What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

[charliewhisky]

I miss opening day of squirrel hunting in N. LA. A friend/coworker told me to hunt his family land on opening day one year. He told me that more than likely nobody would hunt it because it wasn't close to anything. To get there I had to open a locked gate, drive about 1 mile in, and park at a very old family cemetery. Like Civil War era old. That was an interesting place.

Not far from the wrought iron fence of the cemetery the land dropped off into a big hardwood and pine bottom. Some of the trees there were big enough that I couldn't reach more than 1/2 way around them. very old. They were there during the Civil War.

As I walked in I noticed that it was near impossible to be quiet when I walked through the dead ok and hickory leaves. It's easy to be quiet walking on pine needles, you just had to feel the sticks under the needles so they don't crack if you step on them. I found a big pine that was near some smaller pine trees, leaned up against it, and waited for the sound of pine cone seeds hitting the leaves. I'd been there maybe 30m when a deer came by. I heard it coming through the leaves before I saw it so I didn't feel too bad about sounding like a Walrus when I walked in. Not long after a voice very near me said, having an luck. I froze and looked around. Not 3' away there was an old man, wearing old tiger stripe camo, and holding a shotgun. I said no sir, just a deer. He said yup, I followed her in. That man did not make a sound coming or going. I watched him disappear into the woods. I stuck around for an hour or so then left with a few squirrels.

I have never had a problem at night in the woods after two tours in Vietnam. I will admit that I am hyper aware at night and always ready to react to a threat, but I am always calm. I have had a deer step on my feet and a possum try to climp my leg among other encounters . I like the woods at noght. I am scared to death of other hunters, however. The most unnerving episode I have had was during turkey season a few years ago. I had had a hip replaced and was pushing the recovery period too much. I found that I had to get back to the car while I was still able, and the most direct route was through heavy brush and leaves. My exit ruined a nice setup for a couple of guys as I stumbled past them. They were mad and I was apologetic. When I was about fifty yards away one of them fired over my head and I could hear the shot going through leaves above my head. I went prone on instinct and was prepared to fire back but then I realized they were laughing and calling out that I should respect them in the future. I finally decided it was safe to get up and head out. They packed up and caught up to me during the mile walk out on an old road. They thought it was OK to joke around with me on the way out, but I did not trust them, and they probably never realized that I was locked and loaded and ready to pull the whole way out...... Another time I was standing in light brown brush at the bottom of a brown leaf hillside wrapped in an old brown burlap blind waiting for a hog when I heard movement nearby in some heavy new green growth. After a bit two young guys worked their way out toward me with shotguns ready and I just knew that if I moved, one of them would shoot. I waited until they were about ten feet away and facing away before I spoke up. You would have thought I fired the way they jumped..... Another time I'm wearing orange and working my way out through heavy brush when I look up and see some idiot tracking me through his scope from a tree blind and I know I'm three pounds of accidental pressure away from being shot.

 

[DoneNOut]

I have never had a problem at night in the woods after two tours in Vietnam. I will admit that I am hyper aware at night and always ready to react to a threat, but I am always calm. I have had a deer step on my feet and a possum try to climp my leg among other encounters . I like the woods at noght. I am scared to death of other hunters, however. The most unnerving episode I have had was during turkey season a few years ago. I had had a hip replaced and was pushing the recovery period too much. I found that I had to get back to the car while I was still able, and the most direct route was through heavy brush and leaves. My exit ruined a nice setup for a couple of guys as I stumbled past them. They were mad and I was apologetic. When I was about fifty yards away one of them fired over my head and I could hear the shot going through leaves above my head. I went prone on instinct and was prepared to fire back but then I realized they were laughing and calling out that I should respect them in the future. I finally decided it was safe to get up and head out. They packed up and caught up to me during the mile walk out on an old road. They thought it was OK to joke around with me on the way out, but I did not trust them, and they probably never realized that I was locked and loaded and ready to pull the whole way out...... Another time I was standing in light brown brush at the bottom of a brown leaf hillside wrapped in an old brown burlap blind waiting for a hog when I heard movement nearby in some heavy new green growth. After a bit two young guys worked their way out toward me with shotguns ready and I just knew that if I moved, one of them would shoot. I waited until they were about ten feet away and facing away before I spoke up. You would have thought I fired the way they jumped..... Another time I'm wearing orange and working my way out through heavy brush when I look up and see some idiot tracking me through his scope from a tree blind and I know I'm three pounds of accidental pressure away from being shot.

