I was hunting as a guest on a 20,000 acre ranch near Barnhart with a bunch of drunk roofers. One of them decided to take me to his super secret spot so he didn't tell anybody where we were going. There wasn't any kind of blind so I took a tar bucket to sit on and since it was late December and cold, I took my sleeping bag. If you've been out there, you know how the wind is.

After my "friend" got back to camp, he got so drunk he passed out. That evening about 3 hours after dark with all the dinner gone, somebody realized I wasn't there. They couldn't rouse my "friend" and they didn't know where I was (remember, Super Secret Spot). Their worst fear was that where ever I was, I would try to walk back to camp. You can get pretty lost on 20,000 acres.

Finally, they roused him enough that he gave some general directions. When they came upon me, it was close to midnight and I was curled up in my sleeping bag close enough to the trail to be seen (actually, my backpack was in the trail) but not so close as to get run over. I had already decided that I was spending the night in the brush but I still wasn't too happy about it.

I didn't say much about it when I got to camp and continued to hunt there for several years. My drunk "friend" was so embarrassed that he completely avoided me for 3 years. Course, by then I was over it. They all felt bad about it but still laugh about it ten years later.

I don't have any real good ones, and looking back on it I laugh...

Was in the summer, doing some work on a 400 acre lease in San Saba, filling feeders, putting up new blinds, etc etc.. Got finished for the day and decided to sit in a blind and try to thin out the Hog Population a little. Being that is was late afternoon (5ish) I didn't expect anything to be in or around my blind. Normally I am very cautious and open the door to the blind before climbing the stairs, just to scare anything out that might have been in there. It has always been empty every other time but this one. So, I climb the stairs, undo the latch and open the door. Sitting there in my chair is a Red Fox that had been sleeping. It jumped straight at me and went between my legs down the stairs. I fell off the stairs to the side, did the whole stunt-man roll and popped up like a boxer ready for round 2 and drew my GP100 from my hip holster. Pointed it around in every direction (you know, like they do on the scary movies, they point in every direction they hear a noise from) I must have looked totally rediculous!

ROFLMAO!!!!!!
I CAN ACTUALLY PICTURE THAT.

man thos where good

This one did not happen to me, but it happened on a lease in Reagan county I was on to one of the guys staying in the place next door to us. The rancher had a no hunting policy around the actual camp, so it was not uncommon to come in from an evening hunt and see several does in camp.

The camp consisted of a few one room buildings with a small bathroom in each. Well, after eating some Mexican food in Big Lake earlier that evening, one of the guys had to use the restroom and wanted to spare his bunkmates the smell. He decided he would go over to the camp "club house" and use the facilities over there. It was beginning to get fairly urgent, so he ran out the door to make his way to the club house. Earlier that day, we had stacked several bags of corn on the front porch, and one of them had busted open......Well, one or more deer were on the front porch eating the corn, and in the darkness with deer running, stomping and blowing, let's just say the hunter ended up needing a shower instead of a toilet! We had a LOT of fun teasing him for the rest of the week.

ROFLMAO!!!!
That poor dude. Thats gotta suck.....

ttt

I have one not hunting related, but was in the outdoors so to speak. My wife and I went to Yellowstone N.P. one year. We stayed at the Old Faithful Inn Snow Lodges and got up early to walk down the trails to see the steam/geyser area. We were the only ones out that early in the morning and we get nearly to the end of the trail and I had a 911 bathroom moment. Luckily, there was a one stall concrete outhouse at the end so I ran to it like a man on fire. Of course it smelled like an outhouse and I left the door open for fresh air while taking care of business. I kept hearing noises behind the outhouse like someone was walking up to it and since the door was open I started to whistle to let someone know I was in there. Suddenly a nice 5X5 elk stopped by the front door looking right at me while I'm on the pot staring back in amazement. I kept thinking, man...all the damn times I've hunted elk in the woods and missed them, here comes a nice one while I'm not hunting and sitting on a toilet....how frustrating is that?!.....

great stories..

I was in South Africa last October. What an amazing place! Animals everywhere... I highly recommend it! Part of our trip took us to Kruger.

Our Ranger drove us up under a tree where a leopard had drug an impala up into it to eat. The leopard had gorged himself and was just laying on a limb. I'm less than 10' from him.

We also drove up by a lion by a watering hole. He was laying there and less than 20' from us.

