What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

marksman1941 said:

I think of all the tales so far, this one left me most vicariously terrified

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Funny how people interpret things differently. While that would have been absolutely adrenaline fueled scary for me, the stories about weird things that experienced outdoorsmen either can't see or explain just creep me the heck out. Especially as I walk into the woods in the dark, so thanks for THAT, guys

Mark37082 said:

@Muddyboots - I'm sure you have experienced some spooky things while on a hunt. Maybe a time or two when you accidentally stepped on a covey of quail and took out the entire covey.

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Ok, NEVER told anyone of this incident. Hunting Adirondacks early 20's, ok wise guys my age, not the roaring twenties, which was long time ago. Out of fingers and toes counting how long ago. I left hunting camp to hunt solo since nobody wanted to make the trek in so far well before daylight. This was way before GPS so it was compass to stay on course. I get about 1/4 mile from the meadow that I never hunted before and stopped. Something told me to lay up. No sounds. Dark in Adirondacks is can't see hand. I have no idea why I stopped and turned my flashlight off. I listen. Absolutely nothing. I mean no rustling of mice, no night birds, no owls. DEAD quiet. Then I see a glow, then a large brilliant white light soundlessly rises up out of the meadow and disappeared into sky. No visible shape just brilliant white light. I am dead serious about this. I sat there on a log, light off and shaking so freaking hard for quite a while. Dawn broke, I stood up and went back to camp. I never went to meadow to check and NEVER went back to that meadow to hunt. Never told anyone of this until this thread hit a nerve.

Swamp gas my butt.

This didn't happen to me, but to my brother. He was a fishing guide on Lake Illamna, Alaska. I'm sure I spelled the lake wrong. But to the story. He and another guide had four days between clients and decided to go into the Katmi monument area to fish a river there. They fished for about ten hours the first days and went up stream a mile or do and made camp on a bluff above the river. Weather was good so they just put sleeping pads and bags out on the tundra in front of the tent. It never really gets dark in the summer, so, after about four hours of sleep my brother woke up with his friend screaming, Mike, Mike, brown bear! They were sleeping about six feet apart and when my brother set up a brown bears butt and as in his face. It wad biting chunks out of his buddies sleeping bag. The guy screamed really loud and the bear jumped away beside the tent. It's now eight feet away and staring at my brother. He had a 870 pump beside his bag and slowly picked it up. The bear wolfed at him, that's when the first slug hit the bear in the center of it's chest. It ran off with Mike firing at several times. He got his friend calmed down enough to go get into the boat and run up stream where the bear ran into the willow brush. When the boat hit the bank the bear roared and charged. Mike says it was lucky shot, but his first shot as it charged hit between the eyes. Lights out. The guy who was in the bag about to a human taco had a 44 mag hand gun in the bag with him. He was so scared he forgot about it. They had to leave everything as it was and go out and get the G and F officials to come look at what happened. There was no hunting allowed in the Katmi. This is a whole different level of scared. I have one of the claws. My brothers nickname there was bear bait!

Muddyboots said:

Ok, NEVER told anyone of this incident. Hunting Adirondacks early 20's, ok wise guys my age, not the roaring twenties, which was long time ago. Out of fingers and toes counting how long ago. I left hunting camp to hunt solo since nobody wanted to make the trek in so far well before daylight. This was way before GPS so it was compass to stay on course. I get about 1/4 mile from the meadow that I never hunted before and stopped. Something told me to lay up. No sounds. Dark in Adirondacks is can't see hand. I have no idea why I stopped and turned my flashlight off. I listen. Absolutely nothing. I mean no rustling of mice, no night birds, no owls. DEAD quiet. Then I see a glow, then a large brilliant white light soundlessly rises up out of the meadow and disappeared into sky. No visible shape just brilliant white light. I am dead serious about this. I sat there on a log, light off and shaking so freaking hard for quite a while. Dawn broke, I stood up and went back to camp. I never went to meadow to check and NEVER went back to that meadow to hunt. Never told anyone of this until this thread hit a nerve.

Swamp gas my butt.

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Close encounter of the second kind. That would spook me also.

