What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

[wapitiaddict]

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

 

[adk hunter]

My story is hard to relate without a book so I'll try the cliff's version.

Lost my best fried to cancer, he was 55. I'd switched jobs and had a snow day in late October. I get home and wife says what are you going to do. I pack and head for camp figure I'd take a walk and track a deer. She says a nice bear rug would be nice in front of the fireplace...

I get into the woods and have this sense of Matt being with me. We have an outloud conversation and I say I'll never kill a dandy buck if he keeps scaring all the deer away. It is snow sleet and raining all at the same time. I come across a bear track and thought I should follow it. No, no way would that work I keep on looking for a deer track. This is thick, wilderness area land, Huge old trees of every kind. I pull up a little bank next to a yellow birch tree and look down. Now, THAT is a fresh bear track!! In the corner of my eye and the corner of my brain I start to add up I am standing a foot away for (bear noise now) BEAR! I run away about four-five strides complete yard sail hat, glove flying turn and dump all five into the black blob growing from inside the tree bowl!! WOW OUT! Now I run thirty more yards away and am trying to reload while the adrenaline is dumping. I finally get myself gathered and the mind games kick in. I had to pull her out looking for a cub or two behind her trapped in the tree.

After all that I am sitting there and saying wow. I can hear Matty saying "*** over". Another visit with my buddy who I am sure made this all happen. Now every black stump is a bear until proven otherwise. I revisit the spot every chance I get and have a moment.



I get home and the dog and wife greet me outside. (Blessed) Dog has the hair up and growling. Wife-"What's wrong with her. Me-What was my assignment?? wife-No! Me-Look!!

 

[wapitiaddict]

I forgot about this one....

While archery elk hunting I was hiking up a game trail when all of a sudden I could faintly hear a grunting sound from up above. It quickly started getting louder and louder and I could tell it was moving very fast towards me. I had never herd this type of grunt before so the first thing that came to mind was bear. Whatever was coming was coming so fast that I kind of froze, trying to quickly figure out what I should do if a bear busted through the brush. All of sudden through the brush ahead of me on the trail a bull moose came charging right toward me. I jumped off the trail and dove behind a tree. The bull kept running down the trail and out of view. I could have literally reached out and touched it as it ran by.

Not sure what heck had gotten into that bull, but it ran past me like it didn't even see me, or if it did, it didn't care. It was going to get to wherever it was getting to.

 

[birddog 68]

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.

I don't understand how someone from Michigan has only had one spooky experience and it wasn't even in Michigan? Are all the stories that I have heard about the UP not true or maybe you can't remember any abductions that you may have had?

 

[BillLarson]

Forgive me, this is a fishing story, but worth sharing I think….
I was walleye fishing with a friend and his son on Upper Red Lake in northern MN. It was a dreary gray day with an occasional sprinkle and on a few occasions we could hear a very distant rumble of thunder.
We were anchored in about 12' of water and were jig fishing. My friends son Jacob decided to take a break and reeled his line in. While having a snack he noticed his fishing line started to buzz. When he touched the rod he got a shock. On closer inspection you could see arcing between the fishing line and rod eyelets (like a spark plug). At about the same time my buddy Paul had casted his jig about 20 yards off the side of the boat and his monofilament fishing line hung suspended about 6' off the surface of the water. Our hair also began to stand on end. Needless to say, we pulled anchor and quickly got off of the lake. I think we were moments away from being struck by lightning.

I,ve run into this also..... figured my fault for not getting off the water earlier....

 

[Muddyboots]

I don't understand how someone from Michigan has only had one spooky experience and it wasn't even in Michigan? Are all the stories that I have heard about the UP not true or maybe you can't remember any abductions that you may have had?

Well I don't own a Chevy so can't say "Chevy took a ." Only those who truly understand Michigan will get this...