The coolest dudes were the cheetahs with their black stripes/spots on the inside of their eyes. Makes them look like gangsters. We saw two sitting on a tank damn and looking at something we couldn't see by the edge of the woods. The next thing you know they were off in a flash. Extremely fast! They caught a little steinbok for a snack.

We saw rhinos, elephants, hippos and on and on. Their woods make ours look very tame by comparison. Go there if you ever get the chance!

This happened last year, I was hunting in a stand about 500 yrds away from where my dad was hunting and I heard him shoot so about ten o'clock I eased on over to his stand and he was about 150 yrds from the blind out passed his feeder looking around, I walked out there and said" did you find blood, what did you shoot?" he said, I ain't found any blood I was shooting at a big ol' doe that was running through here, so we looked around for awhile and no blood he said I must have missed, I said well it sounded like a hit to me but where's the blood? So we started walking back towards his stand and he stopped at his feeder and was looking for a minute and said Some sorry SOB shot my damn timer... then he seen corn on the ground from where it had gonne off that morning and said I know who the SOB is.... It must have got in his scope just as he squeezed the trigger, I took it off and hung it in camp, it was too funny..I even got him to pose with it. LOL

Ok--

Time for me to de-lurk and tell mine.

For what its worth-

In the early 90's we had a pond in the woods pretty close to the road about 8' deep and maybe 30 yards across. It had dried up one summer for the first time in many years and it had tons of misc. junk in the bottom that had been dumped over the years. I was in the mud lifting crap up and catching huge crawdads hiding under stuff. I then found a cast from someone's arm that was L-shaped like it would go over an elbow, hard to describe, but you would not be able to slip your arm through it with out it being cut off by a doctor. And this one was uncut!! Being young, I did not think much of it, but years later I wonder if there had been a body in the pond that had decomposed. Who knows.

And now that I think about it, we ate the damn crawdads.

Yum! lol

bump

In SW Arkansas one year on Mercer Bayou in a small cabin near a place called Eagle's Dump I was sitting all alone eating crackers, cowboy beans and drinking a beer. All you could hear was a barred owl now and then, a few bullfrogs, and the wood stove heaving.
I had been there all afternoon getting camp setup and gathering firewood, waiting on my brother and a couple of friends. But it was getting late - around 10 PM - and still no sight of them

As I was finishing off the beans, I heard a low, deep moan coming from the entrance road. It was enough of a weird sound to make you pay attention, but at the same time I thought it was my brother pulling one of his pranks. But I grabbed my shotgun anyway.

Now this cabin, and Eagle Dump, are way back in the bottoms not from from Boggy Creek where the bigfoot stories in that area originated...so part of me was thinking about that...if you know what I mean. But I had hunted there for years and never saw any sign of it and besides all that I just couldn't force myself to believe in such nonsense. But, still...

With my 12 ga in hand I stepped out of the cabin and called out into the night, telling my brother and his henchmen to come on out; that the growls ain't working, when the moan came again, this time louder and longer. I yelled again, but no answer. So I taped a maglight to the barrel and went up the pig trail of a road that was there.

Just as I got about 20 yds from the cabin I hear footsteps through dried leaves just the other side of a honeysuckle thicket. I thought: Now I got 'em! - thinking it's time to turn the table on these panksters. So I crept along the thicket, listening - crunching here - crunching there.

As soon as I rounded the end of the thicket, I lowered the shotgun a little - just enough to shine the light on the largest blackest creature I'd ever seen in the wild and it had red eyes!

Jostled a little (well, alot) I yelled like a mad washwoman and unwittingly shot in the air. Trying to regain my composure, I lowered the light just in time to see a big black bull loping through the woods, getting the heck outa there...

If it had have been Ol Bigfoot, I imagine I'd be tumblebug fodder...

This is an awesome thread...great stories and very entertaining!

Cougar#6... I heard that one night when I was hunting on the Brazos in the Palo Pinto Mts. Was trying to make my way back up the hill in the dark without a light. Normally an hour + walk at probably 1 mile up and around the hill to the top where our camp was at. Made it 100 feet from the river then heard that sound off in the canyon across from me. 15 minutes and I was at the top of the hill locking the cabin door. I think I was mabye 12 when that happened and hadn't heard that sound since, but after hearing that 20+ years later that still gives me the spooks.

