When my father and I were hunting elk sheds in NM years back, we came across a small grave (more like rocks stacked and covering a small cave in the sandstone). As we dug a bit and removed rocks, we found a body. I was very old - only bones and leather clothes (we presume leather clothes, but could have been skin???). We pulled it out and were going to tell the local offiicals about it but realized we were on a reservation (near Dulce, NM) and it is not allowed to dig-up or mess with any artifacts....so we pieced him together and out him back into the grave. Never know, it could have been a couple hundred years old or maybe an unsolved crime. We kept it quiet for a long time but eventually we went back and it was gone - taken out by someone-not an animal and moved (presumably) to another site.

Not near as interesting as most all of these, but I had shot a buck off my uncles ranch that was the biggest I have ever shot. Took him to get him mounted. A couple weekends later my friend found a shed from the previous year in the creek bottom. Noticed it had a distinctive kicker coming out the back between the base and the G1 just the same as my buck. So I thought this was from my buck. After getting the mount back I placed the shed up to the mount. The main beam extended out a full 5 inches past the one on the mount which had an 18 inch spread btw. Obviously his dad was still running around the same woods. My aunt kicked us off after that year. Ticked me off bad lol. I would've gave anything to see that other buck.

I found an old weather ballon one time, ya know the kind that they just release up into the sky to gather data. It had an address on it to send it back to, so I did.

Also, when my dad was about 16 or 17 him and my uncle were out at the back of my grandparents property and came across an empty car. Well they told my grandpa about it and he said just to leave it alone and if it wasn't gone in a few days he would call a wrecker to come pic it up. About a week went by and it was still sitting there so he called the wrecker. When he got there he opened up the car and the keys were in it. As he was poking around he opened the trunk and in the trunk was a dead guy and a bag of money. They later found out from the officers that it was about 2 million dollars. The dead guy was also wanted for murder.

Opening weekend of deer season 3 years ago while hunting the Bronte area I was walking back to my 4 wheeler after the morning hunt and saw a deer off to my right standing next to the fence and looking up into a big live oak tree. I quickly shouldered my rifle and could see that it was a nice young 8 point, but not anything I wanted to shoot, so I ducked down behind some cactus to get my video camera out of my back pack. Once I got the camera ready I slowly stood up and could not belive the deer was still there looking up into the tree. After zooming in with the camera I could see that he had his rack tangled in the top strand of the fence and thats what was causing him to appear like he was looking up in the trees. I rushed back to the 4 wheeler and went back to camp to get some help and tools to free him from the fence.

When we returned to free him that is when I could see just how bad the situation was. Apparently while he was rubbing a small mesquite tree on the other side of the fence he somehow got his rack caught in a roll of barb wire that was next to the tree and I guess while trying to free him self he ended up jumping the fence and dang near hanging himself.

The deer was still alive and when we cut him free he tried to stumble off into a nearby creek bed but he was just to wore out to make it. He collapsed to the ground and just looked at us, so I went over there to give him a nudge but he would not move.

After realizing I was missing a great photo opertunity, I went back to the 4 wheeler to grab my rifle. I then handed the video camera to my dad and I layed my rifle in front of the buck, then I sat down beside the deer to tell my story about my "catch and release buck" that I never had to shoot.

I know that was in realy bad taste to do that, but I just could not pass up the chance to do an interview with a completly wild buck that looked like he was just poseing for a picture with me beside him like I had just taken him. The only thing missing was the blood.

Sadly we returned to the same spot the next day and the deer was dead.

About five years ago, I was goose hunting the peanut fields near Dumas and witnessed one of the most impressive things I have ever seen in nature. It was a cold, clear morning and the geese weren't decoying that day and to avoid getting skunked, we tried some pass shooting to see if that would produce anything. I wound up hunting near a large stock tank and wounded a lesser Canadian. Of course, it landed in the water, and as I sat there watching it, wondering why I didn’t bring my dog on this hunt, a bald eagle swooped down and snatched it from the water right in front of me. It then flew off out of sight with it and had my bird for breakfast. This happen less than twenty yards from me, and I was really amazed with the show of power, speed and agility that eagle displayed.

I have a good one!! About 7or8 years ago my dad and I hunted in Montague CO. We were at the lease filling feeders before season, and noticed that all the windows and the door were open on his stand. He never leaves them like that. When we got to his stand there was trash everywhere. We found a plastic tea pitcher with a clear crystal substance stuck to the side. I also located empty cans of ether, coffee filters lithium batteries that were opened up, 2 liter coke bottles with surgical tubing linking the two together, and empty packages of medicine. I told my dad that someone was using his deer stand to cook meth. Now that I am in Law Enforcement I know we should have called the Montague CO SO, but we didnt. We just got a trash bag and threw it all away, and left a note in his stand that stated "use our stand to cook dope again, and we will call the police". Two weeks later his door was ripped off his stand, and his feeder had been knocked over..After that incident he has never had any more trouble.

keep 'em coming!!!

