Strange Happenings, While Hunting. Stories.

[Bryce]

Coos, we were pretty high up and in deep. I don't think there are many meth heads wondering around up there.
You'd know the area if I showed you on a map.

[crooketarrow]

  Here's one that still flibs me out toady. It was early 80's. I'd got perrmission to hunt a large farm a father and son  (he was in his 30's) also hunted it.
  After 3 years I'd but up a stand in a big open hollow. I've never seen so much deer sign in one place before.  I put a hang-on I'd hunted it a couple times everytime I could smell black power. When one day I saw what looked like a building corner on top the hill . Just a couple stones. When I went over and looked it was a head stone. With JAMES MORGAN 1701, 1778 Just a stone not really a head stone you see now.
   I'm walking out here a MUZZLE LOADER SHOT BEHIND ME. It was bow season and I knew the other 2 guys hunted legle. I went back to catch the guy. Saw a guy carring a gun going over the hill. Two more times that year I heard a ML shoots but never found him. The next year thinking just some one trepassing that other year.
 It was raining so I gave it up walking out I heard a shot close I went over the hill saw the blue smoke ,smelt the black power. About a week later I'm at 7-11 see the father we were talking. I told him about the tresspasser last fall and what I heard and saw the other day.

  He just smilled and said I see you've seen JIM. I've never seen nor heard him but my son has 7 or 8 times. Thats why we leave that hollow over there along. He even saw him shooting up in a tree at a squirrel he was on the hill top 60,70 yardsaway. He won't go anywhere close to that hollow anymore.
  I smelt smoke 2 other times before I moved on to somewhere else.



   Here's another one. When I was growing up through my 20's My granddad had lotssssss of hounds bear,coon. We coon hunted this place had a graveyard on a hill top. Back in the 1700's indains (TOREIS) had round up women and kids 12 in all and had killed them on this hill top.
  Grandady said he'd heard them a couple times crying. One night 7 of us were lieing on the ground lessoning to the dogs run. When all at once kids started crying up on the hill. But it sounded like playing not crying to me. THE DOGS CAME BACK GOT AROUND US WOULD'NT LEAVE TAILS BETWEEN THIER LEGS.
  We heard he on and off for 20 mins. I still get chills telling it.

  A old women where I grew up said they lived there for 7. She said 3 times over the years a apple tree in the front yard would shake like someone was up in it. One time even some of the apples fell off. The 4 time her brother was out picking apples when what or how ever it was jumped on his back causeing him to roll down the hill. She said he's never go back in the front yard. The last 3 years they lived there.

  These are totally true storys.

[Slackbunny]

I've been spooked out a few times in the woods, but nothing like these stories.

[bowtarist]

Good stories!! Crooket, you should have posted those stories on the Ghosts thread in around the campfire.

This year I saw a redtail snatch a squirrel off a tree, had a bard owl come with in 10 15 feet of me giving me the evil eye and weirdest of all, I still hardly believe it, but saw what I thought was a huge coyote come through, but the more I think of it, it really looked like a wolf. HUGE I tell ya, dark grey with black hackles and a roundish furry head. It came up behind me, then stood in the brush probably 30 yards from my stand and just stared at me, then he went back the way he came all the time staying out of range or behind the brush. This is in Indiana mind you. We ain't suppose to have wolf here.  I keep hoping to see him again, but no luck.  He was standing in an area where deer sometimes bed down. This all happened the first weekend of bow season, early October, this year.

[JW_Halverson]

Some years back, my blackpowder huntin' buddy, Mikey, and I were out for a week in muzzleloading season camp.  We'd set up my big wedge tent with the woodstove in it and were having a wonderful time not getting deer.  New Year's Eve dinner was corned venison, boiled up with whole potatoes, carrots, onions, and a head of cabbage.  Mikey had made biscuits on the stove top and wer gorged ourselves well and truely. 

We sat up mending gear and cleaning barrels, weaving conversation in and out of the pleasant tasks of primitive camp.  Round about 11:00 p.m. we brought in the last couple armloads of firewood for the night and blew out the candle lanterns.  The ponderosa pine knots in the wood stove snapped and crackled comfortably and we were each lost in our own thoughts as we drifted off. 

In the dark and crystal black night a single howl rose up from a low contralto to sweet and pure soprano note.  The note was held without vibrato or quaver, none of the yip-yip-yippee of a coyote call.  No, this was a larger canine.  Much larger.  I held my breath and strained my ears in the dark.

Again came that call that Jack London ascribed as the "Call of the Wild".  Only this time another voice joined in.  And yet again, and again, and again more voices joined in.  At least 6, and maybe as many as 10 of these large canines were singing that clarion call in the pines of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

"I didn't hear that, did I?" I said softly in the dark.  "No, you didn't. And I didn't hear them either," came back Mikey's voice muffled by a wool blanket.  "Nope, no wolves in South Dakota, couldn't have heard that by any stretch of the imagination," I said.  A few more whispers in the dark and then everything went silent. 

Slide down the timeline to next June and I am having coffee with a friend that lives in that part of the Hills, north of Custer, SD.  I mention that Mikey and I had been serenaded for a good 20 minutes on New Year's Eve.  He asks where we were camping, and I gave him the location.  He chuckles and says he heard it too that night.  In fact, he and his wife were right in the middle of 'em when their neighbor got 'em singing.  Apparently their neighbor is big into dogsled racing and wanted to show off how good his string of mushers were at singing.

I was saddened to know it was not what I thought it was, but it was still one of the finest operas I have ever heard.

