Scary hunting encounters or happenings?

[Robinson446]

any of you have any scary hunting stories that happened too you? like a bear walking up on you and you didnt have your gun next to you or some creepy things that you still dont know what it was? like to  hear them...

[DeerStalker22]

A few years back, when i was still new to hunting, I was involved in a drive with my father and a few close freinds of his. the drive had ended and i felt it was a good time go do my duty in the woods, so i sat there with the gun up against the tree and my guard off, when suddenly I heard an animal running  behind me. Not thinking i turned and pulled up my pants only to see a mature black bear running at me.  I didint know what to do as i was young, so i stood there and watched the bear run at me.  the Bear eventually stoped about 3 feet away from me.  I was so scared and didnt know what to do I just raised the gun and shot.  Thank God the bear wasn't hungry

[erussell]

I was stalking throught the woods with my bow and to make a long storie short came upon a black bear who ran off. As I didn't want to go in the same direction as him I went another only to turn around and see the bear following me. I kept an eye on him. He decided to charge and I pulled my bow back and pointed it at him and yelled which made him stop. Since there was no season at the time I didn't shoot, we just stood there looking eachother over. He turned and walked back the other way clapping his jaws and I let down and headed for the car with this bear in tow at 30 yrds the whole way. I tell you he's lucky I was very close a couple of times to punching the trigger while we were staring each other down. If he had taken a couple of more steps I would have stuck him. I dozed off one time and awoke to the sound of brush breaking to my right and snapped right awake and raised my muzzleoader and looked to the right and there was a massive bear standing there at 15 yrds looking at me. I just placed the cross hairs right between his eye's and asked in a loud voice what he wanted and he turned inside out getting out of there   Nearly shat myself both times. Another time I was on a Doe day hunt on Fort Polk in LA. Well apparently every hill billy in the state came out for it to. And since appernently you can hunt with semi auto with 30 round clips down there it sounded like WWII. I had a doe come through doing a hundred miles an hour ,presenting no shot, and left to my right. All of the sudden about a 100yrds to my right someone let loose with a 30 rnder. I could hear the bullets burning through the woods in front of me. I hit the ground and started yelling and the shooting stopped. And I left the wood's in a hurry. ??? Another time I was in my stand and heard a hell of a raucous right next to my head and whipped my head around to see a red tail hawk back peddling in my face. Glad he didnt land on me and sink his talons in 

[fasteddie]

Back in the 60's , I was invited to a group hunt at a ex high school classmates huge farm . There was about 20 of us and we had a big breakfast first . We were split into 2 teams ( posters and drivers ) . It was bucks only back then . One team posted and the others drove . Then we would switch .

On about the 3rd drive we were walking through a large woods about 50 yards apart . A buck bolted and ran from in front of us heading toward us . I was carrying my shotgun at port arms and swung it up and over towadrs the buck as he was past us . I saw the guy who had been to my left swinging his shotgun horizontally following the deer in his sights . My heart stopped momentarily . Afterward , I thought , what if he had pulled the trigger while the buck was between us . It gave me a queezy feeling . I told my friend that I didn't feel well and had to leave thanking him for the opportunity to hunt on his property .

I have not done any deer drives since then except for a a few 2 person drives with my son or sister in law .

[phade]

First time ever hunting. Ever.

Sat about five-10 feet under a perched turkey and I didn't know. When that thing came down...I about lost it.

Hunted in an overgrown 4-5 acre homestead in VA amongst thousands of acres of a wooded tract that had a graveyard. Pretty creepy when the fog rolled in. Apple trees in there were still dropping and that homestead had to be 100-150 yo...great spot. Just lifted your hair a bit from time to time.

[hunter49]

Deerstalker, did you do your duty before or after you s@#t your pants? lol

[DeerStalker22]

Im pretty sure itit was throughout the whole experience.  I was so scared that I couldnt even reload my muzzleloader.

[Lawdwaz]

I've had a few sporty times in the field.  Had a sow bear run her cubs up a tree in PA 15 years ago.  Oh, it was 4:15am and I was heading up to a gobbler I roosted the night before.  I was just about to the top of the knob when I heard some scratching noises on the bark of a nearby tree.  Pointed the MiniMag towards the sound, 10 yards away and saw 3 little hair balls scurrying up the tree.  Momma was VERY close, I heard her woof once and she started to circle around be.  Well, as good a time as any to load the 870.  I

I thought about what to do for about 1.2 seconds and started to head back down towards the truck.  I figured the bear might slip in the trail I was leaving if she choose to follow!  I got to the bottom and headed up the other side of the valley and could hear those cubs bawl for at least two hours.