a couple months ago i went on a hog hunt from www.wildhoghunttexas.com that i won. the hunt itself sucked.

but while we were there, we were in groups walking around. it was raining a bit. we walked under a large oak tree and there was a tonbstone with someone's name on it. date said 1840-something. when we walked around, we noticed a BUNCH more tombstones that were laying flat on the ground. i think there was about 40 of them. they were only about 12"x 12". all they said were "female -16" orwhatever age i guess they were. some were numbered as low as "female -1" all were under the age of 16.

what was even stranger, is that on the side of the tree, they put something in the tree to make it look like a smiling face. the tree had grown around it over the years, so it actually looked like the tree was smiling. pretty weird. kinda creeped me out wondering what killed all those young people. i'd say 35 out of 40 all said "female"

It could have been an epidemic of something like Whooping Cough.

One thing, and this is from stuff I learned from my Mom and Dada and other older folks that were born in the late 1800's, early 1900's, was that some folks would not really give a kid a name until they were several years old.

The mortality rate was so high, that a large percentage of kids never lived to or thru their teens.

Also, in a lot of families during those times, if one kid died, the next one born was given the same name as the one that died.

This is a great thread.
Once while hunting a ranch south of Sanna Anna near Home Creek I shot a turkey. He ran off into some real thick underbrush and I got in there pretty deep. I did get the turkey but what was cool is that I found a washed out Indian grave. There were two double bevel biface knives about 6 inches long, never resharpened, meaning they were new and never used. Three or four perdiz points, a scallorn and a washita, all perfect. But the rarest finds were the shell beads and pottery. I took it all to SMU and the director of archaeology there told me it was rare to find shell artifacts and pottery that far inland and in that vicinity.

And, I did not find it but I had a friend that was curator of the Floyd County Historical Museum. A hunter up there just on top of the caprock had discovered the rocky resting place of a Commanche brave. She had all the remains in a box in the back, not on display. She locked me up back in there and the skull was there, the arm bones were still articulated and he had metal rings around his arms strung with hundreds of tiny turquoise lookng beads. There were also coral colored beads, a leather pouch, a few arrows and some other stuff. The Smithdonian finally came and got the remains and ultimately they ended up back with the tribe.

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did the cops get involved? i have always wondered about that, what if you find a body buried somewhere

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Yes, the cops got involved. So did the Sherrif, and the Game Warden, and the University up in Denton.

They brought up so many pieces of heavy equipment that I was supprised they fit it all in. They were looking for other bodies, or parts of bodies. Didn't find anything else, tho.

It was determined that, when the road was rebuilt, one of the workers found a skull of an American Indian. There are a couple of burial sites up there in the Nocona/Spanish Fort area. He wrapped it in a couple of plastic grocery sacks, and put it in the hole Randall had started a couple of years earlier. Then the worker never came back.

Years later, I found out what eventually happened to the skull. As some of you know, I worked for Social Security in Ft Worth. A lady came in to do something or other, and saw my name on my desk. She recognized it , because of the police report made at the time of the skull's re-discovery.

She works in the anthropology dept at the university - and the skull is in her boss' office!

After all the digging, they didn't even dig us a privy!

Grew up in Wharton. As a kid (early 70s) we would ride our bikes on a group of dirt mounds in a field there in town. About 4 or 5 mounds in a small grove of trees. I went back with my wife in the 90s and found out that a builder had finally started building houses in that area and unearthed an Indian grave. Univ. of Houston was down excavating those mounds. Seems they were a pretty extensive burial site.

I was checking out a possible hunting site in SE Oklahoma in 1988. Landowner took me over to a spot where Prohibition Agents had raided a still back in Prohibition days. There were a few 55 gal drums still laying around with ax marks in them.

Maybe not as intersting as some other stories but it blew my mind when I spotted a paintd bunting.A really colorfull bird with violet, red,green, and some yellow. Never heard of or seen a bird like that before. But hes been there now for over a year ever since I built a small pond by one of my feeders. I'll sit in that blind for hours at a time and you might see him once. If your lucky. I spot him at least once every two weeks.I'm only out there on the weekends.Even started adding bird seed to that feeder.

Thoroughly enjoying every one of these stories.

Your mention of the bird made me recall something from last year while sitting in a box blind. Apparently, the local birds were used to flying in and around and through this blind, but I put some camouflaged burlap over the windows and while sitting there I counted somewhere around 8-10 different species of birds that were either on the ground or sitting on a limb or tree trunk nearby.

Several of the birds appeared to take offense to my presence and did not hesitate to let me know about it.

Never saw a deer but really enjoyed just watching the birds and their reactions to my "intrusion".

Thanks to all who have posted and please keep 'em coming.

Along the 'bird' lines, a few years ago I was sitting in a blind in West Texas. A big hawk that I assume was a Red-Tailed Hawk swooped down and hit an animal behind some brush about 80 yards away. There was quite a fight with dirt flying everywhere. I figured he had hit a big jackrabbit. When I left the stand, I walked over to see what was left. The hawk had killed a small fox (maybe half-grown) and that's where all the fighting came from. I would have never thought a hawk would attack a fox but apparently, he was one bad bird.

