Scary Hunting Stories

MTGomer, my bear experience was very similar. I'm no Jesse James, but I was surprised how fast my six gun came out. mtmuley

I worked in the Bob Marshall for quite a few years when I got out of high school. I had never been in Montana, or the wilderness ever before. I was left at base camp for a few days to get some wood cut and split for hunting season. We only had pop up style tents set up at the time, in a small stand of timber. I was eating lunch when I saw some the tents moving, and not knowing any better I walked over, only holding my sandwich. A pretty decent sized black bear had clawed up a couple tents and had got into another. I fell down trying to run back to get the pistol I had over by the cook tent and had left my sandwich laying where I fell. When I made it back the bear was just standing there eating my dropped lunch. He wasn't too bothered by me, but I was by him. I shot that pistol off and he just looked at me and slowly walked off. It's funny to think about now but at the time I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life

squirrel said:

Got it, the story is true the writing a draft, I'll fix it. thanks

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It wasn't meant as criticism. It was meant to be funny. I was "tired" and I'm easily distracted...

Not physically scary, but scary nonetheless.....

Teal season at Cheyenne Bottoms opening day and it had been slowish action. We could hear the roar of a boat moving about the marsh all afternoon, and we surmised that this was KDWPT wardens going around and checking licenses, plugs and harvest. One reason the shooting had been slow was that rather unusually there had been a higher number of non-legal ducks on the marsh. We had successfully passed on shooting at groups of shovelers, wood ducks, as well as assorted bigger ducks.

The wardens boat had circled around to our east, and we knew that they were getting closer. The sun was inching towards the horizon, and we anticipated an increasing flurry of duck activity. A group of 6 redhead ducks buzzed our decoys, and fortunately Bob and I told the boys to hold off, as we recognized the slower wing flap and the straighter flight pattern of "non-teal" ducks. This flock of birds lifted elevation just enough to clear the tall grass edge, and we watched them move towards the next group of hunters to our east. Shots rang out, and we hoped that the other group hadn't been fooled into shooting non quarry ducks.

With the screen of tall grass keeping us from seeing this other group, we could still easily hear them start to pick up their decoys, and load their boat for departure. As they motored out, we could here the high pitched whine of the supposed warden's motor head in our direction. They arrived about 15 minutes before sundown, and hopped out of their boat to come check us out. Licenses produced, shotgun plugs and shotshell contents all checked out OK, and we showed them the mix of bluewing and greenwing teal we had already killed. After the pleasantries were concluded, they then told us that that had witnessed the flock of redheads come in, and "knew" that we had shot at least one of them. Coming clean now would be much easier, than if we made them search for the illegal bird.

Incredulous at their accusation of wrong doing, all five of us insisted that we had not taken any duck other than teal. The three wardens asked if we had shot any birds that we hadn't been able to retrieve, and I told them about a teal that had landed in the tall grass off to the east of the pool we had set up on, and the ten minute search my son and I had undertaken to find this bird. The wardens swam their dog through our blind, around the boat, and walked over to where I had told them about the unrecovered teal.

Of course, during the search and interrogation, we had several groups of ducks look like they wanted to come join our decoy setup until they saw all the humans and took off for parts unknown. Finally the wardens decided that while they were absolutely certain that we were the offending party, in the absence of a dead bird, they were "cutting us a break" and not going to issue a ticket for illegal take.

Shaken by the unwarranted accusation of wrong doing, we went about pulling our decoys, loaded the boat and headed back in to the dock. Waiting our turn to haul out, I grabbed our shotguns off the boat and walked to the car to change out of my waders. Waiting for my son and I were once again the wardens, who separated us, once again asked us to admit to shooting an illegal duck. My warden had his little notebook out, and took down names, hunting license numbers and even car license plate number as he was telling me he knew that we had been the ones to shoot a redhead.

When truth is on your side, it is easy to "stick to your story", as I was accused of by the young warden. I think I made him mad that he couldn't "shake" my story, and I might have made him even madder when I offered him some bugspray, as the mosquitoes were absolutely ferocious that evening. His last gambit at getting me to "confess" to some misdeed was when he said that he was going to go back to our hole and search again for the illegal duck. My reply to him was to inform him where our group was located at the campsite, and asked him, that if he found the TEAL that we hadn't been able to find after diligently searching, I would appreciate him bringing the duck to our campsite.