They should have told us as kids that the real monsters in life are people.

 

[Buffalobwana]

Chobe Game Lodge, Botswana, 94. Me and three other guys shut down the bar. Lights out, except for us. Maybe we were a bit loud … I dunno.

3 guys RUN into the bar with Uzis and surround us.

The longest 5 seconds of complete silence in my life.

I say, "Well, I think I'll turn in." Stand up and walk out, while praying I don't get shot in the back.

I'll probably never know what that was about, but it was tense.

 

[TxHeartShot]

Back in high school my little brother and I went out to our place in E Oklahoma to hunt turkeys. we drove a few hours and got there way before daylight, just sitting in the pickup with the windows down. Suddenly a voice says "you got a cigarette?" and I looked up to see two guys dressed all in white standing next to the truck. "Sure...take the pack" and they walked up the two-track toward the gate, stopping once to look back and say something to each other, then went on. Of course we jump out and loaded the shotguns and sat there scared as hell until the sun came up. We killed a few birds, but we kept an eye out for our buddies the whole time.

Hit the road going back to Norman and heard on the radio news that two prisoners had escaped from the penitentiary at McAlester and were at large. We stopped in Holdenville and reported what we saw to the sheriff's office.

Several years later while interviewing for the U. S. Marshals service I told that story. The Chief Deputy in Dallas said, "you're starting out "0 and 1" young man...

 

[slickyboyboo]

Good friend and I were turkey hunting in Colorado, and had set up to do some blind calling mid morning. It was overcast and really still. I caught movement to my left about 60 yds out, but it was just the bushes, didn't think much of it, just thought it was some critter meandering around on the ground, but I kept my eyes peeled. About 10 min later, I look over and there is a mountain lion standing at 15 yds looking dead at me. I told my buddy we got to get up quick guns ready and act big and loud. Counted to 3 and jumped up, and the cat struck out. That cat was as as scared as we were, and evidently our full camo and calling was working well, and it had come in investigating looking for turkeys, and had no clue we were really there. We relocated to a different spot and tagged out the next morning.

 

[Buffalobwana]

Good friend and I were turkey hunting in Colorado, and had set up to do some blind calling mid morning. It was overcast and really still. I caught movement to my left about 60 yds out, but it was just the bushes, didn't think much of it, just thought it was some critter meandering around on the ground, but I kept my eyes peeled. About 10 min later, I look over and there is a mountain lion standing at 15 yds looking dead at me. I told my buddy we got to get up quick guns ready and act big and loud. Counted to 3 and jumped up, and the cat struck out. That cat was as as scared as we were, and evidently our full camo and calling was working well, and it had come in investigating looking for turkeys, and had no clue we were really there. We relocated to a different spot and tagged out the next morning.

I can see this happening! I have a buddy who has been attacked twice by a Bobcat while calling Turkeys.

 

[nwmnbowhunter]

The time an alien spaceship almost got me....

One fall i had been hunting a particular spot across from our farm about a mile. It's a basically wide open atv ride back in the dark. I had made the trip many times and knew the route with my eyes closed.

Well one night on the way back with my mind focused elsewhere...i drive past a small clump of trees and the brightest light flashes right next to me and I believe aliens are about to abduct me. I'm pretty sure I did the Scooby-Doo and shaggy run in place without moving while still holding on to the throttle.... I don't let off the gas and get back to the farm wondering what on earth it was.

I tell my brother and he says," oh yeah, I put a trail cam there earlier today. "

This was the first trail cam we ever had.

