oddest(strangest)thing you`ve experienced while hunting

Hawk and the Red squirrel

I was sitting in my bow stand and a red squirrel kept chattering at me from the next tree 5 feet away. I was debating on sticking him to the tree with a fieldpoint but as I reached for my bow I heard a loud swooshing sound. I started freaking out trying to figure out what the noise was and before you know it a Red Tail Hawk had come down and picked the squirrel off the limb and sat there tearing into him 5 feet away from me. The hawk then noticed me and quickly departed dropping his dead squirrel almost on top of me and landed in a tree 100yds away trying to figure out what I was. The hawk wouldnt come back until I left the stand. I sat 50 yards from the tree in thick brush and watched him come back and finish his dinner. It was a pretty cool thing to see and I never leave home without a camera now.
 
i sit and read , enjoying these experiences everyone has had hunting and i can`t help but think how bad the non-hunting population is cheating themselves in life. just does`nt make sense. this is the kinda stuff you just don`t see on tv.
 
Strangest hunt

I was in a dearstand in a tree-line facing an enclosed meadow. I heard something behind me that was moving slowly, ever so closely out of my view with the stand's plywood blocking my vision. I could hear light steps in the moist leaves moving over several minutes within 30' of my stand. I carefully laid down my .3006 Remington, and picked up my .357 S&W revolver, waiting for a walk-by chance of a shot. Heart pumping, I leaned down over the floor's edge with hammer cocked, to find...........a dappled cow casually chewing her cud! I decocked my S&W, and smiled at the lovely animal. It was a funny drama that outsmarted my own imagination!
 
Okay, gotta bite on this.
In about 80 or 81 a friend and I were riding back to camp at dusk in my Dads' 46 Willys..no top. I spotted a set of blinking lights on the opposite ridge. Stopped the Jeep and watched them for a few minutes. It travelled the approx, 1 mile to a point directly overhead us and the turned 90degrees and disappeared north. From the time it started to move until gone was not over 5 secs w/ a 3 sec pause directly over us.
Nope, no shine or Bud involved. Kinda weird though.
elkman06
 
ever go squirrel thumping? I did just once. now I am not a kid, I am 56 now so it has been a while. but when I was a kid my granddad used to tell us about his growing up years. he came to Texas as a small boy in a covered wagon. they were poor hard sqrabble farmers to start with and had to hunt to feed the family.
he love to talk about thumping squirrels. and I loved to hear about it. the only gun he had to hunt with was a 30 30 and lets face it they are not good for squirrel. but he told us of the trick of thumping them. you would find a tree with a squirrel in it and make a lot of noise around that tree. the squirrel would clime higher and higher in the tree until he was in the top branches. you know the smaller ones. well he would always stay on the side away from all the noise. when he was high enough that you could see his tail around the branch then it was time to shoot him. you aimed at the branch under him and shot it. it would slap him in the head and he would fall down to the ground.
I had to try it. so I took my dads 45 peace maker with me when I went hunting the next time. found a squirrel in the tree and low and behold it really did work. I shot the limb and the squirrel fell right at my feet. I picked him up, put him in my tow sack and hung it on my belt and went on hunting.
but then the d--- thing woke up and I thought I had a weedeater in the bag. it was chewing my leg up. I jerked the bag off my belt and beat it against a tree to save myself.
the next time I saw my granddad I told him about it and told him he forgot to tell me about that. he was laughing so hard it took him ten minutes to tell me you were suppost to cut their throats when they fell, that they were just knocked out. I told him I found that out for myself.
 
