What’s your spookiest hunting experience?

C-130 Dude said:

Dude, your gonna die!

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Reminds me of the old joke about a guy who gets bitten by a rattlesnake on his manhood. He ask his friends what they need to do so he doesn't die. They call a ER Dr. for advice about a snake bite and they are told someone has to suck out the poison and rush to the ER. The guy who was gotten bit asked what the doctor said. His friend said man" He said you are going to die "

Walking back through thick central Wisconsin forest after sitting during muzzleloader season hearing wolf howls and leaves crunching behind me only to shine my light back and see 4 sets of eyes glowing. 1shot and four sets of eyes. Not a comforting feeling

When I was about 15, Dad, Brother John, Uncle Chester and I was coon hunting, About 10 or 11 pm we was walking a pipe line right of way. About 30 yards from where we was taking a brake, Some of the wildest screams I ever heard, Sounded like it was up in a tree along the right away. Dad pulled a 22 rifle off his shoulder loaded it and said "Come with me, Get your 6 cell ready". The screams continued, We got even on the path with tree the screams was coming from. I shined the 6 cell up in the tree, Up on the side of the tree, The beam of the light hit a big red headed wood pecker. Its head sticking out, Wings spread on the side of the tree, Screaming that wild sound. I walked to the bottom of the tree, The tree had a big U shaped hollow rotten place that went up the side of the tree. About that time the wood pecker took off flying into the dark, And stopped screaming. I moved the light over to the big U hollow in the tree. Here came a big brown weasel straight down the tree at me, Straight at me, and jump over the bank. There was a couple tail feathers from the wood pecker laying at base of tree.
From what we could figure out. The wood pecker was sitting in a hole in the tree roosting. The weasel had went up inside the tree and grabbed the the wood pecker by the tale, The wood pecker got its wings opened outside the hole and a tug of war and screaming started. My brother and I still talk about that night once in a while.

It was 1:00AM on a late October morning. I remember it feeling unusually cold but it probably wasn't. I don't remember now why I was up or why I was so bored, but I decided to grab a catfish rod and a bag of shad and head for my north pond. It's only a couple of acres in size and 12 feet deep but had been stocked with crappie, hybrid bluegill, largemouth, and channel catfish by the previous owner. It's about 1/2 mile from the house. I threw on a light flannel jacket, grabbed a Maglight, stuffed the shad in my pocket, and picked up the rod. I did pick up a 1911 as well. There is a brush dump about 50 yards below the pond dam and I had seen bobcats there frequently and on two occasions saw the "they aren't in this area" mountain lion. There was very little moonlight but I knew the way down the old overgrown lease road. I got to the pond and settled below the top of the south (dam side) where the wind would help carry my cast to the sweet spot near the middle of the pond. I sat the rod down beside me with the clicker turned on and nodded off. I was awakened by a subtle splashing sound in a little cove to my right. I quietly grabbed the Maglight and flashed a couple seconds of light that way. It was four raccoons making their was around the pond looking for mussels and crawdads. Back to sleep I go. I don't know how long I was out but this time was awakened by something/someone tugging on my flannel in the left armpit area. I froze. I heard nothing over the wind. Was I imagining things? The tugging intensifies. The .45 was on my right hip under the flannel and my right hand was in the jacket pocket. No way I can draw quickly enough with this unknown enemy literally on me. Left hand is on the Maglight already so I ease my grip to the pushbutton switch. It's now or never. I very unceramoniously spring to my feet while simultaneously grabbing for the .45 and clicking on the flashlight. I spin around and find myself face to face with four hungry raccoons standing up on their hind feet staring at me with huge wide eyes. I remember feeling some resistance as I stood. It was the bag of shad in my left pocket. The largest of the trash pandas stood there holding my bag of bait for a few seconds before they all turned and disappeared through the grass. I sat back down gently just in case I had pinched off a Milkdud or two, caught my breath, and let the old ticker come back down off of redline. I laughed all of the way back to the house.

Walking out of the woods after a day of hunting, hearing the screams of fisher cats always makes my hair stand up!

lovewoodguns said:

Small world I grew up in eatonville and hunted all over that area as well my entire life. It does have some very odd places that make the make the hair stand up. Like the old clay city area…you know what I am talking about.

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I have driven past the Clay City if you are talking about the old brick plant. I never stopped to check it out.

I was hiking in SE NM and was surprised to see a herd of bison. They were headed to a water tank near where I was parked. I made it to my Jeep Liberty just before they came over the bank. They got water, and then this big bull came over and looked in my window with his face about a foot from mine. I was worried because I was parked next to a steep dropoff. If he decided to push, I was a goner. I don't know if he saw his reflection, or if he could see me. After a minute he went to the front of the Jeep and started scratching his head on the bumper. I decided it was time to leave and started the diesel engine and backed out about 1/4 mile to where I could turn around.

victor3ranger said:

I have had them do the same thing towards me, I would rather kiss a rattlesnake than deal with a cottonmouth

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I have some old friends that run a serpentarium and they will certainly confirm that cottonmouths are very aggressive, and territorial. One of them was actually better by a cottonmouth and lost part of his hand. One reason they are believed to be so aggressively is that they are a relatively slow snake. They can't outrun their predators very well so they choose to attack first and scare whatever is near them away. This along with the mouth wide open showing their business end is supposed to scare things. It works well on me I can assure you. They can be quiet nasty..

