What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

[Aussie Hunter Steve]

Having a herd of Mozambique elephants, led by a tuskless cow trying to track us down by sniffing our footprints when hunting Nyala in fairly heavy riverine bush. We had to continually make 90deg manoeuvres to try and throw them off the trail.

 

[Earnhardt]

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.

Dude...I woulda filled my unnies....

 

[SheepShapeAK]

No more sleep that night. I also cut the hunt short and went home a day early. My wife was happy and I never told her why.

Think it was an earthquake?

 

[sika64]

When I was in my late teens I was going hunting one morning ( first day of gun season) I always got to the woods early 1-1 1/2 hours before shooting time I would be in my stand. A friend of mine was supposed to go with me on this day but couldn't make it because of being sick. So I go anyways and was used to hunting by myself. When I got to the property I decided to take a different route to my stand for some reason , it was really bright out from a full moon and I didn't need a light at all. So I get about 75 yards into the woods and see something that catches my eye, as I get closer I can see that it's a blanket and it's covering something up. When I get up to it my first thought is someone shot a deer the day before (Sunday and no hunting back then) so I kneel down and pat it still thinking that it's a deer. So I lift up a corner of the blanket and was extremely surprised when I see a arm and face . I dropped the blanket, got up and made my way to my stand in a hurry thinking the whole time of what in the hell just happened, and whoever put it there could still be around. So I get up into my treestand (still a good hour before light) and I hear someone walking in a straight line towards me, so I load my gun and just wait. They stop about 50 yards from me and I can't really see them or hear them anymore. Once its light enough to make them out I keep a really good eye on him until it's light enough that I can see it's another friend of mine. So finally I can relax a little, after about a hour and not seeing anything I made a grunt call to get his attention and wave him over. He gets under me and says it's still early why did you call me over. I look at him and say ....There's a dead person in the woods up on the hill coming in. He just stands there looking around for what seemed to be 15 minutes and finally says....What in the hell did you just say. So we get our stuff together and go up there and in full daylight you can definitely see that it's a body. Go down to the 7-11 and call the police and spend the next couple of hours telling them the story. The first cop to show was a rookie and when we took him to the body his hand never left his pistol the whole time lol.

 

[BrentM]

Having a very aggressive alpha male wolf track me down. after an earlier encounter, in the dark while hiking off the mountain to camp. I have never heard such a terrifying howl, growl, scream as this before. It was literally like some hollyweird made up sound effects of a werewolf encounter. He tracked me step for step over 3 miles and caught me in some very dark thick section of timber and stood his ground. My buddy was a half mile away, on the radio, and freaking out. He was sure I was dinner. He actually stopped hunting that night. Next day I went out solo and tried to track the ba$turd down. That is when I discovered how deliberant this wolf was. I didn't kill him but I got 3 of the pack.

 

[cvixx]

Sometime back in the early eighties, I was hunting elk in Washington state. I was near the Elbe hills hunting by myself, which was common. I slept in a canopy on the back of my truck. I was sleeping pretty sound when the truck started rocking back and forth very violently. It lasted about ten to fifteen seconds. I grabbed a flashlight and pistol, but there was nothing around the truck. I still have no clue what rocked the truck like that.

Earthquake? In late 80s I was heading north from L.A. late one night and decided to catch some shuteye in a roadside rest in the Tejon Pass. Bout an hour in my car started rocking violently. Looked all around but nothing there. Back to sleep when it happened again. Decided enough was enough and headed down the road. Turned on the radio and they said a pair of earthquakes had hit the area. I had been sure it was kids.

 

[marksman1941]

Setting decoys in the dark on the slough on my property, surrounded by trees along and overhanging a good portion of the slough, a female bobcat was above me when she let out a wail, I about pee'd my waders and I may have let out a little wail myself. If someone hadn't of chunked a rock in the water near me, I am pretty sure I would have been a couple miles down the road before I got my wits about me.

I have walked up on a porcupine in the dark, stared across the river at a large mountain lion, stood toe to toe with a wounded wild boar, had a semi tame buffalo bluff charge me and had an alligator slap the side of my kayak, but nothing has scared me to the core like that bobcat did. It was just unnerving.