Rosebud said:

This didn't happen to me, but to my brother. He was a fishing guide on Lake Illamna, Alaska. I'm sure I spelled the lake wrong. But to the story. He and another guide had four days between clients and decided to go into the Katmi monument area to fish a river there. They fished for about ten hours the first days and went up stream a mile or do and made camp on a bluff above the river. Weather was good so they just put sleeping pads and bags out on the tundra in front of the tent. It never really gets dark in the summer, so, after about four hours of sleep my brother woke up with his friend screaming, Mike, Mike, brown bear! They were sleeping about six feet apart and when my brother set up a brown bears butt and as in his face. It wad biting chunks out of his buddies sleeping bag. The guy screamed really loud and the bear jumped away beside the tent. It's now eight feet away and staring at my brother. He had a 870 pump beside his bag and slowly picked it up. The bear wolfed at him, that's when the first slug hit the bear in the center of it's chest. It ran off with Mike firing at several times. He got his friend calmed down enough to go get into the boat and run up stream where the bear ran into the willow brush. When the boat hit the bank the bear roared and charged. Mike says it was lucky shot, but his first shot as it charged hit between the eyes. Lights out. The guy who was in the bag about to a human taco had a 44 mag hand gun in the bag with him. He was so scared he forgot about it. They had to leave everything as it was and go out and get the G and F officials to come look at what happened. There was no hunting allowed in the Katmi. This is a whole different level of scared. I have one of the claws. My brothers nickname there was bear bait!

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Or bear butt face. Or some such ribbing. Got my attention!

marksman1941 said:

Foxes are terrible. I've only heard one. We caught it in a live trap, intending on a raccoon. Trying to release it, the thing made so many noises I was ready to shoot it in the cage just out of spite. Finally we grabbed some 2x12's and made a little chute, popped the gate of the trap, and stood back. That thing came out at Mach 2, hit about 30' and turned around and started screaming at us. It wasn't a great idea for its own health…

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Plus they pee all over everything.

Barehandlineman11 said:

Killed blacktail once when i was 16 got half of him to the truck turned around to go get the rest of him got about half way down the trail came face to face with cat that was following my trail. I think we both **** our pants.

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Big cats just plain scare the hell put of me. I've never been able to trust them

I don't think I would ever sleep out on the open tundra just in a sleeping bag.
You guys have caused my hairs to stand up. I've had encounters with raccoons and Texas hornets that put the fear of my demise in me. Brown bears, mountain lions, snakes, and aliens make my encounters seem trivial.

I've got another adventure about Bear Bait that he said was the most scared he had ever been. The one he shot happened so fast he didn't have time to be scared. But this one went on for some time. I don't want to monopolize this, so I'll leave it to you guys. Let me know if you're up for another Alaska adventure.

Allen Kitts said:

We were turkey hunting in Eastern Montana along the Tongue River, we had gotten to the camp site about ten that night. We set up camp and got the trailer all situated for the three day hunt. It was about midnight and we were just sitting in the camper BS'ing when there was a knock at the door. We were pretty far out in the boonies so I grabbed my pistol and my buddy checked the door. He said there is someone out there. I pulled the hammer back on the 357 and he slowly opened the door. There was a guy standing there and just off the cuff like he had known us all his life asked if we had any coffee brewing. We looked at each other like you gotta be f'ing kidding me. We told him no, that we were getting ready to hit the sack and he said well you just never know unless you ask and then let out the loudest, longest, eeriest laugh I had ever heard, then turned around and walked off into the darkness. We never heard a car engine start-up. light drive away or nothing. Needless to say I laid wide awake with the pistol at my side and in the middle of the bed, so not to put myself to close to the outer walls, for the rest of the night. Luckily the next day we killed our Turkeys and headed home. Scary stuff when you out in the middle of nowhere and someone walks up on your trailer in the middle of the night. Felt like one of those Hill have eyes kind of things.

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I always felt that at at the core, human beings are the most dangerous creatures out there. They have emotion, abilities, and purpose the cannot be accounted for or counted on. This would have made me take notice.

Hey,
Here's my story. I was deer hunting in the UP with my uncle and four cousins. I went out for the evening and decided to go check out a different area. I found a couple deer trails that headed into a cedar swamp. So I sat myself up against a huge stump with a little clearing in front close to the swamp. I was hunting that night with a TC Contender in 30 Herrett. After a couple hours I finally hear something coming. It's getting closer, but I can't see it. I'm starting to think maybe it's just a squirrel. Then I finally see movement, it's only about 35-40 yards away. First thought, that's weird. Then I realized it's a Lynx. It's coming at me, it does a little like half circle around me and then takes off at high speed. It's in the swamp, I can't see it, then it just starts screaming. Crazy sounds, someone in an earlier text mentioned cats make some weird noise, that's a definite! After all the noise, I figured I'm not going to see any deer tonight. I don't have any other things to do so I stayed right there. It was about 15 minutes before dark and it was so quiet. I heard a tiny sound like a mouse moving a leaf behind me. Something told me to take a look, I rolled onto my right elbow and turned my head. Face to face with the Lynx. I hollered, it took about three jumps away and a leap about 12 feet onto the side of a tree. I did put the crosshairs of the scope on it and then just watched it take off. I've had a lot of people tell me it wasn't a Lynx, just a bobcat. But I know what the heck a Lynx is. I've seen quite a few of them here in AK.
This is a pretty good thread, I'm enjoying the reading.
Take Care