 

[Mark37082]

I can't personally relate to mountain lions or bear encounters while hunting. It gives me the shakes just thinking about some of these stories.
I can relate to the human and other encounters while hunting. I do know that permanent tree stands and towers need to be approached with caution and awareness. Two quick encounters come to mind. One was a permanent large stand almost 30' up in a huge popular tree. It was a bit scary just climbing into this stand especially in the dark. Climbed up early and poked my head above the platform to be greeted by a huge raccoon literally a few inches from my face. It hissed and bristled and I surrendered the stand to the coon.
The other encounter was in an old Texas tower blind. Climbed in before daylight and opened up the windows. One was already open. I sat for a few hours without seeing a quality buck. Decided to head back to the truck and started closing the windows (wooden hatches). When lifting the one that was open when I arrived, I heard some buzzing and found there were literally hundreds of the meanest looking huge yellow jackets nesting under the window cover. Thank God it was cold that morning. They were now awake and looking for what was disturbing their nest. Lucky to escape that one.

 

[Critter Picker]

This happened to me in the early 70's. Back then in Minnesota you bought a big game license . You were allowed 1 big game animal, either a deer or a bear.

I was hunting public land and saw this big black blob up in a tree. Looking through the rifle scope (no binoculars with back then) it looked just like a bear. I started towards it keeping an eye on it. I was a couple hundred yards from it,and where could it go?

Got to maybe 100 yards, took a good rest on a tree, slipped off the safety and lined up on the bear,could see the fur plain as day,but couldn't tell exactly how he was sitting up there for a clean kill. Eased the gun down and moved closer. He's in a tree and can't escape,right! Get to 50 yards,find a good rest, line up on him and still can't figure exactly where I need to get the bullet for a clean kill. Ease the gun down again to move closer.

Move up maybe 10 more yards,and step on a twig. The black thing turns around. It was a hunter in a bear coat. No orange at all on. Told him to get his butt out of that tree,gave him a rope and told him to tie that coat to it and drag it out of there. I had just came so close to killing another hunter. Was just shaking, can't believe to this day how dumb some people can be.

 

[6.5x300 WBY]

Evening bow hunt in NJ at one of my normal spots. Didn't see much that Evening, as legal shooting light come and gone I was just getting ready to pack up as I am up 22' in a ladder stand. I hear deer walking toward me so I sit and wait for them to pass by.. after being below me and around me for 5 minutes they suddenly just bolt. So now I am (is it me or yotes). Then a few minutes later all is quiet and I pack up and head back to my truck. I get about 300 yards from my stand and hear something to my right. Flashlight shows 2 pairs of eyes and big yotes about 25 yards away. I'm like ok! Start to make noise now hollering. So continue forward again and Flashlight show 3 pair in front of me more yotes 20 yards away. So getting much more nervous now if that's possible. So I start backing up slowly back to my stand and my Flashlight show 4 sets of eyes. Now I stop and heading left to GOD know where off my trail. But only made it 5 yards and Flashlight finds 2 sets of eyes their too. I'm like oh **** I'm dead with only a crossbow in my hand. So I said F. It I'm heading to my truck. I didn't shoot my bow or anything just made the last 900 yards back to my truck with this pack following me the whole way.
I get to my truck and watch all those yotes take off. I thank the GOOD LORD for allowing me more time. Dont know why they didn't attack as I can't run and my Rheumatoid Arthritis n Fibromyalgia turned me into a much older person than I am. They could of easily and I mean easily taken me out. Not allowed to carry in NJ or situation would of ended way earlier. Told a hunting buddy about that and he said THATS WHY I CARRY WHEN HUNTING. I'm like what. He said happened to me before and I won't get caught like that again.

 

[Short Round]

I have been "lost" once and it was terrifying. Not in a spooky sense, but in a deep, gut wrenching dread sense. I posted a story earlier in the thread about losing a cow elk when I was 17, muzzleloader hunting (my first kill, which was a tough way to start).