I did kill a bird later that morning, a Jake.  Bears suck.

Had another time in PA that we almost died in a boating accident on opening day of buck season, in the dark, freezing spray, breaking ice to get back across the Tioga River, water in the boat, heavy clothes, guns, three guys and a spiker.  Never mind, you get the idea......................

[Fantail]

Squirrel hunting in the Trail of Tears area S. Ill a few years ago.*

Took a break against a tree for maybe 30 or so minutes, got ready to get up - looked down and just 2 & 1/2 feet directly in front of me is a Diamondback Rattler the size of a spare tire - all neatly coiled up and tasting the air. Head on that thing was wide as a baseball bat.

Life before my eyes moment. Not sure how I didn't litteraly piss myself, but I lowered the 25mn barrel like it was supposta help and slowly backed out of there. Meanwhile this snake must have decided I wasn't lunch. Frackin do not like snakes, somehow that one got that close and the drop on me.

*Bunch of rimfire squirrel hunters used to get together form all over the country.

[erussell]

Iv'e got 2 snake stories from Louisiana to. First one was gun hunting with a buddy, I was walking down this trail and it was really windy and you really couldn't hear anything. I heard what sounded like a leaf blowing in the wind and looked down just in time to see a rattlesnake strike at my boot. I jumped back and leveled the 300wm I had borrowed from my friend at the snake and blew him into a thousand pcs. My friend got a good laugh out of it but it scared the crap out of me. And then bow hunting one time I was walking down this trail to my stand and a tree had been blown down across the trail. I had to straddle the tree to get over it and when I put my foot over I felt something wack the bottom of my boot. I yanked my legs up and looked on the other side of the tree and there was a copper head sitting under the tree. I climbed up onto the tree and made my way down the trunk to the roots and after looking on the ground to make sure everything was clear I went over and looked at the snake from a distance. Had to be a 4 footer. Another time I was scouting with a friend and it was an unusually cold morning. We were walking down a deer trail checking things out and looked ahead where the sun was on the trail and there were 2 copperheads curled up on the trail getting warm, so we went back the other way. I jumped down in a small creek and up the other side. I looked back and my friend is standing there white as a ghost and he say's are you crazy and points down into the creek and there inches from my foot print is a huge water-moccasin curled up. luckily it was to cold for him to move.  

[growalot]

One turkey season I was sitting in a ground blind I had brushed in....I was waiting for it to get light out and the usual mice and chip monks were scurrying over my legs ...when some thing didn't sound right...but it was too dark to really see well ..... so I brought my browning up and leaned it on the logs next to me.... and took the safety off...about then over the front of the blind popped 2 sets of pointed ears and 2 sets of beady eyes...I swung the gun so fast and shot it scared me!...For I had 2.... 20-25 # raccoons climbing into that little blind with me...I heard a little scream then silence...and it was still too dark to see where they were...so I sat...as it got light...I could see the 2 raccoons one 10ft away and the other nearly as far...dead as can be...One shot ...two raccoons...Mr B. called and said I heard you shoot...little early!? ...You get one ...I said yes a 50 pounder ...Then told him what happened

[rock]

i had the same thing happen with a black bear erussell i was on the ground getting ready to put my bow on the string to pull it up good thing i had a arrow knocked i alway walk to my stand with one knocked a pissed off huge black bear charged me i turned and drew at the same time hitting him at about 5 yards he ran right to the right of me with in 10' this was this year.. i think we are in for more encounters around here as males look for new teritory kind of scares me haveing young kids

[FULLDRAWXX75]

Well, lets see....................I have been nearly shot twice, Once three deer ran between me and another hunter I didn't know, he opened up on them and hit the tree I was standing next to twice. The second time a whole group of hunters were standing outside of camp waiting to split up for drives, when the camp owners girlfriend touched off a round into the ground directly between my feet at 10 ft. (she loaded up her 30-30 Win. and while easing off the hammer it slipped and dropped on the firing pin) 4" left or rt. and she'd of shot my foot off.

Back when I first started hunting, maybe the second or third season, I had a morning watch that used to take me about 45 mins to an hr. to get to, so I would leave the house real early and walk to it in the dark. One morning I was running late and high tailing it along trying to make up time...................I rounded the corner off the log road into a field, there was big Scotch Pine on the corner, well it was dark and me makin' time............there were three turkeys roosted in that pine, I rounded the corner and they took off, sounded like three Apache helicopters.......................I damn near had a heart attack right there on the spot.

