oddest(strangest)thing you`ve experienced while hunting

[Jack O'Conner]

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

[Freakdaddy]

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"!

[45Marlin carbine]

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!.

[birdshot]

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.

[hogdogs]

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

[Wyldman]

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.

[support_six]

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.

[BurkGlocker]

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...

[UniversalFrost]

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.

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).

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).


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/sc...syahoo&emc=rss

[shortwave]

Universal, awesome story. That would be eeery! What a beautiful animal.

[UniversalFrost]

yes, and I hope to see more, but the sightings are a once in a lifetime thing sadly. The friggin mexicans still shoot these beautiful cats. I have no problem with the 4 legged illegals coming across the border , it's the 2 legged variety that leave trash all over the place and break into folks houses along the border, etc...

Me, I think the jaguars, bears and wolves that are coming from mexico to NM and AZ are just following an easy food supply of 2 legged illegals that get real tired from wandering in the desert and mt's to cross the border.

If I were to have a say I would gather up the jaguars in mexico and bring them north of the border then build the fence to keep them on the USA side and the 2 legged illegals on the mexican side.

Also, have had a few illegals down here run into some of the local bears and mt lions. I only wish we had more run in's like that so that we would have some fat and happy mt. lions and bears and a few less illegals to suck or country dry.

On another note. I was back up in South Dakota in the early 90's in the spring and was at the archery range at one of the state parks near yankton. They have a nice setup of trails that have varying conditions and then have lifelike targets of deer. This is a great way to practice. I was just approaching a target when all of the sudden a hen turkey busts out of the bushes and starts flapping her wings and scratching me up something fierce. I tried kicking her away but she kept coming and flapping all over me. Finally I took my bow and used it as a club and started whacking her with it just so I could knock her out or something and get the heck out of there. She eventually relented and I got hte heck out of there. Told one of the rangers about the incident and was suprised when he said I was the third guy that day to report the same thing at the same area. Our guess was she had some babies in the area and was just protecting them.

[45Marlin carbine]

great post #59 and thanks for not shooting the Jaguar. just hope he doesn't make a meal from somebody one day! I doubt I would have shot either.

[UniversalFrost]

yeah, I would never shoot one of these beautiful cats unless it was trying to eat me. PLus they are endangered and you would get a huge fine and jail time. Down in mexico they don't enfore the laws and the ranchers (and recently a cop) shoot them. Only reason I chambered a round was the fact that he looked real intent on coming down to meet me up close and I just wanted to be ready "just in case" .

I did leave him some extra meat (backstraps) and made a point of tossing them out in the open away from the guts and so he could see this when I was guttnig the deer since he probably would have passed up the guts anyway and just gone for me and the dead deer when I started to drag the deer away

[hogdogs]

Man, There been some good stories posted. Ya'll got me beat... Not alot of excitement or super stories here.

Universal, That Jag woulda been cool as heck to me as well even with my raised hackles... But that turkey hen woulda caught me well off guard! I am sure I woulda squealed like a blonde cheerleader at first but would have commenced to kick the head off her! I ain't no pro kicker but I woulda punted her with a vengeance that would have thrown my already bad knee out!
Brent

[hogdogs]

Okay mine ain't as cool as some of ya'lls. My most recent...
Was my first time out since I rolled the Jeep cherokee over and mucked up my strong side left arm sumthin good (spelled BAD)... Went hog doggin' with my 18 year old buddy.


I was still far from 100% (still am) but ready to hit the swamps. We were on a 3-4 thousand acre farm. Parked and walked a piece when I let "Deadly", my female catch dog, walk loose since she had settled down. I guess she had been loose near an hour when our curr dogs bayed up solid. Deadly took off full sprint for 400 or more yards, We get in there close and Cody let "Turbo", his catch dog, loose and we find them caught on a 200+ boar hog. I had to help Cody toss it cuz the 2 bulldogs and the hog's intentions to stay upright were resisting the tip. I had the hobbles in the with the tracking system and was having a tough time getting them out. Cody asked if I could hold the hog down. I said I would give it a whirl. I had his low side legs held good so cody went to pulling dogs off to prevent injury to either the dogs or hog as we wanted him alive. He got 3 dogs off and when the 4th one came off that hog slipped out of my left hand with his rear leg and from there it went sour... He stood up and I told Cody who had his back to us that the hog was loose. I thought sure he was gonna come after us but he was lookin' at easy escape so he bolted. I tell cody to release the dogs and as soon as he did we knew it was the wrong move. That hog would either haul the mail outta the county or fight the dogs harder next go 'round. We were HOURS and MILES from the truck before we got to the dogs... they were bayed up on a 200+ sow. We stuck her and gutted her in a clean creek and drug her a couple miles to the truck...
The Boar was well bigger than the sow but all in all it was a great first day back at it...