Two year ago I found an uninvited guest in my enclosed tripod. Climbed the ladder, pulled back the flap and was six inches away from a ring-tailed cat sitting in my chair. Needless to say, neither one of us was happy to see the other. Biggest problem was the there was only one way down and I was on it. It took me a good half hour to finally get the cat out using a long stick from the ground to poke it out of the chair. That is the only ring-tailed cat I have ever seen so it was pretty cool once I got over the shock.

Bowstalker, that's a bunting. They are quite common but very shy.

12thman, I've only seen 2 ringtail cats in my life. When I saw the first one, I thought it was some kind of hybrid coon.

I dont have the pic on this computer but 2 deer seasons ago i believe i was sitting in my favorite groud blind & notice some movement in the tree & there sat a young owl, & by the time i noticed him he had long noticed me but didnt know what i was & just about flew INTO the blind with me until i made a small movement & he whooooshed right over

in regards to birds...i have had several just land on the windows to the blind as i was sitting there, not knowing i was there for a moment or so

OK, I'll go again. I was still hunting the canyon country up in the panhandle, an off shoot of Tule canyon to be exact and I came across a rusty old frame of a model t or model a car. All I know is that it was REAL old. I was checking it out and started seeing all these brands hammered in to it. Someone had taken a steel chisel and hammered in the rocking r, lazy s and probably 10-15 more. I later found out that it was the old Taylor homestead and when the Taylor boys were young(they are all gone now) they hammered all the local brands they could think of in to that old car frame. It was pretty neat. Also on that ranch I was walking a dry creek bed. The walls were sand and about 15 feet high. About a third of the way down I saw a bone sticking out of the side, it was huge. I dug it out and took it to the museum in Plainview. They told me it was from a bison, one of those kind that was bigger and way older than the modern bison. I let them keep it. The guy there knew the ranch I was talking about and told me he knew of a mammoth, or mastadon, anyway some kind of prehistoric elephant, that was weathering out of the ground on that ranch. He would go check on it about twice a year. He said I could go with him the next time he went but when the time came I was up in Colorado.

Here on the property we live now...believe they have had it 20 yrs or so now...today we are STILL finding old snuff bottles, fancy hinges, ect every time it rains or we dig up some dirt...not to count the endless fossil rocks & such

Great thread, my friend was hunting in East Texas last year and the lease they where on bordered a national forest. As he sat in his stand, he caught movement in the brush 150 yards away. As he raised his binoculars, he realized a trespasser had his gun up and was scoping him. As if that is not bad enough, my friend had his 5-year-old son and 16-year-old nephew in the stand with him. NOT COOL!!!!! My friend waived his arms out the window and yelled a few times. The guy briefly lowered his gun then raised it again. At this point Brent kicked the two kids out of the stand and told them to run in a straight line back to the truck, He quickly raised his own gun and placed the cross hairs on the intruder. He said it was the worse feeling of his life knowing that if this guy moved his gun toward the kids he would have no choice but to shoot him. After a brief standoff, the man lowered his weapon then vanished back into the woods. He is now looking for a new lease. One that doesn't border national forest.

That is probably the most scary thing that can happen to anyone when hunting. I am sure that with kids in the picture it is even worse. why anyone fels the need to "Glass" with their scope is beyond me.

I have always said that if a person ever takes a shot at me doing something like that, they had better kill me with that first shot, because if they don't and I can figure out where they are, they won't get off that second shot.

I don't know how quick any LEO would buy into a Self Defense issue between adults, but with kids involved, I might have just said "screw" the hunting and shot into the air to let the silly bass turd know that he was not looking at a deer or pig.

Glad everything turned out alright.

This guy knew what he was looking at, they where in a wooden box blind. The scary part is the guy was probably just as scared as my friend. And a frightened man is capable of bad things. Especially if he is in the process of doing something illegal. I told my friend that if he had to have shot him he better make sure only one of them lived to tell their side of the story.

2 stories..one year on our old coke county lease near robert lee my dad built a really nice outhouse for all of us to use...we used it religously for one deer season then winterized it and let it sit for the year..the following season my brother comes up from south texas to hunt with us. it was really warm and we had to leave the out house door open because of the heat..while my brother was using the facility he noticed a piece of flint sticking up out of the ground right out in front of the door..after he finished his paper work he dug the flint "rock" up and cleaned it up..it turned out to be a 6-8 inch spear point that had been buried right in front of the outhouse all along.
my other "accidental discovery" , occured one morning while hunting in coleman county with a friend..he brought his girlfriend and his cousin..we all stayed in a small camper then got up really early in the morning..it was very cold..after about an hour and a half i crawled out of the tree i was in and hightailed it back to camp..there i walked up and "discovered" the camper door locked and the trailer was a rockin'..evidently i wasnt the first one to get cold and need back in the camper to warm up..unfortunately i had to build a fire to get warm.