Is this thread "scary hunting stories" or "the merits of road hunting?" Just kidding. Some very interesting and scary accounts being shared. However, I did run out of both Pepsi and cheese puffs once before the next convenience store in Wyoming, that place can be desolate.

While bear hunting on Kodiak Island I was walking on a snow field with a rock wall on my right side. I broke through the snow and caught myself with my elbows. Looking down it was pitch black and I wasn't touching bottom. I managed to crawl out on my hands and knees and made it to the rock wall. I pitched my rifle up over the edge and made a good impression of a rock climber and got over the top. To this day I wonder how deep that was.

sschultz said:

While bear hunting on Kodiak Island I was walking on a snow field with a rock wall on my right side. I broke through the snow and caught myself with my elbows. Looking down it was pitch black and I wasn't touching bottom. I managed to crawl out on my hands and knees and made it to the rock wall. I pitched my rifle up over the edge and made a good impression of a rock climber and got over the top. To this day I wonder how deep that was.

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Done pretty much the same thing crossing crevasses while chasing goats in heavy fresh snow. Some times a wise man has to realize it is time to eat a tag. When solo they will never even find the skeleton let alone rescue you.

I was hunting with another guy but we had split up for some stupid reason.

Ok after hordes of people messaging me about my croc hunt mentioned in the original post (truth it was 1 dude in passing lol) here goes the first installment of my croc hunt, and the only time I have felt scared while hunting.

So I work for an Australian mining company and got to spend a year living, working, and traveling in Australia at the start of my career. While over there, I thought what better time to bag a saltwater croc as a memory of my experience. I booked a trip to the Northern Territory and the only place at the time to legally take a croc and export it to the US. After a moderate flight I arrived in Darwin, NT and then got picked up by the outfitter and we drove 2 hours to the station and had an incredible drive. The whole trip he told me about the 15 foot croc he got out of this little stream, 13 foot croc he got out of that little stream, and over here where some truckee was taking a piss and got eaten by a croc, how people go swimming over there and only get eaten once a month or so. Needless to say it was a unique intro to the hunt.



This is at the station and looking toward the 10 mile flood plain out to the ocean.

So given that croc was the main target of the trip, the first order of business was to get some bait. In Australia at the time you could not "safari shoot" them like you can in Africa, but you would have to live trap them. So pigs are abundant and great bait, so we set out to get ourselves a pig.
I would be the worst poster child for any outdoor clothing company But after a couple shots, a good bait pig was in hand.View attachment 79343


View attachment 79344
This was the pet Emu who only had one eye from being eaten by a domestic pig. It was the greatest pet ever and would run around in circles when you clapped your hands at it.

So now with a bait pig on hand, we went over to a neighboring station that was having croc problems to set a trap. While we were knee deep in water gutting the pig and getting it in the trap, there was always someone on the bank with a rifle. Crocs come in very slowly and quietly so being in the water alone was never allowed.

Most of my scariest happened in Ca..

By far the number#1 was when a runaway woman from a “religious organazation” compound wandered into our area while we were duck hunting. Two serious looking dudes came over to retrieve her.. It took the sheriffs department almost 30 minutes to arrive and those dudes have no idea how close they came to getting shot in the face with 3.5” BB.. safety off ,finger on the trigger close..

Next best was when I walked a burn deer hunting one evening in Orange County solo.. about 1/2 mil from the truck I turn around too see a mountain lion standing in the middle of the trail. I yelled and he simply licked his upper lip and casually walked in to the 8’ tall manzanita.. it was bow season and you can’t carry a sidearm in Ca archery season.. scariest half mile walk of my life..

Last was when I was sitting in the duck blind and a rifle round whizzed by and hit one of my decoys.. they were 300 yards away and able to get off 3 more shots out of the sks before our screaming stopped them.. the game warden had a field day with those dudes..funny thing was we had 3 spinning wing decoys out.. I mean what a bunch of idiots..

Ive about been shot , not once, or twice, but three times hunting. Scariest was in college . I took a buddy back home with me that seemed pretty knowledgeable about hunting and guns. He had a lever action henry 17 hmr. We were calling racoons with a foxpro about January with snow on the ground. I had a magazine fed .22 mag so when we jumped spots I hopped in the truck and popped out the mag and ejected the shell. My buddy proceeded to unload his gun but didnt want his shells to fall in the snow so he worked the lever of the gun and ejected the shells on my bench seat of my single cab Ford. You can about guess how this goes, somehow the gun goes off, exits the rear glass of the window about 2 foot from the dead center of my forehead. We were both about white as ghosts the entire ride back to town. Will tell the other two stories from Iowa shotgun season if anyone is interested later.

noharleyyet said:

"One time at band camp....."