[crooketarrow]

 SWEETTTTT

[Lone500]

most awesome thing to happen to me was sitting on a log not making a sound or movement, hearing the woods start moving about 20 ft away then having a big female mountain lion appear and run right by me. she ran less than a foot away from me i could have reached out and gave her a hug. i decided not to though seemed the best thing not to try to piss a big cat off that is that close lol. she slightly tensed a couple steps past me so i knew she caught my scent. a scant couple seconds later and she was gone. ive seen big cats before driving down the road at night and whatnot but to see such a big cat up so close was simply unforgettable.

[JW_Halverson]

The Mouse River wanders it's way around Minot and thru a number of city parks.  Back in the 70's they channelized the river and cut off a couple of oxbows.  I saw a beaver swim into a culvert in one of these oxbows in Oak Park.  I dashed down and lay on the culvert waiting for her to swim out the other end. 

As she swam out I reached out and stroked her back.  Immediately she slapped her tail on the surface and sounded for the deeps like Moby Dick!  She left me with a face full of stagnant pondwater and a memory of the touch of a wild beaver.

[Del the cat]

Aw, we don't get nuthin' like that in the UK.
But when I was lad I used to beat on the local pheasant shoot.
Going through this thicket one time there was rustling noise and a commotion right in front comin' straight at me. A split second later this little deer burst out in front of me WHACK straight into my thigh. It stopped dead, shook it's head and we looked at eachother... it then bolted leaving me gobsmacked. I didn't realise how lucky I was until I heard that about 6months later one of the forresters was put in hospital when a deer got his thigh with it's antler.
Del

[toomanyknots]

They have been introduced in KY since then.

No way, really?

[JW_Halverson]

They have been introduced in KY since then.

No way, really?

Some of the states around Kentucky are now offering elk tags because the KY elk are leaving their habitats and expanding their range.  One of the more successful stories of game animal re-introduction.  And best of all, they are all producing some pretty respectable trophies.

[toomanyknots]

They have been introduced in KY since then.

No way, really?

Some of the states around Kentucky are now offering elk tags because the KY elk are leaving their habitats and expanding their range.  One of the more successful stories of game animal re-introduction.  And best of all, they are all producing some pretty respectable trophies.

Just looked it up, that is awesome, and at the same time scary, those guys are big! I am just like 30 minutes or so from kentucky.

[RabidApache]

Its about 8am and I'm starving sitting in quicky blind I had made for spring turkey. I was ready to bail and move to another position. But now I hear a faint yelp coming from the west. My blind is facing more east but I shift and get ready. Season is early and gobblers were pretty tight lipped. Well anyway I'm sitting shotgun at the ready.
All of a sudden I see scattered turkey everywhere, clucking and Pitt calls echo through the ponderosa forest. I'm thinking did the turkeys see me or WTH is going on.
I see a turkey zigging and zagging and suddenly from under the canopy a golden eagle grabs the young hen. The hen is flopping and kicking for dear life while eagle is clutching with one talon on the turkey. As the turkey continues to struggle she comes free! Now the eagle is just sitting there with a pile of feathers all scattered about. I was amazed to see a golden from out of no where like a stealth bomber. I'm thinking thats one badazz bird.
All this in front of me at 80yds!

[Thesquirrelslinger]

I live in kentucky.
Semi-rural kentucky,
I swear there are some pretty freaking big things wandering around in forested areas after dark. Or even around neighborhoods.
whenever I sleep over at my friend's house, we always go night biking. His parents own a pretty big farm, with plenty of woodland. People hunt there frequently. its far enough from civilization that there are no druggies, etc.
one time we were biking through some well-defined trails at around 11ish. We both have pretty powerful flashlights mounted on our bikes as headlights, and they work well. We were going by a creek, which is in the bottom of a valley, and we both heard a loud splash, and then a thud. We had no idea what it was, and we decided to be dumb teenagers and find out. We both had machetes, and I had a sling and 5 lead glans as well. I sent one of those glandes in the area of thud, and we heard a softer thud. I assumed we missed whatever it was, as its the sound you get from hitting pine-needle-covered ground. never did find out if so. We then decided to get closer(about 30 yards). Its pitch black, and this a pretty dense forest. We saw nothing, and were considering taking the flashlights off our bikes. well, we heard a really loud sound like a breaking limb, but loud enough that it sounded like a tree. (this place is covered in pines, ERC, spruce, etc). and then we hear it agian, so we just decided to get out of there. His dad has heard this thing too, usually while out at night- although he has heard a splash far away in the evening. We went back the next day, and found no tracks except a LARGE stone(softball sized) sitting near the sling gland's track(when it hits the ground, it makes a long, thin groove). it looked just like a stone from his creek. 

[Marks]

I called an owl up about 10-15 ft from me on Christmas eve. I was sitting in a tent blind and saw him land about 75 yds down the field. I lip squeaked and he came flying up right beside me.  Same place earlier this year I saw a coyote run face first into a small tree. I've seen a redtail hawk miss a squirrel. I've seen a gobbler breed a hen on 2 occasions. No Squatches.

Freakiest thing that ever happened to me hunting was when I was 15. I had just started deer hunting and my brother dropped me off in the pasture to walk to a ladder stand about 50-75 yds in the woods before daylight. I didn't carry a flashlight because I knew the spot well and didn't need one. As I was walking thru the underbrush I look up and there is a floating white glowing face staring at me from 10 ft away. I bout crapped myself. It was just a dark maroon cow with a solid white face but in the dark all I could see was the face and it freaked me out pretty good for a minute.