What's your craziest/scariest hunting story?

Question

Bow season is approaching and I was just curious if anyone out there had a (TRUE) interesting story about a personal hunting experience.

Answer 1

I've got two stories.

I was bow hunting black bear in S/E Alaska and had been hiking since before dawn. I was wet, cold and exhausted. And I needed to take a dump really bad.

So I found a nice log I could hang the ole pie evacuation hole over. Shat down and waited for mother nature to take her course. At some point I fell asleep.

I awoke to the sound of grunting and bushes cracking. There about 10 feet away was a beautiful 275lb black bear boar.quietly munching skunk cabbage with the top of his head pointing right at me. So I draw back my bow and wham right through the top of his skull.

It was at that moment I realized my predicament, had I missed or only wounded the animal, as I stood there, pants around my ankles.

Just a few years ago I took my young (16) nephew deer hunting on Kodiak Island in Alaska. I gave him the usual spiel about hunting/camping in brown bear country and mentioned the no food in the tent rule many times.

Well sure enough on night three I am awakened by a 9' brown bear looking for my nephew"s stash of Baby Ruths and Butterfingers, several of whom were open.

The bear had pretty much removed the front face of our 2 man tent with his first swing and was preparing to remove the top rain fly.

After we both informed the bear that we were in deed scared sheetless I threw my blankets off of myself and raised my .44 to give our visitor some incentive to shop elsewhere. But my nephew just threw his blankets over on me, thus covering my weapon.

We exchanged blankets a time or two before I chose to just fire 3 shots. Now here most people would think I would be proud of my marksmanship by landing 2 kills shoots out of three shots and while lying on my back.

Unfortunately the bear fell forward on top of me. I was pinned by a 1100lb bear. And my nephew was well into his attempt at establishing a land speed record between Alaska and New York.

He finally came back and called the Alaska Troopers to come get me. And after 4 hours they arrived and let me out from under the now cold, stinky bear carcass.

My nephews only comment....who knew bears ate candy.

Both are 100% true.

Answer 2

There was fresh snow on the ground after a rare early October snowstorm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula,not alot of snow it was just maybe an inch or so of heavy wet snow.In the early morning before daybreak I headed to my stand and hunted until 11:00 or so.Going in for lunch, I took the same route back to camp and was a little unnerved by what I saw,there on the trail were bear tracks right over my boot prints,it seemed as if the bear had followed me for fifty yards or so.Bears up there are pretty common and attacks are rare but it still scared the hell out of me

Answer 3

i got appendicitis last October while hunting pheasant in a remote area of South Dakota. I was 30 miles from the nearest town with a hospital (Winner SD.. population 5000 or so). I got sick on a Tuesday night.. drove myself in from the cabin Wednesday morning, got my appendix out that afternoon.. and was hunting again by Thursday evening. Even though the OR looked like a high school kitchen, and the 60 something year old grandma anesthesiologist advised me to hop up on the table and told me I was about to lose all of my dignity, the surgery went well. How quickly one can find himself gutting a bird one day.. and be gutted himself the next.

Answer 4

ok i have two
my first year deer hunting it was in MT and i was using a 30/06 with a 4 power scope there was a small mule deer buck about 200 yards across a gully so i took a steady rest and squeezed off a round that buck didn't move jump nothing so i thought i missed so i took another shot and nothing same thing I must have shot that deer 20 times before he fell when I made my over to him you could put your fist in to his chest he must have locked up on the first shot I folowd my dads instruction to the T put the deer on the ground and keep it there or so i thought at the time
oh well he still gives me crap about that one
the second is a few years later
I was using the first rifle I ever bought a new ruger 25/06 deer season still in MT
it was a crappy overcast day it was kinda spitting snow a little
I was out and saw a muley doe raise her head up out of a clump sagebrush when i was glassing about 350 yards away so i got my rifle and took a good solid rest off a rock and waited for her to raise her head again she did so I shot and she went down just as I was about o get up and go get her she lifted her head up again so i shot again this went on 3 more times waited a few min to make sure I didn't see her head come up any more so I started down to her when i got there there were five dead does in the sage brush clump luckly my dad heard the shooting came over and we had enouph tags for them.
those are the two craziest i have had

Answer 5

One fall morning while deer hunting in the Patagonia area in Arizona a storm blew in and it started to rain. I figured that it would keep my scent down and muffle any of the slight amount of noise I would make, but then it started coming down hard. I figured the deer had gone to cover and I decided that I would do the same and started to head back to camp as the rain was coming down harder yet. When it reached the point of being a "Gully Washer" I decided to take cover in a copse of trees nearby. As I enter I saw a Whitetail buck across from me, not more than 20 feet away. I stopped, then slowly eased my way in and moved to where I had a clear view to confirm my first impression that it was indeed a whitetail, atypical with 5 points left and 6 points right. I stood there and watched in silence until the rain subsided enough to allow each of us to go on his own way, all the time cussing the MULE DEER tag I was carrying!

Answer 6

It was cold December day in 1979. I left our hunter's cabin before first light. The temperature was 32 Deg. F as I started walking down an old cow path to my hunting blind. I was hurrying because I wanted to be in position before daybreak and I forgot my flashlight. Because the path was familiar I decided not to return for my flashlight so with my .25-06 slung across my left shoulder I trudged on.

At a point about half-way to my shooting blind I froze dead in my tracks. I was overwhelmed by a sensation that I should not take even one more step. An internal voice ordered me to halt. Each time I tried to proceed I found I just couldn't take that next step. I could see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing but I couldn't go forward. Frustrated as I was I decided to heed that inner voice and wait for daylight before proceeding. I knew there was nothing to fear, or was there?