I have one more good one, but have to go eat my dinner now.....................................more details later.

FDXX75

[Dinsdale]

Troubling to me with the getting shot at stories; been scoped a few times and that sets me right off.......

Not exactly "scary" but the closest call while hunting, almost got run over.

I am trying to hunt all 9 pig species of the world(SCI list);I've taken 5 so far.These are most often targets of opportunity on other hunts,I am specifically targeting each one.

The Bushpig hunt I did out of a temporary blind at night in a thorn bush area. Pigs come; you glass for the white of the tusks...... if you see a the glint off a good tusked male, Bang!

Over one week we would hunt the morning and afternoon, getting some sleep during the mid day heat, and a few hours from 2am til 5am when we were up again for the next day. Everynight getting to the blind by 6pm til the early morning hours when the truck would be called to pick us up.

Our blind was between two thorn trees with piles of brush in front and behind,between the trees we tied a pole for a rifle rest,maybe 8' apart. A few camp chairs to sit in and a clear window was ahead with a good view to where we hoped pigs might come from. Pigs came in every night but one, but never a real good male,so for 7 days we pounded the same schedual....til' the last night in camp.

Around 11pm some pigs came, but no shooter yet.Again at 1am,we hear pigs but before we check them they scurry off, and we can hear noise to our right. Herd of Cape Buffalo are feeding right down the flat we are on, coming right at us. Maybe 50 animals, mostly cows and calves.The wind is to our face, so they have yet to catch us. By the time they wind us the herd has us surrounded on three sides.One cow gets our blind material of thorny brush tangled up in her legs while behind us about 3 yds away. And she winds us sitting there, and lets out a few bellows.

All hell breaks loose when the herd turns to run back the way they came.In the black all we see are glints off the horns and their backs occasionally. One comes close enough running to hook the tree limb to my right shoulder with her horns and snaps it off, leaving the rifle rest pole at my feet. My PH is a big dude and the whole time is squeezing my leg telling me to sit still! Like I'm going somewhere?

The whole episode lasted just a few minutes, but seemed in slow motion.

With all the commotion, we are sure to be busted, and radio for the truck to pick us up. We sit there in the now quiet bush and as luck would have it,a lone big male Bushpig turns up by our bait as we can hear the truck in the distance. I snapped a shot off without a hesitation.....last minute of the hunt.....

Walking in to the blind area first night, group of young bulls;

An old male Bushpig;

[Lawdwaz]

Damn, that will get your attention.  Send them there bulls MY way! ;D

[Larry]

The scariest thing that happened to me while hunting is that I ran into BIGFOOT. We scared the crap out of each other. He went running toward the road, and was hit by a station wagon speeding down the road. Here the weird thing the people in the car got out and somehow got him up on the roof of the car. Then they took off down the road.

[ELMER J. FUDD]

The scariest thing that happened to me while hunting is that I ran into BIGFOOT. We scared the crap out of each other. He went running toward the road, and was hit by a station wagon speeding down the road. Here the weird thing the people in the car got out and somehow got him up on the roof of the car. Then they took off down the road.

pure gold! bravo!

[Caveman]

I've never been charged by a bear but the weirdest thing I've experienced was on some state land outside of Albany last year. Before I start I want to say I'm not the type of person who jumps to irrational conclusions or is crazy about the paranormal. I was sitting with my back against a tree watching a stand of trees. To my left was a stand of pines so thick you couldn't see more than 10 feet into them and in front of them a muddy path carved out for snowmobiles in the winter. I was just starting to get bored and thinking about doing a little still hunting when I heard a faint clip-clop sound almost like hooves to pull me back to reality. It started to get louder so I turned my head to look and about 40 yards away on that trail there was a horseback rider. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been strange, it was a rural area after all. But something seemed off. He was dressed in all navy blue and I remember thinking it looked like the uniforms the civil war actors were wearing when I went to ghettysburg in 5th grade and he had what looked like a mil-surp rifle slung over his shoulder. But his face really creeped me out, his expression was blank, emotionless, ironically he looked like he had seen a ghost.

