What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

[epags]

This his brother?

This his brother?

If he had done that you would have found me changing my underware

 

[C-130 Dude]

The short version:

I was in a bearstand late at night waiting for my guide to pick me up. It was totally dark, as in BLACK. There was a big sow with two cubs hitting the bait just before things got too dark to see. After 15min or so, I feel the ladder stand tug downward, but I couldn't see anything. I eased a tactical light out of my backpack and intended to aim it down the ladder to see what I hoped I wouldn't see.

When I activated the light, I was shocked to see a LARGE bear head right between my boots! The light was extremely bright and right in that bears eyes. She freaked out and dropped all the way to the ground and crashed her way through the brush. My heart was pounding like I've never experienced. It took me quite a while to return to a relaxed state.

Interestingly enough - the outfitter told the other hunters that I made the whole story up to scare them. He claimed that he knew because black bears cannot climb ladder stands because they don't have thumbs. After I got home, I found a video on YouTube of a black bear climbing up a metal ladderstand with a bowhunter in it. This video was in broad daylight, so it was easy to see the bear climbing. I sent it to the outfitter with a reminder of his claims to the contrary. I never heard back.

Did you ask for a retraction? I would have. Also, when I lived in the S.Cal mountains, I left an old wooden ladder up against my house. I was working on the eaves of the front porch. About 8pm (still daylight), a smallish black bear decided it wanted to see what my front deck looked like. It sniffed and looked around for 5-10 minutes and climbed back down the ladder. Yes they can climb ladders. Very well.

 

[338 dude]

.

 

[C-130 Dude]

I was 8 yrs old and hunting hogs with my dad. We dropped off the ridge and went down into the valley. Hunting up river we decided to check a side gulch which had fairly fresh sign. After a few minutes I noticed all the dogs were gone. So we eagerly waited hoping they'd find something. Well they found something alright just will never know what it was. All of a sudden there was a sound that probably only a dog man will know. It's sort of a screaming/yelling sound of a dog getting hurt real bad. By this time in my life I had seen quite a bit of dogs ripped, gashed, torn and killed by bad boars. Knowing that sound I took off in the direction of it. Soon after the rest of the dogs joined in and it sounded like a battle was happening. When I rounded the bend in the river and climbed up on the bank I seen one of our main catch dogs go flying thru the bushes screaming. As I got closer I noticed the other dogs barking at a tree in the middle of a small opening. While I'm looking for the boar and wondering what they're barking at as these dogs NEVER barked in their life. The dog that I seen fly thru the bushes comes outta nowhere and smashes into this tree the other dogs are barking at. She biting this tree savagely the whole time she's doing that she's screaming like someone is killing her. All of a sudden, outta nowhere it's like she gets kicked by horse and flies off the tree thru the bushes again. By this time I've seen enough to kno it ain't a boar here. And start grabbing the dogs. Their all acting and on another level adrenaline wise even snapping at me when I'm trying to get the ropes on them. Finally my dad shows up wondering what's goin on n why were the dogs barking n not grabbing the pig. N I told him because there ain't no pig. He's like "What" I sed we gotta go, tell u after. So we get the dogs rounded up and back to the main river. I told him what I saw and he tells me must be spirits there's some heiau in there. Freaked me out! I used to hunt the dogs by myself at that age even at night and never felt afraid at all. That event made me wonder at times after that lol. Since that time there have been numerous times when unexplained things similar to that that had happened to us while hunting. But that was the first time for me.

Bear???

 

[338 dude]

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.

Its just like pilots flying in the dark say always trust your instruments!

 

[C-130 Dude]

This is EXACTLY why no one should handle a firearm during a cease-fire. Just last week I heard two guys arguing at the other end of the line during a cease-fire. An older guy chastised a younger guy who was fiddling around with his rifle while men were down-range. The younger guy was trying to explain that it is safe to make adjustments to your rifle scope as long as you aren't actually firing during the cease-fire.

I have often reminded shooters, in a nice way, that they should not be handling their firearm(s) during the cease-fire. Some think I'm being ridiculous.

100%. Keep your mitts off! Open the bolt and insert flag then back off!