bamban said:

It was 1980, the 1st time I hunted on my buddy's section. We got there after a 5 hour drive after work. Did not have time to scout the place that night. The following morning he dropped me off at one of the corner fence lines. With me was just with my shooting stool, M1a, 1911, and backpack, forgot my flashlight. It was still pitch dark when left me by myself.

As the light starts to break I was seeing figures straight from the corner. Mind you, his place is near Laredo. He mentioned there were frequent Coyote traffic through his place, both 4 and 2 legged kind.

I was hunting with irons, so no help with optics to discern what the human like figures were, but they were not moving.

I switched the M1a mag from 10 to 20, and patiently waited. As the sunrise became more prominent everything became clear... He put me in the corner overlooking their family cemetery. Those human like figures were of religious figures.

He never told me that I would be facing the family cemetery from the corner.


2nd one, on the same ranch
He dropped me off at mid point of a long fence like overlooking a wide open field.

At about mid morning he drove by to pick me up. We'll, it was nice cold morning, he drove up as I just woke up from a nap, backpack for a pillow, but still on the ground.

He warned me not to take naps on the ground on cold days, as I may wake with a rattler warming up next to me.

I waved him off and I will just walk back to the ranch house. Sat back against the fence again with hope to see something before I started walking. Well, I did see something. No more than 5 feet from where I sat on the ground, a dang rattler crossed the fence. I hate rattlers. I grabbed the 1911 and emptied all 8 rounds on that thing.

I never took a nap on the ground ever since.

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I really dont like snakes. All types. At all. Not one little bit.

lancetkenyon said:

I had a surprising encounter one time. Not spooky, but shocking...and cool.

A buddy and I rode in on horseback into a winderness area to archery deer hunt.
We hunted until completely dark, and let the horses have their head on the trail coming back out in the pitch dark. We kept our faces down and hats covering due to mesquite and palo verde branches.
About halfway back, my horse just stopped dead. Would not take a spur to move or anything. I flipped on my headlamp, and my horse was nose-to-nose with a big mule deer buck on the trail. About 1 second later, that buck blew up and was gone! My horse just started back up amd never missed a beat the rest of the way back.

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Lucky you didn't get thrown.

C-130 Dude said:

I always felt that at at the core, human beings are the most dangerous creatures out there. They have emotion, abilities, and purpose the cannot be accounted for or counted on. This would have made me take notice.

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I know a gentleman from my former church who had a terrifying experience at the hands of a malevolent human while hunting. Heard a round zip right past his head before the delayed distant kaboom. Figured it must have been an accident or something and didn't want to "accidentally" get shot if someone was plinking at the brush pile he was hiding in, so he stood up and started shouting and waving his orange hunting toque around like a flag…he gave that psycho too much benefit of the doubt. Heard another round zip VERY close to him and smack into the pile of logs behind him. At this point he took off running to get around the brush pile or out of sight anyway. He was armed with a hunting rifle of his own but had absolutely no idea where the shots where coming from beyond a general direction and wasn't interested in finding out.

Sprinted flat out all the way through the bush until he got to his vehicle and drove the hell out of there as fast as he could. As he was running he heard multiple gunshots and the whizzing of bullets in his vicinity, seeing one blow up the snow a few feet away from him.

Either someone who wasn't a very good shot was legit trying to kill him or an absolute psychopath who was a good shot was deliberately barely missing for some sick thrill of being able to watch his terror through a riflescope. Filed full report. Never did figure out who the hell did that or why.

I agree, bears and cougars and wolves are awe inspiring and can be frightening but nothing even close to a human being with evil in their heart. Animals are just animals…they're not inherently good or evil, they just are what they are. Some people believe humans are no different…I have a suspicion that these people haven't encountered human evil (or good, that exists too) in a malicious enough form…yet.