 

[highfinblue]

Cut a big buck track in the snow in a very secluded part of Oklahoma, there are still places like that here. Had my head down most of the day chasing this deer and didn't pay attention to direction or how far I had went. I had never been lost and the thought of it never crossed my mind until it got dark and I looked around and had absolutely no idea where I was. I thought I had been traveling west most of the day so I took off in what I thought was east and walked quite some distance without seeing anything familiar. Anxiety started to sit in as I kept going, looking for some elevation to see if I could find any tower light or something to give me a clue to where I was. I won't say I was in full panic mode, but I was definitely approaching it when I finally got high enough to see a familiar tower light miles to the east. I had been heading in the right direction, but had traveled much farther than I thought, cannot imagine what it must feel like to be truly lost in a wilderness.

 

[1mechanic]

Well this isn't a hunting story and it didn't happen to me but all these stories of mountain lions reminds me of one mom told me. Living in Louisiana a cougar had been see around the area they had gone to town to watch a movie the phantom of the opera the silent version on the way home they could hear the cat screaming and the were all getting a little unnerved. They lived out of town and getting closer to the house they heard the cat more, now when they did get home they were afraid to go inside because back then no a/c and very little crime all the windows were open, so they waited. Finally some 30 to 40 minutes later they heard the cat again in the distance and went inside and closed all the windows between the movie priming them and the cat screaming it was a pretty scary night.

 

[lyle2231]

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.

One to beam up, Mr Scott!

 

[Buffalobwana]

Zimbabwe. Lake Kariba. I was hunting a problem Hippo. We called the game scout to meet us on the shore, he had to be there by law.

He arrived at the shore, where the local fishermen met each day to sell their catch. A very unsavory lot of individuals.

There were words between him and a guy whose illegal net he had confiscated.

The guy pulled a filet knife and stabbed the game scout, who soon after, died.

We were in the boat, just off the shoreline when it happened.

This young man was set to rotate out of this area the next day.

I can never shake the feeling that had I not been there, hunting this Hippo, this guy would be alive. I know it's in no way my fault, but these thoughts still come into my head occasionally.

 

[Mike6158]

Side note about cats. My ex-wife posted photos of a horse she owned that had deep wide scratches from it's front shoulders all the way down it's back and rear haunches. She lives in Rock Island, TX (blackland prairie country between Houston and San Antonio), with husband #7 might be 8 (it's hard to replace perfection ). The horse was dead when she found it. She called the game warden and he came out. Once he looked it over he said, nah, no mountain lions around here, must've been a pack of dogs :/ That was about 10 years ago. A few weeks ago, on my way back from the range, I was prowling... I mean riding around, the backroads in the rice fields west of Garwood, TX. As I was driving I saw something running in front of me. Pretty good sized. A lot bigger than a Bobcat. Tan color, whitish on the back of the legs. It was running like a cat does. Both hind feet pushing off. The tail end was 24", maybe more. No... I didn't pay attention to the tail which makes me wonder if it had a short tail. I only had a few seconds before it dove off into the high grass and rice canal (no rice in there, water, but that's what we call them). I never saw it go up and over the canal but the grass is easily 4' high along that area. So I stopped and looked for tracks right? Nope, smh, I didn't think of that until days later. Since 'there are no mountain lions" in that part of Texas, I'm going to assume it was aliens.

 

[Frenchie1]

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.

That was back when the hunting was pretty darn good in that area! I have spent my entire put together not far from there and although, never had an experience like that, have heard about similar things taking place in the surrounding area, many, many times.

 

[marksman1941]

Cut a big buck track in the snow in a very secluded part of Oklahoma, there are still places like that here. Had my head down most of the day chasing this deer and didn't pay attention to direction or how far I had went. I had never been lost and the thought of it never crossed my mind until it got dark and I looked around and had absolutely no idea where I was. I thought I had been traveling west most of the day so I took off in what I thought was east and walked quite some distance without seeing anything familiar. Anxiety started to sit in as I kept going, looking for some elevation to see if I could find any tower light or something to give me a clue to where I was. I won't say I was in full panic mode, but I was definitely approaching it when I finally got high enough to see a familiar tower light miles to the east. I had been heading in the right direction, but had traveled much farther than I thought, cannot imagine what it must feel like to be truly lost in a wilderness.

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.

 

[DoneNOut]

When the aliens told me they have nothing to do with Hunter Biden's coverups...