A cat scream is about as unnerving as it gets. I grew up on the sticks, and 3 times we had a mountain lion kill a doe in the back yard, maybe 50 yards from my bedroom window. Waking up to a cat screaming over a kill is just pure terror, followed closely by the doe crying and wailing as she died.

The third time when my brother and I were 12/15 we heard the scream and realized the dogs were outside. My dad grabbed two shotguns and two flashlights and made me the light bearer while he and my brother went looking for the dogs. We got them inside thankfully, but my dad decided to chase the cat. So it's 5 am in November, we're all in slippers and bathrobes, walking through oak groves looking for a lion. I have both lights, dad and brother have shotguns. We caught a flash of eyes in the lights where the hill dropped off and thick heavier timber started. My dad said "there it is! Let's go!" And took off for the timber. My brother and I looked at each other and silently agreed dad was insane. When he realized his only light wasn't following him, he had to come back and we bailed back into the house. Standing there unarmed under the oak trees was a uniquely vulnerable feeling.

 

[26Reload]

Some good stories...
More if you checkout thread. 'It's Time'

 

[marksman1941]

Some good stories...
More if you checkout thread. 'It's Time'

Thanks!

 

[Aoudad shooter1975]

This happened to a me and a buddy. I picked him up on the backside of one of my places as he wanted to hunt a ground blind that we had in one of our dry river bed draws. As we were driving back on one of the main dirt roads we watched 3 columns of dust form in a row...move across the road and dissipate--no wind--no nothing. We looked at one another about the same time and said "did you see that?" And that was strange..as we were setting around that night talking he looked up at me and said--Ed...did that give you a weird feeling? I told him I've been thinking about it all night--I still think about it almost every day.

 

[Boatninja]

More than a few times both before and (usually) after daylight going to and from a stand, have had quail coveys blow up in my face literally right out from under my feet, some even hitting me in the face. No matter how many times it has happened it still spooks me pretty good.
Always able to chuckle about it after my heart slows down & I catch my breath. Seems to shake up the guided hunter a step or two behind me worse. Wild Horse Desert Bob-Whites will hold until your foot is coming down on them.

 

[marksman1941]

More than a few times both before and (usually) after daylight going to and from a stand, have had quail coveys blow up in my face literally right out from under my feet, some even hitting me in the face. No matter how many times it has happened it still spooks me pretty good.
Always able to chuckle about it after my heart slows down & I catch my breath. Seems to shake up the guided hunter a step or two behind me worse. Wild Horse Desert Bob-Whites will hold until your foot is coming down on them.

Grouse do the same thing up here. They'll wait until you're about 2 feet away and then just explode. They're not a graceful bird and when they fly it's with high speed, thumping wing beats. The worst is when you're trying to side step for a better angle on a deer, focused on the deer only, and a grouse lets loose right behind you. I don't think it will ever be something that doesn't scare me.

 

[lyle2231]

Buddy and I were dove hunting, sundown came he says lets clean the birds, build a fire and eat. We get the fire going when a deep throaty growl comes out of the dark and it's darn close,
being 12/15 y o on bicycles we lit out like our hair was on fire and our *** was catching! Figured it must've been a big bobcat or Florida panther.

 

[Rick79]

3 times jump to mind for me. First was when I was 16 or 17. Me and a buddy were goofing off and walking the river at a deer lease our dads were on. Started getting dark and we decided to head back to the truck and go to camp. Made it about half way to the truck and there were mountain lion tracks between the sets we had put down. We were a bit on edge the rest of the way to the truck.

2018 on an elk hunt on the south fork coming out of Yellowstone. We were breaking down an elk when a 7.5 foot tall grizzly boar decided he wanted it more than we did. He took a mag from my .40 starting at 20 yards and a 300WSM to the head to finish off. I carry a 10mm in grizzly country now.

2021 at my deer lease on north Texas. I had a group of does and yearlings that showed up like clockwork. That day they didn't. Had a few other deer straggle through but acting nervous as could be. About an hour before dark I hear some deer running through the brush. Once they cleared it, they took a hard right and we're still hauling a** and that's when the mountain lion cleared the brush hot on their heels. I was alone without a pistol, just a bolt gun. It was well before dark when I walked out that evening and I take a pistol every time now. No one believed me until another guy saw it about a week later, he wasn't able to get a shot off either.