Brent

[BurkGlocker]

Ah man... turkeys... It wsa my first hunt, I was all of 12 years old. Dad and I were walking to the blind and all we heard was turkeys, and ALOT of them. We got down on the ground, Army crawled to this berm, and there they were. There must have been 500 of these boogers, eating, clucking... JUST EVERYWHERE. So i level off with my .223, squeeze the trigger, and miss. I missed every single one of those turkeys, but that wasnt the kicker, it was when they all took flight, I just stared in amazment. Dad asks me, "You alright boy?" "Yessir, its just that...... I didnt know turkeys could fly..." I NEVER heard my Dad laugh so hard. God I miss that man... RIP Dad...

[hogdogs]

WMH, When Junior seen his first peacock at 14-15 yo he asked the owner if he could pluck a tail feather... Owner says sure if you catch him pull you a few... Ol' junior went into stealth mode... well as stealthy as a big goofy redneck boy does. He really just bent over a bit and tried to sneak up on it. It ran a few feet and junior went running... The look on his face when that bird took flight was priceless! He said "How in the heck can a dopey lookin' bird with 4 foot tail feathers fly so good?"
Brent

[45Marlin carbine]

great comeback story hogdogs good luck with your healing up process.

[BurkGlocker]

LOL hotdogs!!! My buddy's mother had 8 of those noisy devils. He was asleep one morning and that thing lit on his window sill and he threw his boot at it and rolled over and went back to sleep. At about noon he awoke to his mother screaming blue bloody murder. His boot apparently found the mark and killed his mother's favorite bird. Oops!

[hogdogs]

45, Thanks... And to think that around surgery 3 in 5-7 days I was about to ask fer that paper to sign so they could just cut my arm off. At that point I had less than a 50% chance of keeping it and if kept it would be useless...
If I ain't gonna feed a junk dog I didn't want an arm that was more parasite than asset. I have since that hunt, gotten further use but what I really gained that day was more awareness that I had to get creative in those moments and adapt. Today I would put a hobble on that leg and use it to augment my grip.
Brent

[shortwave]

Keep getting stronger hogdogs. sounds like your doing great for what you went through.

[BurkGlocker]

I am new to this forum, but I do extend my well wishes Hotdogs.

[RangerM9]

Well....my cousin was hunting with is this one time....the only time in-fact....he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and has a bit of Attention deficit problem....


so i am up on my stand (big ol pile of hay bales) at the top of the draw...after about 3 hours.....and walk about 200 yards down the draw where my cousin is on his stand......i come around the corner where he is, and find that he has completely disassembled his winchester 70.....i mean every bit that didn't take a hammer to get apart is apart......i just left him them and pushed the draw down to the other standers on my own......

next day he is out with us again.......This is in MT by the way.....and he comes across a BIG BIG Bull snake.....and he pulls out his .40 SW Sig and empties the mag at this snake that was no more than 6 feet from him......and never hit the dang thing!.....of course.....there was not a deer left in the area....the day was over

pick you hunting party well.....

[djonathang]

Story comes from my in-laws.

Apparently some folks were attending a lecture by a biologist at a national park. The biologist was explaining the importance of bear bells. A hand goes up. "How do you get the bells on the bears?"

[xm21]

Great story about the Jaguars!If anyone remembers the Ruger ads in the late eighties that had a beautiful girl holding a rifle,that was Warner Glenn's(the rancher in the story)daughter Kelly Glenn.