One time, I was hunting deer on a friend's property in a stand. It was about noon, and I had not seen anything move at all over the last 3 hours. In fact, it had become earily quiet -- even the birds had stopped singing and chirping, and not a single tree-rat was around.
I was bored, so I climbed out of the stand and followed a trail into the timber to try some slow stalk hunting. Even though I was on a trial, the timber was very thick, and the trees and brush blotted out most of the mid-day sun. I realized how dark and still things were as I proceeded down the trail.
As I rounded a curve, I suddenly heard a deep, growling and hissing sound from under a stump at the side of the trial. Deep within the darkness of the stump, I saw two red eyes peering out, and the growling got louder as I realized that whatever was under that stump had seen me.
In an instant, a blur of fur shot out from the stump and charged right at me. The blur stopped about 10 feet away from me, and it was only then that I realized how much trouble I was in. Standing before me was a very large racoon, but this was no ordinary racoon. It was frothing at the mouth in-between growls, and it's red eyes were slits of pure hate. It stood there for a second and kept growling at me, and then it charged again.
I only had an instant to react! I raised my rifle, found the head of the charging, rabid raccoon in my scope, and fired. The .308 Winchester thumped on impact; I'd hit the racoon right in the head, and the round flipped the thing about 4 feet backward. "Holy Cow!" I thought to myself, as I stood there in shock and looked at the bloodied raccoon.
But the coon wasn't finished yet. It rolled over onto it's right side, got onto it's feet, and slowly turned to face me, growling in rage; the plain white froth that had been dripping from it's mouth was now a mix of rabid spittle and blood. A large hole was pouring blood from the coon's jaw. With each growl, the coon was becoming more and more enraged, and spitting a disgusting mix of froth and blood from its mouth. Once again, the coon uttered a ferocious growl and charged again.
At this point, I realized that I hadn't racked the bolt and loaded another round in the rifle. I knew there was not time to rack that bolt before the rabid animal would leap all over me. I raised the butt-end of the rifle over my shoulder; the coon covered that last 10 feet in a flash, and it attempted to jump up onto my chest, with teeth bared and claws outstretched.
I brought the butt of the rifle down on the leaping coon as hard as I could. My aim was pure luck. The butt of the rifle make contact squarely with the coon's head, and I smashed that coon back at least 3 feet away from me. The coon was stunned, but still growling. As it started to stand up, I tried to rack my bolt, but somehow the round jammed, and I knew that I'd have to finish the killer coon without the aid of a firearm.
As the coon began staggering toward me, I dropped the rifle, and drew my 8" buck knife from its scabbard. This time, I charged the racoon, with the knife blade glinting earily in the shadows of the timber. When I reached the coon at the end of my charge, I plunged the knife as deeply as I could into the top of the coon's body, and narrowly avoided being bitten as I stepped back. I'd sunk that knife all the way through the top of the coon's body, but it still wasn't done fighting. It staggered toward me again, and I knew that I had to end this fight the best that I could. So I punted the rabid racoon as hard as I could. It was a kick that Jason Elam would have been proud of. The coon was launched high into the air, and finally fell down about 30 yards away from me. The coon looked in my direction, and it screamed at me in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The darn thing still wasn't done! It slowly started staggering back toward my location on the path; I could see the handle of my knife sticking out of the racoon's back.
At this point, I'd had enough; I picked up my rifle, and I turned around and ran back to the stand in the field where the ATV was parked. As I ran out of the timber and hit the cornfield, I heard the coon scream a final, enraged challenge. I fired up the ATV and got the heck out of there!