Snap-on buck

My father in-law lets me 'cull' any old or unwanted deer out of his herd, since he takes 5-6 paid hunters every year, normally I am limited to does, or anything not wanted by the paid hunters. Not a big deal to me, but after 5 years of watching nice bucks walk, he tells me he has a big over the hill mule deer that he wants out of the herd. Needless to say I was excited, he didn't say much about him. We drive up on top of a ridge and he hands me his 270 and two shells, he tells me to walk down the draw and if I see this deer to take him. He told me that he would be the only buck and I would know him if I saw him he is a big 2x2. I said 2x2! he said the biggest 2pt you have ever seen. After hearing that I wasn't so excited, but bucks on the in-laws had been few and far between for me so off I went. I walked down the draw taking my time, stopping and listening and then moving on slowly. The walls of the draw got steeper as I went down and I understood why he was so sure the deer would be in it, there was no way out but right past me. As I slowly came around a corner I saw him, and he was right it was the biggest two point I had ever seen, and his body was huge (neb muley). By dumb luck I saw him before he saw me, I pulled up the rifle aimed for his ticker and squeezed of a shot, the buck jumped and ran around the corner out of site. I knew it was a good hit but I waited a few minutes and then went after him. He only ran about 30 yards and fell in a heap. As I walked up to the deer, something just didn't look right to me. He was laying there dead as a doornail but he just looked funny. When I grabbed his horn to pull his head uphill for gutting I realized what was funny about him. When I pulled on the horn it popped off in my hand! The first thought that ran through my head was that somehow my father-in law had caught a deer and glued shed horns onto it to mess with me, but a quick look at his head told me the truth, it had to bloody sockets where the horns had come off just as if they were shed, and they were extremely lightweight antlers. The next surprise came when I rolled him over to gut him, he had half of the equipment needed to be a buck below the belt, minus the testicles. Dont know if they shriveled up or got cut off, but the story of that buck gets told every year at hunting camp, and now the horns still sit on top of my gun cabinet, if i ever figure out how to post pics I will. Game warden aged the deer a 7+, didn't weigh him but even he told me it was the biggest bodied mule deer he had seen. Will never know what the spread was on his horns, but we measured 4 diff ways with them in the sockets and came up with anywhere between 27" to 31".
 
Early season deer hunt in the mountains, I was sitting against a large pine tree with alot of low brush around me along a game trail. Started hearing this "glug glug" hollow sound about 20 yards or so down the trail, but didn't dare move and give away my location. First reaction was, ah oh oh, maybe a black bear.
A little nervous, I peered around the tree just as a 5x5 bull elk began mounting a cow. Wild eyed and gettin' down to business, both elk didn't spot me for a few seconds. Then with a crazed look, like "Honey, there's SOMEONE IN OUR BEDROOM!" They both took off into the woods.:D
 
wrong turn

Walking thru a woods during squirrel season and take a break; sitting down on a large, flat rock....only to look down, and then around as I stood, to find out I had stumbled into a long-abandoned family cemetary and had been sitting on a headstone.
That was just a bit unnerving...what was really strange is the headstone had my last name on it and only a last name. No possible relation...my family is in Indiana and this was in Georgia.
That was strange.
 
Brother and I were hunting State forest land near Emily, Minnesota, I shot a nice 8 point that came running up the hill at me. Two fast shots, both in the boilerroom and he died fast, I decided to sit a while and wait to make sure it was all dead, and for my brother to show up. I hear foot steps coming from the top of the ridge and I think its going to be my brother, but its an older than I was guy, (I was low 20's and my brother a couple years older, the other guy was maybe 35) He keeps walking toward my deer and just when I think maybe he's going to claim the deer as his, he never misses a beat and steps right over my deer and keeps walking to me.
"I heard some shots, did you get one?" now this rocks me back a bit, as he just stepped over my deer.

"Uh. Yeah," I said, " you just walked past it" He game me a funny look and then looked back up the trail and for the first time realized that he had walked right passed it. He has a shiny as a new car rifle, with one of those wide as a leisure suit lapel kind of slings on it, with a HUGE knife even Rambo would leave at home strapped to his chest in some kind of a bandoleer sort of thing.

Looking at the deer, he asks me If I needed help gutting the thing, "no thanks, Its a pretty easy job" I said, and he keeps pulling out this knife. "Are you sure?" he asked, and I made the comment that I was pretty much more than sure, seeing it was my 12 or 13 th deer at the time. I looked up and saw that my brother was now fairly close and seeing the other guy, brother was not pointing the gun his way, but in keeping with his response he was keeping it at ready arms...The older guy then asked about how we were going to cut the head off, and where did we take the deer for processing. None of this made sense to us, and we let him know we did all the cutting.

So with this he walks about 15 or 20 feet past us and finds a log to sit on. He starts asking all sorts of questions about the process, all the time coming back with questions that made no sense at all. When he sees our "puny" little knives we were using he nearly had a break down.
 
Great stories, all. I'm enjoying this thread.