Turpentine21 said:

I have some old friends that run a serpentarium and they will certainly confirm that cottonmouths are very aggressive, and territorial. One of them was actually better by a cottonmouth and lost part of his hand. One reason they are believed to be so aggressively is that they are a relatively slow snake. They can't outrun their predators very well so they choose to attack first and scare whatever is near them away. This along with the mouth wide open showing their business end is supposed to scare things. It works well on me I can assure you. They can be quiet nasty..

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I try to stay far away from those nasty things.
A friend of mine was fly fishing the Baron Fork in crystal clear water and he thought he had walked up to a locust branch and then it happened again, the Cottonmouth appeared right next to him and he ran out of the water.
It got him twice by his shin

I was in a wilderness area in California, deer hunting with a buddy. We were walking a trail next to a lake. The lake level was low with a lot of mud flats around the lake.
The trail was in the edge of the trees next to the mud flats. I heard movement in the manzanita brush next to the trail. We could see the high branches moving but couldn't see what was causing it. What ever it was was probably only 10 yards or so, very close. I knew it was holding that close because it didn't want to run in the open space between the brush and the lake.
I told my buddy to move down the trail about a hundred yards. Then walk out on the mud flat and see what runs out when I force it out. Be ready to shoot.
So I gave him a few minutes. Then picked up a few rocks and started chucking rocks and yelling. I figured it was a black tail deer. I heard it bust out the other side of the manzanita into the open space. Still couldn't see anything. Waited for a shot but no shot.
So I started down the trail in the direction my buddy went. So when I seen him I asked him if it was a doe. He said no about a 350 lb black bear.
Then I got to thinking about being 10 yards from a big bear and throwing rocks at it. Good thing it was a black bear and decided to move in the open instead of through me.

Gzuccarini said:

When I was a youngster working on a game farm (Windy Ridge) in Northen Zululand I was asked to bring meet for a braai (barbecue) to one of the bush camps (called Ntibane/Warthog) and walking through the bush in the dark from the vehicle to the camp I was followed by what I assume was leopard based on the rasp like coughs next to me as I walked... I thought it was going to kill me ......given how incredibly lethal they are...but just carried on walking with jello legs... but never did, obviously. Lucky indeed

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Glad to have you aboard……Welcome from North Central Wyoming ! memtb

Calvin45 said:

What I don't understand is why they'd drink diesel fuel, you wanna talk about something that doesn't smell like you should eat it! . But I know a guy who caught it on his motion tripped camera at a remote cabin…dang black bear busted into his shed, carried out a Jerry can in his mouth, busted it open AND WAS DRINKING THE CONTENTS!!!

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He was running low on energy and was about to run something over

TheGuyUpHigh200 said:

I grew up around a guy from MS who has some YT videos playing with moccasins. If that's him, don't believe a word he says, he's just crazy I saw him swim under water and come up and grab a moccasin off a log one day. Snake never got angry. If it was anybody else, they would have been bit. But, seriously, all the moccasins I ever ran across never acted aggressive unless you got right on 'em.

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I've had both……aggressive and non-aggressive ! And yes you can often smell them before seeing them!

Others may have had different experiences than I when "jigging" or grabbing Bull Frogs……but quite often Cottonmouths or common water snakes seem to be attracted to the light. Sometimes it's almost a footrace to get back to the bateau!

My Great Uncle had a camp down on Bayou Pigeon near Berthelot's Landing. He ran trot lines quite often, and early one cool morning had difficulty starting his outboard….very hard to pull the start rope. He opened the side cowling to find a Cottonmouth well "wadded-up" in the ring gear and starter rope. I think that the snake had an unpleasant disposition! memtb

My first year of hunting Wyoming as a resident, a friend of mine and myself were elk hunting west of Big Piney.

We parked his truck out in an relatively open Sage Brush flat. Hiked to a heavily timbered peak with a horizontal opening, 50 to 100 yards wide, seemingly all the way around this little peak. We could actually see the sunlight reflecting off of the trucks windshield about a mile away.

We split up, agreeing to meet (I thought) up at a large downed tree near dark. With dark rapidly approaching, along with a little winter weather predicted during the night……I got back to our tree!

After a bit, worried about my buddy……I first whistled (I can't whistle for ), then started yelling for him. Worried about him spending the night out possibly turned around, I started breaking up limbs for a big fire. I had soon enough limbs piled-up that would have made a lumberjack envious. I then started my heat source/signal fire…..soon having a "roaring" fire. It's "dark thirty" by now……Proud of my handiwork, I turned around and saw the headlights of our truck!

My buddy wasn't the one alone on the mountain…..I was. I now did my best "impersonation" of a firefighter!

I got the fire out, grabbed my light from my gear…..discovering then that my light didn't work. In near pitch darkness, with only the intermittent moon light to help direct me down the mountain.

Somewhere during the steep decent I bumped into the trunk of a small downed tree with my shin. I did exactly what most of us have probably done….stepped up onto the little tree trunk and jumped off the the side!

I didn't think that I would ever hit the bottom of whatever I had jumped into. When I finally did hit bottom, the force drove my knees into my chest, thoroughly "knocking the wind out of me"!

When I finally recovered, got my bearings again…..I started off again. I ended up being far off course as the moon wasn't much help and I had to make many course corrections. Around midnight we finally got back together and started the hour or so drive back to our camp where others were worried and waiting on us. memtb