So the whole story is this. We went for an evening hunt, drove up to the top of this meadow and walked a little game trail down into the meadow in about 2 feet of snow (trail was churned up from elk). The trail went in a J shape, which becomes important later in the story. I saw a cow elk (legal) at about 80 yards in the heavy snow, and my dad said it was good to shoot. I knew I'd hit her good, but we were right at last light. We stayed there for about 15 minutes waiting, and by the time we moved to look for blood, the snow had already filled in most of her tracks. It was dark enough I could barely tell where she had been standing when I shot her. We couldn't find good sign, but it was cold as heck so we decided to walk back out and come back in the morning. We hadn't brought packs with us since we were just going on a quick jaunt (lesson learned).

With the excitement, we'd forgotten that the game trail had made a big J shape, and we weren't directly below the truck but about 1/2 mile North of it. We went straight uphill, and just... kept going and going. No packs, no light, no food or water. In good clothes, but that's it. We had a Garmin GPS but it had been giving us weird directions all weekend and we didn't trust it anymore. It kept telling us that the truck was BEHIND us somehow, which we knew wasn't true (we were wrong). We ended up using the GPS backlight as our flashlight, which wasn't worth much.

So we're climbing straight up hill in knee deep snow that's getting deeper, my dad is starting to flag hard so I'm carrying both rifle, and picking him up every few steps when he stumbles. I kept seeing wide, flat, white shapes ahead of us that I assumed was the road, and every time we got closer it turned out to be a log on it's side covered in snow. That was the most soul crushing thing in that moment, to have the hope of the road turn into another obstacle, over and over again (10-12 times).

Finally, 2 hours in, we stopped and agreed to try and follow the GPS cause what we were doing just wasn't going to work. It had been telling us the road paralleled our travel path heading uphill and we didn't believe it, because we thought this road side-hilled for a longer distance. So we walked 50 **** feet to the left and hit the road. We had paralleled that stupid thing the whole way, and had zero clue because it was thick, brushy, and dark.

In his relief and haste, my dad stepped off the bank onto the road, which wasn't a great call because the bank turned out to be about 6 feet above the road. So he ragdolled down the frozen road a bit while I tried chasing after him, juggling a pair of 58" long muzzleloaders (I'm 66" tall, which make maneuvering those things a beotch). Finally got my dad on his feet, and we made it back to the truck just as our rescue party (the rest of the camp) came rolling around the corner looking for us. The relief of seeing the truck was amazing. I'll never forget the first look of it, actually. I couldn't see the truck, but I could see a little flashing red light from the cigarette lighter charging port that was plugged in to the dash.

I have never once left my truck without a full pack since that day. It could be a 10 minute jaunt, and I will have 90oz of water, 3 days of food, clothes, a bivvy, the whole works. Most days my hunting pack is 30 pounds at least just in extra gear. Last year I had an elk chase turn into an 8 hour hike, well past dark, no one knew where I was, and I was extremely comforted to know that if I had to bed down somewhere I had everything I could possibly need to survive. It made all the years of carrying the heavy pack seem very worthwhile.

I did something similar. No GPS yet and I boneheadedly left my compass in my other, lighter hunting coat. Hunting state land in the snow, younger hardwoods interspersed with limestone rock domes. You walk up and over these domes about every 40 to 80 yards and the younger successional woods never really see more that forty fifty yards. Only had a buck tag but saw a couple does. I was slow still hunting and it started to snow. I kept on the hunt for several hours until dark was coming on. Never saw a buck but that's the game. I had started to circle back toward the road I thought but the rock mounds all kind of looked the same, the trees were young and indistinct, it was overcast, no sun and soon to be no moon, switching cold wind. Well crap, I should have hit the road by now. I was really missing my compass at this point. I am in a chunk of state land about 8 miles by 12 miles, nothing but swamp in the middle. In theory if you hold your course you simply would walk out if you didn't mind swimming part of the way. I was now tired, my army plastic canteen was now empty. I was reduced to following my tracks back even though I know it wasn't a direct route.
I finally heard a train whistle......from 8 miles away actually over the international border and the St. Lawrence seaway in Brockville, Canada. The train hits the whistle as it passes through the ville. Left turn Clyde! I came out on the town road about sixty yards south of my truck.
I too had been paralleling the road. Now the only place I may not carry a compass hunting is on my own property but one is usually in my day pack anyhow.

