calf followed me about 10' behind me.

My daughter got licked by a calf once. She was walking towards it in our front yard, and then the calf started heading towards her. She was scared so she headed behind a small tree and wrapped her hands around the trunk. The calf walked up and licked her hand.

I've also had a cow moose that was probably 40-50' away make some sounds that made it very clear that she didn't want me any closer (must have been a calf nearby I didn't see) which resulted in my taking a swampy detour.

dodging a driven wild boar and ... walking over a horned adder in Africa

Nor mentioning ticks sucking my blood

In Yellowstone,I was on one side of a tree about 2ft in diameter and a 6x bull elk was on the other side with it's horns on each side of the tree butting it and my wife was already up the tree.

Closest I want to be to a pi$$ed off bull in rut.

I was camping on a ridge at Custer State Park and woke up to find a huge bull Bison right next to my tent. I was actually surrounded by a herd and had to move very slowly and carefully to break down camp and get out of there. They're enormous that close up! I was planning to use the tent like a matador if it came to it.

Eric

I've been within 30 yards of a fair sized brown bear with only a swiss army knife to defend myself. I was alone with no one in sight and the bear was on the other side of the Russian River eating salmon carcasses. I know he was used to seeing human beings and he paid no attention to me ... but it still made me pucker.

Had a female grizzly with cubs come within 10 feet of me and all I had was a pocket knife. When it was all over she ended up dead and I had to pack her hide/skull 6 hours back to base camp. Turned it into Ak F&G, filed my report and that was that.

I have touched deer while hunting on 3 separate occasions.

It was mid-day of the 2002 Michigan firearms deer season and I had left my blind to do a little sneaking around when I startled a young whitetail fawn. Poor thing was scared chitless and it ran directly away from me and over a little hummock about 25 feet away and out of sight. I stood there thinking how cool it was to have been that close when I realize by the sound that the fawn had turned around and was running back in my directiion. It topped the hummock and I could suddenly see that it wasn't just coming back toward me, but was running directly at me. I stood staring for a second or 2 and then sidestepped to avoid being run into and as the deer passed I swung my rifle around and gave the deer a poke in the side with the muzzle, causing the deer to push it's nitrous injection button or hit overdrive or something. The additional burst of speed was impressive, as was the running high jump it performed.

camping with a buddy one time and we were both asleep in the bed of our pickups and the bull moose decided to hang out in between our trucks.

Black Powder hunting antelope one year had a heard jump over the top of the hole I was hiding in.

Feeding cows one cold winter had 4 or 5 antelope decide that hanging out with the cows was an easy way to get a meal

Had a bear raid our camp one night, blamed my fat friend.

Last summer I tried to take out a heard of Bighorn sheep with a Japanese mini truck, or maybe the heard was trying to take out my mini truck.

Hit a fox with a 4 wheeler

Cought a prairie dog more than once, they don't make nice pets

Sh�t.....makes my rattlesnake encounters seem like whipped pudding.

Once in Minn myself and a buddy had a dead Canada Goose go sailing between us and thru the hedge we were hunkered behind and impact our rental car in the passenger door.

The hedge was about three feet thick and the dent was quite severe....shattered the glass as well.
We just looked at each other and grinned.

Got a cold bite from a timber rattler on my place a couple of years back,my neighbor and I found the den and took care of business with an old keg of Bluedot.

A very funny close encounter occurred on my first wild boar bow hunt 40 years ago when they had it a Forksville PA.

I was on stand when I heard a guy running down the hill at me screaming, close behind was a Boar he had arrowed in the A$$. The boar slowed down as it got near to me giving me a broadside shot that did the trick. The jerk wanted the boar after I killed it saying he had shot it first!

Sounds to me like he had his opportunity to claim the boar, but chose to run instead.

Is that really a bear between my legs?
http://shootersjournal.net/is-that-really-a-bear-between-my-legs/

I primarily ground hunt.

That being said, I've had more than a few deer within 5'. Only once did a young buck walk up and touch my leg with his nose trying to figure what I was by smell.

Bowin' a few years back I wound up between a 300+ lb sow and her 4 cubs just before sunset. She walked right up to my ground blind within 2' of my face. I still remember the smell of her breath. Looking directly into her eyes I could tell she didn't have a clue as to who/what I was.
I did not want to kill that animal because of her 4 cubs.

-Ken

we were doing a drive in northern MN and i was in the thick stuff and fell behind a little. I jumped up on the root ball of an overturned tree (I wasnt carrying a gun) and slipped down the other side....and in the process put both of my feet on the rump of a sleeping fawn.

2 things happened at the exact same time. The fawn lasered out of there at just slightly over the sound barrier. I on the other hand was even faster and jumped about 100 feet straight up in the air. the only thing keeping me from a higher altitude was the heavy load in my shorts. I was 15 years old at the time. Whoever said white men cant jump would have sung a different tune if they would have seen me that day.
I can laugh now, but I think I produced about 6 gallons of adrenaline in a millisecond.

I stepped on a skunk while pheasant hunting once too. When i put my foot down in some tall grass, there was a feeling and a sound that just made me look down to see nothing but black and white. As my eyes expanded to roughly the size of a garbage can lid, I hot-footed it out of there so fast I didnt get sprayed.

Dat bare in crosfire avtar iz how da bare lookt at crossfire befur da bare raped hiz dum ass.

I was crossing a hayfield in search of groundhogs and as I came to a fence. I decided to cross it and glass from the ridge in the next field. As I put my hand on the fence and started swinging my leg over, I heard a rustling in the grass. Glancing down I saw a skunk right where my foot would touch down. Immediately I froze in place and considered my chances. The skunk started slowly moving away and I retreated to a safe distance where I counted myself extremely lucky.