At this point I'm kind of ticked off that this guy rode through and ruined my hunt so I whistled to let him know I was there, he didn't react at all. Now I figured I'd get up and follow him, give him a piece of my mind. He turned and went around that stand of pines following the trail while the clip-clop of his horse faded. I turned the corner he had turned and there was nothing. I could still hear the hooves and like I said, I don't jump to illogical conclusions so I figured he was just out of sight somewhere. So I looked down to find a track to follow him by. That's the first my mind drifted to anything but rational explanations. There were no tracks. I weight 180 pounds and I was leaving clear impressions in the mud, you can't tell me an 800 pound horse didn't. I looked everywhere and could not cut one track. Nothing in the mud, nothing in the dirt, no wet prints on the large rocks that dotted the trail. I searched a 30 yard diameter circle and nothing. At this point I was getting a little freaked out so I decided to head to another spot and put it out of my mind. The problem is when I crossed the next ridge I came across a headstone less than 100 yards of where i had been sitting. (Partridge Run is known to have at least 2 cemeteries and multiple lone headstones scattered about dating back as far as the revolutionary war) The only thing I could make out in the faded stone was Capt. (illegible name) and underneath it birth and death dates, the death date being smack in the middle of the American Civil War. Needless to say I was out of the woods well before dark that day.

To this day I won't say I saw a ghost, but I honestly can't explain what I experienced. I consider myself a very skeptical person but this episode pushed me to the verge of belief. I think I'd rather be charged by a bear.

[132 eight pointer]

That's just creepy. I don't know if I would want to go back. You need to find out the name on the headstone and research him.

[Caveman]

The funny thing is the next week I ran into a Forest Ranger on the way in (checked tagged and licenses etc) and after I told him about the headstone I found, but not the rider. I asked if he knew anything about the person buried there, and he said the Byrne town historian was actually doing some research at the request of a group of hunters from the year prior.

The funny part is he said the hunters were acting strange, like something had happened but they were afraid to talk about it.

[Jennifer]

My story is sadly another story where the scary part is other people...

I was 16 and my first year big game hunting with my dad. Back then tree stands weren't always as safe as they are today and my dad was worried that I'd have trouble with his safe tried-and-true climber (he was probably right, I'm a skinny thing) so we did a lot of still hunting. There was a good foot of snow on the ground and we were hunting a side-hill on a property that we had permission to hunt. We couldn't take doe so when a big doe came up and stood broadside to us 15 yards away we could only admire her. She wasn't paying us any mind, instead, she was watching the road and houses way below, where a school bus was dropping kids off at the farmhouses below. She kept glancing down at the houses, then behind her, back and forth, and we were watching behind her too, in case a buck was following behind her and was just catching up. She stood there for some time when all of a sudden there was a chorus of firearms touching off, and the sound of slugs slapping up through the woods toward us! Anyone that's heard a deer slug slapping through the beech brush knows what I'm talking about. One struck nearby, and several more whistled past us. The doe took off, with more slugs following her, and my dad practically tossed me behind a large tree before hollering down the hill at the kids shooting. Needless to say they tore back off down toward the houses.

As my first year out deer hunting as a kid myself, it left me really shaken and the scene will always be in my memory.

The terrible part of this story is that my dad and I dress head to ankle in blaze orange, and if those kids could see the deer they certainly should have been able to see two tall people in blaze orange.

[132 eight pointer]

I've heard that sound.That is why I like bowhunting -I haven't had an arrow fly past me yet

[Pygmy]

Yeah, those rifled slugs make a NASTY buzz as they go by. You can even hear them COMING...

Actually, the scariest thing that ever happened to me was when I fell asleep in my stand and dreamed that I was still married to my ex-wife. I woke up and was about slash my wrists with my Buck knife when I realized it was just a dream.

Horrifying experience...I'll tell you, that was the last time that I'll eat a double order of marshmallow cream corn willie fritters before I climb into my stand !

[biggamefish]

I was walking in to a new stand on property that we hunted for years. It was still dark out and I knew there were people in that area that hunted to so I was softly whistling to make some human noise incase i happened apon someone. It was getting to be that time of day when you can see but not really. As I cleared some brush I caught some movement then I noticed that a guy was crouched down with his pistol drawn in my direction. (Like right at me) When I saw him and he saw me we were about 15 yards or less.

I blew up at him and he blew up at me blah blah. Needless to say I was out of there because I didn't need to hunt around anybody like that. I am glad he didn't have a happy trigger finger.

[JimmyDaSavage]

Walking to my spot in the dark for me is creepy enough. Then when you hear random running and coyotes howling close by is enough to make me pick up my pace lol.