Only scary thing was a hunt in Jacksboro. I was a guest on my cousins step dads lease that I hunt every year. It was about 5am on a December morning. They dropped me off about 200 yards from the blind and told me how to get there.

Flaslight went dead as soon as I turned it on, so there I was alone in the dark. It wasn't cold at all that morning. I was just wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans. When I finnsly found the blind there was not a chair there. So I snuggled down in some brush and got comfortable about 150 yards from the feeder.

I'm sitting there, and I roll over a little to get my snuff out of my back pocket. As soon as I do that I put my hand on a very large snake. Having no idea what kind it was, I freezes in fear. I felt it curl up and start rattling. I was actually just waiting for the strike to come, but it didn't.

I smashed my 30-06 down on the snake hoping that would give me time to belly roll the hell out of there. It worked, and I continued to tell the F word for about five minutes afterwards.

I stood inside the blind till daylight, then when the deer showed up that morning I sneaked back to where I was sitting, picked up my rifle, and shot a doe.

In early December rattlesnakes were always the last thing on my mind. Not anymore. I will always keep an eye out for them all during deer season.

Holy cow the story above give me heebie cheebies!!

Here ya go




Dad with his trophy

Thundervee, that is too funny.

Ok here is mine from last year....and this guy called today wanting to come back.....
I have a hunting ranch in south texas under high fence with MLD permit. I had a hunter from North Texas named Clint that came to hunt a managemant deer 130"-140". This guy shows up....smells like he hasn't bathed in days. We shoot in his rifle and he's not bad...2" group.
We go to the blind and he's still stinkin by the way and just about dark a nice 10pt comes in...He gets all excited strarts shaking and expelling gas like nobody I have ever heard. He shoots at the deer and knocks a limb down about 4 feet over the top of the deer. The deer runs off and he continues to prune trees with 3 more shots. He states he must have bumped his scope. We go back to camp eat a good dinner....while he is still fogging the room I might add..I show him the shower and leave. Next morning I pick him...he still has not showered. We go out to another blind....We get into the blind and he starts lettin some gut curling gas like I have never smelt...Worse than a gut shot deer...so alittle while later another real nice mgmt deer comes in and he goes through the same fartin shakin routine and begins prunin trees again...he shoots 3 more times and looks at me and states...I dont have anymore shells....He only brought 7 shells...Needless to say he didnt get a deer and stunk as he drove out my gate.

Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm. Welcome to the Forum!

This one happened to me in the fall of 2000 in Three Rivers, Texas on a high fenced property.

After arriving at the property late friday evening we sat around the campfire telling stories and having a few adult beverage. We met our guide and he went over the ground rules of the place. Our job was simple: We were there to handle the hog population, but we were also there to glass and document deer for the upcoming hunting season.

After a five o'clock wake up call and a great breakfast we loaded up for the morning hunt. After about a ten minute ride into the property the guide stopped the truck and exclaimed "who's hunting rattle snake crossing?" Being that we weren't far from camp, and being that I didn't want hunt near camp either, I kept my mouth closed. But, since I was the newbie to the trip I quickly found myself being unloaded by my buddies. As I started to get situated the guide came over to me and said that they had been seeing a lot of hogs in this area so get loaded and get ready.

After the truck drove away I found a small mesquite tree to sit next to, opened my chair, sat down and loaded the .338 win mag. After about thirty minutes I started to dose of and then all hell broke loose behind me! All I could hear were hogs squeeling and fighting and they were not playing around. I got my rear off that chair and spent the next 45 minutes on one knee with rifle in hand facing the direction in which the noise had come. ...I was scared Sh**less. As soon as the sun broke I was very relieved and a lot more comfortable sitting again.

As the morning sun began to make it's way across the S.Texas sky animals started to move everywhere; It was like the trees and ground were coming to life. I kinda figured at that point that the corn truck was making it's towards my location. As I am sitting there, I look over my right shoulder and see movement at about 300yds. I quickly roll to my left and get behind my chair to see what is coming. As I look down the road through my scope I see a very large, black, Russian bore. I watched and watched and when he finally got to about 175yds I removed my left hand from the forend of the rifle and waived at him....He stopped immediatly. I settled the crosshairs on the inside corner of his left eye...squeezed the trigger, and fire from the muzzle blast filled the scope picture. After the smoke cleared I looked down range and he was down.