 

[Rosebud]

F

It was the night after opening day of elk season and my wife and I were hiking back up a large, thick timber draw back to camp. We had a spike camp on top of the ridge above us. Earlier that day in the same draw we had checked the footage on a trail camera I had set up. Not an hour before we were there, a cougar had walked right past the camera (based on time stamp). So my wife was on edge because she knew there was cougar in the area. That night It was the the darkest, most pitch black night I've ever hiked in.

On the way up, we crossed a blood trail in the snow and elk tracks. A wounded elk. Since the trail was heading the way we were I decided I might as well follow them. Then there were boot tracks following the bloody elk tracks which we were following. A hunter tracking a wounded elk he must have shot. We continued along following the tracks and then there were bear tracks following the boot tracks which were following the elk tracks, which were followed by us. No joke, a bear was tracking, in lock-step the other hunter and elk blood. But all the tracks were heading the way I thought we needed to go. So we kept following them.

My wife at this point was freaking out because it was pitch black and there could be a mountain lion and a bear at the end of this bloody elk trail we were following.

Then this is what tipped my wife over the edge....a little ways up on top of the bloody snow and bear tracks was a hand-held radio. Vision of a hunter attacked by the bear causing him to drop his radio was racing through her mind. She told me if we come across a dead body she is going to lose it (she already was).

For the sake of my wife's sanity, I decided to break away from the tracks we were following and angle up at a slightly different angle. We eventually got up on top of the ridge and back to camp.

But here is the key detail about why I wasn't freaking out like my wife... The elk tracks, boot tracks, and bear tracks were all heading down hill, and we were going up hill, the opposite direction. I kept on reassuring my wife that there is no way were going to find a bear and a dead man at the end of this trail because they were heading the opposite direction we were. She was so worked up that she couldn't process that and it didn't matter.

In the end, I've always wondered what became of the other hunter and if the bear caught up to him

Funny!

 

[cohunt]

Not a hunting story but still got my dander up.

This was just 2 weeks ago, me and wife and 2 daughters were touring the central city cemetery and abandoned gold mines here in CO diring a short camping/vacation trip.
My kids are into "ghost stuff" right now and we have gone to the stanley hotel and a few other ghost towns, "haunted" areas on family trips lately, and we try to go on visitor tours lead by the historical societies while there just to toss in some educational purpose for the kids.

We were wandering through the cemetery reading headstones and enjoying the outdoors and aspens, we werent all real close together but all within ear/eye shot-- my oldest daughter says, "hey dad, what are you doing over there" -- she was looking up the hill side and I was below her.. I responded " I'm down here" -- she said " get over here now".
So when i get over to her she says she just saw what she thought was me up the hillside in a dirty/off white shirt and jeans ( I was wearing khakis and an o.d. green shirt)
She said the figure just disappeared when she called my name--- there were no other cars in the parking lot with my truck and we never saw another person the whole time we were on the hill.

To make matters more interesting-- at the top of the cemetery boundary is an old abandoned/collapsed mine.

The old shaft has had a drainage culvert put in it with a thick steel hinged grate welded to the top and it is padlocked closed--- as we all walked over to it to peer down inside (to see how deep it goes)--- we all heard the same loud noises comming from inside the culvert/old mine shaft

It sounded like someone was trying to climb up the corrugated culvert shaft.
My rational mind assumed it was an animal that had fallen in there and was trying to get out....but the hair on my neck stood straight up when I looked down the shaft to see absolutely nothing at all-- it was about 30 feet deep with a dirt floor and nothing else inside!!!! I remind you that there is no way out as the top had a welded/locked heavy steel grate covering it and the bottom is solid dirt floor.

At that time we all got the chills and decided it was time to leave the collapsed mine and graveyard to those who still rest there.

The hair on my neck and the chill up my spine didn't go away for almost an hour.

 

[Nipper]

No cattle in that area, but a lot of black bears. They can run fast and disappear fast. But there were no paw marks in the dirt that or dust that covered the truck. My best guess was a bear hunting for a picnic basket.

At least it wasn't Bigfoot!!