At first light I found myself standing just a step away from a huge Western Diamondback rattlesnake. It was 5'-9" long, as big around as my forearm and its head was as big as my fist. It had 16 beads on its rattler. Not the biggest I've ever seen but big enough to kill with a single bite. To this day I thank my Guardian Angel for interceeding on my behalf that cold day in December so long ago. Anyway, this is probably my 'craziest' hunting experience; this one or the Bobcat story which is probably too long to relate here.

To those who think rattlesnakes don't hunt in the cold I learned that the big ones do if they get hungry enough. Something about their metabolism. This is from professional herpatologists who are more familiar with reptiles than an old country boy like me.

Anyway, the only thing I shot that day was that rattler (with a pistol I carried for just such an emergency).

Best.

H

Answer 7

In the winter of '58 a bunch of skunks moved in under our house and the oder got so thick it ran the mice out in the middel of a blizzard, the cats ran off, the dogs left, and the insects came out of hibernation escapeing from the gas..
The windows inside the house frosted over, our school teacher made us set in back by the door in school, and things we ate started tasting just like skunk.
One day my little brother took 2 pistols and a box of 22 longs and crawled under the house . He shot both revolvers empty, and the skunks started spreying, and he reloded both guns, and crawled to another part of the house, and emptyed them agin, and those skunks started spreying, and he reloaded both pistols, AGAIN, and crawled to another part of the house, and did it all again..
The stench roze from between the floor boards so thick it was visible,.. it filled the rooms and permeated the paint.., it got so thick it left a slick film over everything in the house..
My dad and mom moved us all into the tack shed for the rest of that winter [and most of the next summer], mom cooked on a barbeque the church brought over to us , we wore the cloaths our friends and other family gave us,..
... and my dad took every pistol in the house to the tradeing post and came home with sleeping bags, and mothballs...
My dog never came back..altho i saw it now and then at the neighbors place,.. the cats did, tho.
Mom made dad buy a trailor house that fall, a big one, with a metal roof that rumbeled when the winds come outta the west..
My littel brother survived.. the skunks didnt gas him to death... and dad never got around to killing him.. and he became a topographical engeneer.
He kinda prefered the out of doors.

Answer 8

This didn't happen to me but I know the guy we will call him Fred

Fred was in his tree stand early one morning when he saw a deer so he leaded forward getting ready to make the shot with his bow. Well poor Fred lost his balance and fell out of the tree stand (He was alone) when he hit the ground he was temporally paralyzed from the middle of his back down. Fred dragged himself and his bow across the 40 with his hands pulled himself into his truck and some how drove himself to the hospital

Answer 9

ME and my dad were hunting elk in Alaska last year and we split up to box one in. I knew the area pretty well, and felt comfortable hunting there, but I was walking around a large cliff and ran right into a HUGE brown bear. I nearly **** my pants! I fired 4-5 shots from my .44mag and ran like hell. I have no idea whether or not I killed or just wounded it. But it didn't chase me down thank God. I went back to the area the nest morning and there was nothing there and it was snowing so there was no way to track it, so I assume it lived.

Answer 10

Was hunting wild boars with my cuz. We finally managed to track them down to an isolated wheat field on the edge of a forest. There was a small mesquite flat of about 100 yards separating the field where the hogs where and the woods. We eased up through the mesquites to about 30 yards away from around 50 or more wild pigs. We were lining up shots when a rancher drove past (1/4 mile away) on the opposite side of the wheat field and spooked them a little. They started moving down the fence row on the wheat field towards a spot where the woods came withing 10 yards of the fence. We backed off and eased through the mesquites parallel with the hogs, trying to set up and get good shots where we thought they would exit the field and into the woods. We stopped and setup in the edge of the mesquite on a small clearing so we had the field 30 yards to the east and woods 30 yards north and west. It was a perfect setup. The stupid pigs though exited the wheat field and headed towards the woods on a path that placed us directly in front of them. We quickly changed positions so that we were facing them with me on the left and my cuz on the right. 10 yards away we started blasting. The hogs split right down the middle with half circling my side and half circling my cuz's side. I downed 2 immediately and noticed a 350 - 400 pound boar break into the clearing heading towards the woods. He stopped, looked directly at me and charged from about 20 yards away. My first shot, fired while swinging my rifle into position was a clean miss. 2nd shot was on his head but too low to stop him, 3rd shot hits his right shoulder and spills him head over heels. He was all of 10 feet away at this point. My gun jammed when chambering the next shell. I am desperately trying to get the gun cleared, hogs are squealing everywhere, and this big, nasty, ticked off slab of bacon I just shot is getting up. He definitely has malevolence in his eyes. I quickly realize that my gun jam is serious and I am screwed. My cuz is blasting away behind me in the opposite direction, oblivious to my predicament, which will soon be his predicament if something isn't done. I reach around and start tapping his shoulder, ok hitting his shoulder, trying to get his attention. I spoiled his shot on a hog and he turns to see whats going on, I am trying to shout but nothing comes out for I am scared, very scared. The boar is on his feet and moving my way, my cuz immediately sees the problem and puts 3 shells into the boar, dropping him again. He gets up again and luckily has decided he has had enough and runs off while my cuz is reloading. We tracked him down and finally ended him about 500 yards down a creek in the woods. He had some serious cutters on him. It could have been real bad.

I dont hunt hogs with a 308 anymore. I dont hunt hogs without a sidearm anymore either.