 

[GBWS]

Bear???

Wild boar here in Hawai'i

 

[C-130 Dude]

I just like pilots flying in the dark say always trust your instruments!

My day pack could keep me for 30 hours. I learned the hard way long ago that tech can fail. Boy scout-be prepared. Even when I did use a GPS, I always glance at my compass from time to time. Backup.

 

[epags]

OK...I said my lasrt one last time but this came to mind.
Alaska, the caribou hunt mentioned earlier. We had just finished breakfast im my camper and were stepping out to prepare for that not so successful snow machine hunt mentioned earlier. The last guy out's rifle discharges (luckily into the air and not though my camper's roof) right behind me. Now I wear hearing aids.
Claimed he did not have his finger on the trigger. Of course, why was the rifle loaded? That is the key question.
Given he was an idiot, I later learned that Reminton had a problem with the safety on Rem 700s.
Sooooo, I guess, yes he was an idiot to have a loaded rifle in the camper.
But when I found out about the Remington safety issue, I had found I had three Remintons that qualified for free repairs.

 

[C-130 Dude]

If he had done that you would have found me changing my underware

Om gosh, never heard anything like that. Shorts changing time for sure!

 

[Muddyboots]

This is EXACTLY why no one should handle a firearm during a cease-fire. Just last week I heard two guys arguing at the other end of the line during a cease-fire. An older guy chastised a younger guy who was fiddling around with his rifle while men were down-range. The younger guy was trying to explain that it is safe to make adjustments to your rifle scope as long as you aren't actually firing during the cease-fire.

I have often reminded shooters, in a nice way, that they should not be handling their firearm(s) during the cease-fire. Some think I'm being ridiculous.

Our range has zero tolerance, we have drop signs in front of benches, do not handle firearm when cease fire. Auto ejection from club. I've had to warn a few and even threaten ejection. Some just don't get it.

 

[C-130 Dude]

OK...I said my lasrt one last time but this came to mind.
Alaska, the caribou hunt mentioned earlier. We had just finished breakfast im my camper and were stepping out to prepare for that not so successful snow machine hunt mentioned earlier. The last guy out's rifle discharges (luckily into the air and not though my camper's roof) right behind me. Now I wear hearing aids.
Claimed he did not have his finger on the trigger. Of course, why was the rifle loaded? That is the key question.
Given he was an idiot, I later learned that Reminton had a problem with the safety on Rem 700s.
Sooooo, I guess, yes he was an idiot to have a loaded rifle in the camper.
But when I found out about the Remington safety issue, I had found I had three Remintons that qualified for free repairs.

I had a friend that lived across the street about 45 years ago. His dad had a horrible accident when his R700 fell over outside his camper and the round went through the camper side and impacted his leg severing it just below the knee. He was lucky to have lived from what I know.

The lesson here is simple. If you put your gun down, please ensure you do so knowing full well the guns loaded condition. Unload it as necessary.

 

[3chester]

The Winchester Model 100 semi-auto had a fatal flaw like that where the firing pin, when worn down, in a certain way, could be struck by the hammer, even while slung on a guy's shoulder, and fire. Those rifles are still subject to a free recall, to replace the flawed firing pin design. Just call in ur serial # to see if yours had the update or can take it apart check yourself. Even take it to a nice Gunsmith for him to have a look see.

 

[marksman1941]

I was doing load development for an upcoming hunt and went to the local public range. I was down-range at the 100yard-line and setting up a target when a gunshot rang-out from the firing line. The bullet impacted the dirt berm directly behind me and missed me only by a couple of feet. Turns out the guy was packing up his 300win when he closed the bolt to his rifle and had a slam fire. I'm grateful that I was lucky enough to not be hit--an impact anywhere on my person would have been devastating or fatal from a 300win at that distance. I learned my lesson that day and now drive an extra 30 minutes to a different gun range that has a range officer on duty and monitors the firing line while people are down range. Be safe out there!

As other have said, when the range is closed all bolts are open and guns aren't touched. No one packs up, no one adjusts scopes. Step away from the bench and hands off the guns. I've been to ranges where that is not the norm and it's not ever safe, and accidents will happen.