Years ago, my Dad and I hunted together in the boulder strewn country of NE Park County, Wyoming. Dad shot a good muley buck that was standing in tall grass. It bounded away but toppled after a couple jumps. While we were dressing the deer, we heard movement in the grass about 40 feet away. I walked over and found a doe struggling. A golf ball sized hole was observed through the spine. Dad's bullet had passed through the buck and struck the doe which neither of us could've seen.

Dad finished the doe with his revolver. We dressed it and hung it high off the ground so coyotes could not get to it and drove to town. Dad phoned the Warden and explained what happened. The Warden drove over and we showed him the doe. He looked over our footprints in the snow and said that no crime had occurred but we couldn't keep the un-tagged deer.

Dad was relieved that he wouldn't face a poaching charge. He told me, "when in doubt, ALWAYS do the right thing".

Jack

PineRidge.jpg
 
I was turkey hunting one spring and was walking along a runoff below a pond dam. I see this doe about 60 yards off hauling butt toward me. She jumps the fence not missing a beat still heading my direction. I'm just standing still in a fairly open spot watching and waiting for her to see me and veer off. When she gets about 15 feet from me and is still going full-bore, I realize she is actually going to lay me out like a linebacker. I raise my arms and shout "HEY" at her. She hits the brakes, front legs going in opposite directions and eyes big as saucers! She skids to about 5 feet of me and then turns and stumbles trying to get away from me as quick as possible. I was rolling the rest of the morning and although it's been probably 20 years ago, it still brings a smile to my face.

One of the coolest things I have ever seen was when I was bowhunting in October. It was getting near dark and I was making my way back to the truck. They had been clearing timber in one section and I was standing in cedars at a fence overlooking a field that was about 75 yards wide. I was checking out what all they've done when I hear something walking in the timber. I see a turkey come out in the cleared section of woods and being to far to even think of a shot and having no way of sneaking within range, I just stand and watch him. Then another and another and so on. There ends up being about 20 to 25 turkeys come out into this clearing, all toms. There was probably 6 to 8 mature ones and the rest were jakes. The mature toms end up in this circle in the middle and they start strutting and occasionly gobbling. In the meantime, the jakes start fighting each other, apparently establishing some sort of pecking order. This went on for about 5 to 10 minutes. It ended as quickly as it started and they all headed for roost up the hill. This was probably the most incredible thing I've ever seen. That was the first time I ever heard toms gobbling in the fall and to watch those jakes going at it while those toms were strutting was absolutely amazing.

Okay, one last one. I was bowhunting on private land and it was late October, probably in '90. I had this bright idea to take my McKenzie deer target to use as a decoy. This was one of the 3 section targets that isn't the most friendly thing to try to carry in the woods. I finally get it to where I want to set up at and after a couple of hours, I don't see or hear anything. I figure I scared anything away within earshot from cussing this damn target and my stupid idea of trying to carry it in the woods. I decide to still hunt and I leave my target in the field I set it up in, planning to get it when I go back to the truck to eat lunch. As I make my way back to where I left my target a few hours later, I don't see it. My first thought is someone stole it. I walk up to where it was and see it laying down and think no biggy, it just fell over. When I get a little closer, I see the head/neck section is about 5 feet behind the tail section. I look at it a little closer and there appears to be tine marks in the neck. My guess is a buck didn't like my intruder I placed in his area. I would have given anything to have seen him "blow up" my deer and to watch that buck strut around thinking "I'm bad...I'm bad"!
 
after reading over these entrys I am minded of Mark Twain's (Samuel Clements Huckleberry Fin author) reply when someone told him the adage 'truth is stranger than fiction'.
he replied 'why should'nt truth be stranger than fiction?' - after all fiction has to make sense or nobody would read it!.
 
hunting with my dad up a west texas draw, he with birdshot and me with a rifle in case we pushed out a javelina. we heard a rock roll just ahead in the draw. i moved higher on the side to get a better view while dad was to push through some brush. after a few seconds he fires and said he had got one. he had shot and killed a young javelina. the secret to eating javelina is cleaning the thing immediately so dad field dressed it. i was curious as what the bird shot had hit to kill the javelina so cleanly, and picked the heart from the gut pile. the heart appeared to be in good shape with maybe a couple of pellets in the muscle. i gave the heart a squeeze or two and it began to beat. and kept beating for quite a while.
now here is the funny part, when i told this story to my wife, i added the javelina had then got up and started to run off, requiring a second shot. she replied, "Really?" Which got dad to laughing so hard, he choked on his redman, which made be laugh and the wife to consider homicide.
 
