Twilight Zone Hunt

[roy reali]

My dog and I went to do some bird hunting this morning. It was a strange experience.

I was walking on one side of a ditch and my dog was on the other. All of a sudden she stopped about a dozen feet in front of some brush. She wasn't pointing, but she wasn't moving either. Something in front of her had her curiousity up. I crossed the ditch to investigate.

There was a badger, on the ground, ten or so feet in front of my dog. I couldn't tell weather it was alive or not. It was laying on its belly and no blood could be seen. I assume it was fine. I put my dog on heel and we slowly walked away from it. I did bring my gun to the ready if I needed to shoot. The problem is that I had my twenty gauge and it was loaded with low-base eights.I have no idea why this thing didn't attack my dog. I am thankful it didn't, but I'm still curious.

We continued to hunt in another area. Then we were walking down this dirt road towards my car. I could see a deer standing on the same road, right on our path, about a hundred yards up. It was looking straight at us. We continued to walk towards it. The deer continued to look our away. I figured that as soon as it realized what we were, it would high tail it into the brush.

The distance betwen the deer and us was getting shorter and shorter. I finally noticed antlers on him. He seemed to be starring mainly at the dog. My dog also noticed the deer. At about fifty feet distance I am starting to wonder if the badgers around here are friendly and the deer are vicious. Again, all I have is a twenty loaded with bird shot. He finally took off when we were about twenty feet from him.

This morning's hunt was one of the most bizzare ones I've been on in awhile.

[williamd]

Came face to face with a mule deer during rut one fall as I was hunting grouse. I had already filled my deers tags. I decided this was fun and would see how close I could get. At about 25 yards he lowered his head and made grunt sounds. I wondered if he was going run at me or mount me! I carry slugs for hairy things so snapped the gun open to load a slug. The metallic sound brought the buck to alert, he spun and bounded away. I decided I was dumb but lucky.

Badgers are not usually nice customers if corned. If not corned most move away. Did shott a coyote off my Brittany once. Holding her collar while I literally put the bbl against him. Have a pic of her bandaged face! I was hunting chukars in cold, windy conditions so I had gotten behind a tree and blew a chukar call. Immediate coyote! Gonna have bird for breakfast, I suppose. He was so close he reacted by attacking. A 20g shotgun at 0" range does not hurt the pelt too much!

[king.460]

Will do it every time...