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Lol
I was thinking the exact same thing...

Way back when a buddy and I were still in high school we got up way before sunrise and headed out to our favorite duck hunting pond. We were sitting there waiting and watching the stars and all of a sudden two oval shaped lights came out of nowhere and hovered together. They stayed like that for about a minute, then one went straight up and the other went to the south and were gone in a blink. Scared the crap out of us.

Spooked something giant that busted trees as it ran. Was maybe 30-40 yards away at first in thick timber. Never saw it. Never found tracks. But it sounded bigger than any elk or animal I jumped in the forest. Assuming it might have been a Griz based on sounds I remember faintly hearing. Glad it went the other direction if it was.

Lost traction driving up a road heading to a trail once. Well used and figured nothing of it being that slick. Slid out of control backwards about 100 yards or so.

Another time we were driving up a road in some snow heading higher to another spot to start walking and hit a rock that was either placed or fell there. It bounced the truck over about 7 feet almost over the edge to a 50 foot near vertical edge from what I can recall. Little trees stopped us from completely going over the edge. Needless to say after the 2 truck incidents, we don't chain up to get up a road anymore. Just to get out if we happen to have issues.

Have been close enough to almost touch bull and cow moose a few times. Not on purpose either. But one was quite agitated as we apparently were on the same route, just crossed paths a couple times before I went a different direction.

#1 was in the Frank Church helping BOY with his sheep tag. We spotted some sheep a long way off. I stayed put while he made his way to camp. Once there he got the spotter on the sheep and then signaled me to come to camp. I got a bit turn around on the round. I was sidehilling and decided to see what was on the other side of the tree I was passing. Luckily I grabbed the tree trunk as I peered around because my foot was just a few inches from air. Yes, I about walked off a 40' cliff!

#2 was hunting snowcocks in NV. On the way up we used a rock shelf to get up and around a cliff face to the top. On the way back down while crossing that shelf I got my first case ever of vertigo. Scared the holy bejeebers out of me.

#3 was hunting black bear in MT. LCH and I rounded a bend on a logging road and walked right into a sow grizzley with her two cubs. The only time the whole trip I forgot to take bear spray with me. She was a good bear and took her kids away, but being 18yds from a grizzly for your first sighting of one is a bit much.

Part 4: So after we get the first trap set we are about to leave and we notice something black walking towards us down to the creek. It is a GREAT water buffalo bull. We let him come a little closer and then he finally sees/winds us and away he goes. I ask "what are the odds that he will be back tomoz when we check the trap?" "Not a chance" was the reply. More on this later.

We get back to the station that evening and head out for some sight seeing and view even more buffalo bulls, pigs (which we shot for more bait), and other signs of crocs nearby.

This bull would have easily charged us if we got out of the samurai and put a 375 H&H round into him. He definitely has a look like "you owe him money".

I experiencd one when I was very young. At that time everyone here hunted the national forest it seemed. Every family group had there places and we were no different. A cousin of mine had brought his brother in law from time to time and this was the last time he was welcome. Everyone set out that morning and some came back to the trucks/camp at lunch while others stayed out all day. Most people were back that evening by dark or shortly after. This particular guy never showed up. After a group set off to look and several volleys of shots with no reply, a group set off to town to notify the family and authorities. Luckily they came across a truck bringing him back up the mountain. The idiot fell asleep and got turned around when he woke up and went down the wrong way on a trail. He came across other hunters a few miles away who offered to bring him back at dark.

I guess I was too young to comprehend but like Dad said, the woods are a different place when you think you're looking for a body.

fishing4sanity said:

Is this thread "scary hunting stories" or "the merits of road hunting?" Just kidding. Some very interesting and scary accounts being shared. However, I did run out of both Pepsi and cheese puffs once before the next convenience store in Wyoming, that place can be desolate.

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I feel ya. My brother and I once ran out of Jack Daniel's. The lady at the tiny store wouldn't sell us the bottle of Jack from the attached bar next door. We ended up having to drive over 120 miles round trip to get some.