Prey or Pray

[erussell]

Couple of stories to raise the pucker factor a little when your walking to your stand in the dark, enjoy!!

http://www.brothersofthebow.com/PRAY_OR_PREY_Edited.htm

[sweet old bill]

I had one year in the rain, dark, prior to first light several yotes come by me in a ground blind chasing a deer. It sure got the hair on my neck up....

[erussell]

I had one year in the rain, dark, prior to first light several yotes come by me in a ground blind chasing a deer. It sure got the hair on my neck up....

Same here, in the dark walking in had a whole pack of yotes run right up to me and start growling. I almost craped my pants trying to load the 270 in the dark. Luckily all the noise I was making loading my gun and digging around in my pack looking for a flashlight chased them off. Though one kept just ahead of me and would bark ever so often to keep the hairs up on my neck. Luckily we dont have wolves here might have ended differently. My worst nightmare would be to run into an ornery bear in the dark. With all the bears I see every yr I think its just a matter of time.

[growalot]

Good read

[Geno C]

wow that was a great read... i enjoyed it

[burmjohn]

Im afraid to click the link.

Sent from my DROID RAZR

[erussell]

I dont think I will be hunting in Montana alone anytime soon. Just the Grizz story would keep me out of the woods there. Pretty funny shooting him with a blunt tipped arrow and just making him madder.

[Geno C]

seems they have all sorts of things that can kill you and stalk you out that way, yikes

[erussell]

₂₀₀₄

_{8 January. (Attacks #12 and 13; death #6) 35-year-old Mark Jeffrey Reynolds, an amateur mountain bike racer, was reported as being killed by a mountain lion sometime after 1:25 p.m. at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in southern Orange County. His bicycle was later found with the chain unbroken, but off the sprockets. Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, speculated that Mark was attacked as he was fixing his bike.}

_{However, the autopsy results apparently show no damage to his neck at all, or any damage indicative of an actual attack that caused his death.}

_{The speculation that fits the facts best is that Mark had a heart attack while riding his bike, fell off his bike, causing the chain to fall off the sprockets. The cougar then simply scavenged him while he was dead on the ground. Unfortunately, as is typically the case for lion feeding, the heart was missing, so we'll never know for sure if he did have a heart attack.}

_{Later the same day, Anne Hjelle, 30, of Santa Ana, a former Marine who works as a fitness instructor, was jumped by the same mountain lion. Anne was attacked a short distance down the trail from Mark's body, which was not visible to her, while she was riding her mountain bicycle. The lion jumped her from a slight rise (~4 feet) on the right hand side of the trail, from under some high brush. The lion quickly had Anne's face in its mouth, despite the presence of Anne's helmet. Her riding companion, Debi Nicholls, was about 30 feet behind Anne and witnessed the attack. Debi threw her bike at the mountain lion, to no avail, then grabbed Anne's legs and screamed as the lion dragged both of them 30 feet down the slope into the brush. The lion kept attacking Anne, alternating between her helmet, face and neck. The screams brought Nils Magnuson, 33, of Long Beach, and Mike Castellano to the scene, who called 911 and scared off the mountain lion by throwing rocks at it.}

_{Anne was airlifted to Mission Hospital. Her condition was initially critical, was upgraded from serious as of early 9 January, and to fair as of 10 January.}

_{Nils was nearby since he had just found Mark's bicycle, and was about to look for Mark. (Mountain bikers crash fairly frequently, so finding a crashed bicycle is not an unusual occurrence. It is customary to stop and render aid to crashees.) After this attack, Mark's body was found dead higher on the trail than where Anne was attacked. Mark had apparently been dead for some hours, and his body had been half-eaten and partially buried, typical of a mountain lion kill.}

_{Later that night, Sheriff's deputies shot and killed a healthy 3- to 4-year-old, 110-122 pound male lion, which was spotted 50 yards from the man's body. Initial tests found human skin tissue, and portions of a human lung and liver in the lion's stomach, which were confirmed later to match Mark's DNA. No fibers from Anne's clothing, nor any slivers from her helmet, were found in the initial examination, but later DNA tests matched Anne to the blood on one of the lion's claws. Curiously, no deer hairball was found in the lion.}

• _{In California, from 1986 through 1998, exactly two people died from mountain lion attacks, whereas in one year alone, over 4,000 people died in traffic accidents, including 800 pedestrians. This means that your car or someone else's car is ~2,000 times more likely to kill you than is a mountain lion. (A Detailed Calculation gives the ratio as between 1,150 and 4,300.)}
  
• _{Over 300 people have been killed by domestic dogs in the U.S. between 1979 and the late 1990s. This means that your family dog or your neighbor's dog is ten times more likely to kill you than is a mountain lion and hundreds of time more likely than is a coyote.}
  

Edited September 20, 2012 by erussell

[damore81]

Got to my treestand one morning and climbed up to the top and found a porky in my seat. Not sure but I think we both crapped ourselves!

[Pygmy]

I've been on a few hunts in grizzly country. On one of my Alaska hunts, an unguided Supercub drop for caribou, my party saw 13 grizzlies between the four of us on a ten day hunt.

Although none of us ever had a hostile encounter with a bear, it sure does trigger the old "pucker reflex" when you hear something shuffling around your tent in the middle of the night and know that there is nothing between you and IT except a little piece of nylon fabric.

On some hunts we brought a short barreled shotgun as a "tent gun" and usually a couple of us ( like me) slept with a handgun under our pillows. On hunt a with a smaller weight limit like the supercub drops,we could not afford the luxury of an extra firearm but we always had a rifle in the tent. We just hoped that if the unthinkable happened and a bear DID come inside the tent, he didn't grab the guy with the GUN...

[erussell]

Another hair raising Bar hunting storie from the Wensels.

http://www.brothersofthebow.com/Bear_with_Me_on_This_One.htm

[ELMER J. FUDD]

Good read. It was my son's bedtime story last night.

[erussell]

That guy is a few short of a short stack if you know what I mean. I wouldnt have moved from that tree till a guide with a gun showed up!!!