As the guides pulled up one said "damn, we haven't even corned the road yet!" ...And I replied "then I guess I'll have a chance at a few more when you do then, huh?" He got a pretty good chuckle and corned the road for me. As soon as the truck made the turn up the road, about fifty pigs came out and I was ready for round two. Shot #2 found me about a 75lb pig at 100yds and when it when down I chambered #3 and found another hog that stopped just short of the tree line at about 200yds, I let it go again and the hog count was now at three for the morning. Things we going great, but they we are about to get a lot more interesting.



HUNTER TO HUNTED

As we get back to camp, we are all talking about the morning hunt and the other guide comes in with a good friend of mines cousins. The guide said that we needed to hear what one of 'em saw. As Travis told the story you could tell that he was visibly shaken. He told us that while he was sitting there he looked down the road and noticed something crossing in to some bottoms. As he looked down the road in his binocs. he saw movement in the left treeline. He focused in and was amazed to see a full grown mountain lion at about 200 yds. Before he could get his rifle up the cat was gone...and soon he was too.

After the guide picked him up and they made their way back to camp, the plan for the day was to find and kill this/these mountain lions. Seeing how I had already taken a few pigs they made the decision to put me in the same area. After they dropped me off I backed myself into a heavily fortified spanish dagger bush and began to glass.

I'll skip ahead...

About an hour before sunset, I was watching about 20 really nice, mature whitetail. As I looked down the road to the west, I start wo watch a really nice immature buck feeding in the road. He stays there feeding along the rroad for about 15-20 minutes and then starts to make his way towards the bush. As I am kinda watching out of the corner of my eye, I notice that he seems really spooked about walking in. finally he does and after about 30 seconds he comes busting out of there full speed.
Without any hesitaion I pick up my rifle and look through the scope. As I look thorugh the scope I am in pure disbelief. Right in the middle of the road is the mountain lion and he is cleaning his paws. I put the gun on him, pull the trigger. I'm thinking I got him, but when I look through the scope again he is now standing and looking around. I put the scope on him again and put it right on his sholder this time. As soon as the gun went off the second time he went straight into the air, landed hard, and ran towards the trees. All I remember from the shot was it's giant tail stretched all the way out as it made it's way to the sky.

Now, typically I will wait a little while before I go try to look for an animal, but I just couldn't sit still. I reloaded my rifle and made me way to where I thought the shot happened. When I got there I was disappointed to find no blood. Trying to replay the events that just happened I started to make my way off the road bit, but decided I had better wait for the guide and the others to get there to be safe. When they finally arrived to pick me up, I told the guide I had seen one of the lions and took two shots at it. I told him that I missed the first shot and wasn't real comfortable about the second one either. That's when one of my buddies said he had heard both shots and that the second one hit. After looking for about fifteen minutes with five guys, finally, blood. We followed it about 100yds or so and the trail started to make it's way to some really thick mesquite bottoms. After seeing how thick it was, we decided to back out and head to camp to devise some sort of plan for tracking the animal. After talking about it, we decided the safe thing to do would be to take up the search in the morning.

I probably told that story about a hundered times that night and thanks to a few stiff drinks I was able to finally get some sleep.

Morning comes and the search is on. We go right to our trail marker we had left and pick up right where we left off. We follow the trail down into the bottoms and are shocked to find a 1.5 year old 8pt pulled half way up a tree and pretty much was cleaned out of any meat. The area had the worst smell imaginable! As we get back on the trail, the head guy points out to us why you don't go looking for a wounded predator by yourself. It seems that while I was walking around looking for sign of a hit, the mountain was looking to see what had made the loud noise at the other end of the road. We followed the trail another 150-200 yards and the blood trail circled to almost fifty yards of where I was sitting. SCARRED THE HE** OUT OF ME!!! Basically, the scary part of the whole experience was while I was walking down to where I shot him, he was walking to where I shot him from. We continue to search but the blood trail starts to get too thin and all but disappears. At that point we call off the search and get ready to make the long drive home.

The thought of an animal, predator or not, being wounded and unrecoverable bothered me for weeks.

But, that evening and that evening alone taught me more about having patience while hunting... more than I could have ever imagined and I'm sure to never forget it.

Sorry for such a long read.

\m/