Since not all wiminz are hunters I see it easier to get one to succumb to them stories... But yes they can contemplate murder pretty quick.
That is neat about the heart restarting... We used to do that with frog hearts when cleaning for frying...
Brent
 
Back when spotlighting and hunting rabbits was still legal in Texas without a license, we were driving down a deserted highway (literally deserted, it is MOL closed due to irreparable road damage) near the Hueco Mountains in the El Paso area. I was in the back of the truck as my buddy drove and as we rounded a blind corner, there in front of us stood the most beautiful Bull Elk I have ever seen! He wasn't 30 yds from us! We just sat there in AWE of this magnificent creature and were completely surprised to see him here. We don't have elk here (at least not back then) and he was as out of place as a saddle on a pig! He just stood there grazing on a patch of grass and was not concerned about our presence in the least. It wasn't until my buddy yelled at me out the window asking me what the heck it was that he turned and rambled off into the brush. I have never seen another elk here since.
 
I've told this somewhere on this site before but: As a teenager, hunting deer near my home in Utah, I was sitting against a rock, watching the opposite side of the draw before me. Down the ridge behind me I could hear what sounded like a baby rattle. It got louder and louder, and then I could hear voices. When the two men got even with me, there was no sense in trying to stay hidden any longer so I popped up and greeted these two knuckleheads. They were two out of state hunters from California, new boots, new clothes, new rifles with scopes, etc. I asked them what the rattling noise was. One spun around and showed me two aluminum canteens attached on opposite sides of his back. He told me one canteen was for water, and one was for M&M's! They had been snacking on their way for five miles and hadn't seen any deer. They claimed there were no deer in those woods and they were making their way back to their truck to leave.
 
I went hunting with my step son a few years back. Brandon is a VERY large kid, 6'7" with a head full of red hair and freckle faced. To tell the truth, he's a bit goofy...LOL, but anyways, this was his first ever hunting trip, and mind you this kid was at the time almost 21 years old. He didnt have a rifle so I let him borrow my 30-30 with a side mount scope on it, but warned him, it likes to 'flip back and bite you.' I dropped him off at this stand and left for mine, and not even an hour of sitting in the stand I hear him rock off a shot, then another, and then another. Well, i left my stand figuring he got his first deer and I should be there with him when he comes back. Well, on my way to pick him up, I see him in the distance, with that gangly walk he has, carrying a turkey by the legs, at an arms length from him and the rifle nestled on his shoulder. As I get closer to him i see that his face is COVERED in blood. Not only does he have one cresent shaped cut on his eyebrow, but two more right next to that one. I asked him if he got anything else besides the turkey. He says, "Nope, only this one, but man, he wouldnt stop moving after I shot him the first time, so I shot him twice more.' Poor kid was so excited he didnt even know he got 'bit' by that old 30-30, but he knew it from the headache he had the next day...:D
 
the deer I shot last year down here in AZ was small for my northern standards, but while I was field dressing it I had a suprise guest that wanted to debate with me over who got the deer.

The suprise guest was a jaguar. These critters are slowing coming back into arizona and new mexico and are rare with only a handful known to frequent the area. well he is perched on a rock outcropping about 20 yards away and I only noticed him when I was finishing up. Even when we locked eyes he didn't move. :eek:
inline_jaguar.jpg


Now these suckers are not afraid or humans like most of the mt. lions we have in the area, so I made sure to bring my rifle close and chambered a round just in case. Jaguars are endangered so I was not gonna shoot him (unless of course he decided i would be on his menu). I ended up finishing up field dressing the deer and then started draggging it back to the truck. I kept on looking back and when I got a hundred yards away glassed the area with the gut pile and saw him feasting on the guts. Man I wish I had a camera that day.

reported the sitghting to the folks on post and to the AZ game and fish folks and that is something I will never foreget. Seeing that fine looking creature perched on the outcrop and staring straight at me (shivers each time I think about how big he was adn I could have easily been on the menu for him). :eek:

Here is a link to an article on one of the ranchers in Douglas AZ (only about 30 miles from me) that photo'd a few on the cats. and Here is a photo from one of the trail cams he has up in southern AZ. Jaguars are the third largest cat in the world (lions and tigers are bigger).
jaguar.2.600.jpg


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/science/10jaguar.html?ex=1318132800&en=09395a7ae2b41c95&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
 
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