Unbelievable things you've seen-part 2
General Topic
I was once fishing on the Salt River near Afton Wyoming with my best friend David Draney. We were on a ten foot aluminum row boat throwing minnows at rainbows and cuts. It was probably 25 degrees and snowing- -hands freezing, frozen eyelets on our rods-- the kind that you have to suck the ice off the last eyelet so you don't tangle up in the bushes on one of those must-have perfect casts on the cutback... We had pulled over to fish a favorite hole- it was so cold you couldn't feel your fingers-- so much so that I hadn't closed the swivel after hooking on a fresh minnow. After casting into the deep swirling pool, my line became slack as the line with the treble hook and the minnow came off. The worst part was not only losing a perfectly good minnow and the hook but having to tie up a new rig while not being able to feel any part of your extremities. After about five minutes of re-hooking, ready to go again. On the very first cast- somehow in a river with a deep hole and running swirls, I reel in only for the new treble and a new minnow to miraculously find the loop of my previous line with minnow still attached.
The only thing I've ever seen that I wasn't able to explain with normal rational thought, was a Bowsite physics discussion.
I had some hunters out in west Texas calling predators one night during their deer hunt. We were in the bed of my pickup, I was standing on my cooler near the tailgate with the fella working the light and the shooter were propped on top of the cab.
I'll tell you this ranch was within a few miles of the boarder and we had "groups" come through on a regular basis. Travel usually slacked off some during hunting season, but for some reason that year had been pretty busy for traffic. When cruising around at night you tended to keep your wits about ya.
Anyway, we had started the 2nd or 3rd sequence when something hit me extremely hard on the right/top of my head knocking my hat off and damn near putting me on the ground.
My first thought...Bandits. The neighbor to the west had a jeep Cherokee stolen from his place a several days before and they pointed it north till they blew in engine in it...so that's where my mind immediately goes...we're about to get robbed, or worse.
I run a Glock 20 in 10mm with an Xphose light mounted. I spun and drew expecting some sort of confrontation. Nothing, nobody, no dust, no sounds of somebody moving in the rocks. I backed up and took the big light away from the guys, who both have this WTH look on their faces. Still nothing...now I'm starting to freak a bit. I feel my head and I'm bleeding a bit, not too bad but bad enough...what the hell hit me!?
After a few tense minutes I decide to get these out someplace safer and tell'em get in the truck on the driver's side and do it quickly.
While this is going on, I'm scanning with the big light and catch a set of eyes about 30 yards away. It was a pretty large owl, bigger than I would expect to see in the Trans Pecos Desert, sitting on top of old wind mill with the same WTH look on his face that my hunters had.
Best we can figure, he was coming to the call and decided my head looked like the perfect perch to calculate his final approach. Scared the crap outta me. If we wouldn't have seen that owl, I would have probably never went into that canyon again.
Good Luck, Warren
I was sitting in a tree stand before sun-up, just as it was getting light, I saw something move in a tree 20 yards from me... it was a great horned owl. He was tilting his head and looking straight at me (trying to decide if he should eat me?) he sat there for 2-3 minutes staring at me, then he took off and flew straight at me, I started moving very quickly and he swerved off a the last second. He went by my head so close I felt the air move from his wings... Scared the crap out of me.
I also watched a Javelina I had just put an arrow in run off a 200' cliff that was nearly vertical. He slid/ran/ ttumbled all the way to the ground and then took off like a shot! went another 30-40 yards and died. It was crazier than it sounds.
Scar.
I was coming out of the woods after bowhunting deer last year. I was walking a narrow but deep dried creek bed to get out. Only my head was above the creekbank. I was totally enclosed in about a 2 foot circle by group of coyotes. They were howling like mad and I dont have a clue if they knew I was there or not. It was pitch dark which added to the effects of the moment. It was one of those moments in hunting that just had that "super wow" feeling. Even after turning my flashlight back on some hung around. Never really feared them tho as I do believe a 40 S&W will beat a coyote every time.
One evening 4-5 years ago while deer hunting I was sitting in my tree stand when a sow with a litter of piglets came out. They began feeding towards me I got ready planning on shooting the sow once she was in range. When they were around 60 yards away a large bobcat appeared from nowhere about 10 yards or less from the group. I don't know how I didn't see it come into the field it was like it popped out of a hole but there was no hole. The cat pounced on the closest piglet and the piglet let out a shreak. Momma wasn't happy she spun around and charged and caught the bobcat broadside and sent it flying over her back. The cat landed on its feet and ran into the woods. Unfortunately for the sow her efforts where to little to late the piglet was dead. Slowly she gathered the rest of her litter and moved off in the opposite way the bobcat went. About 15 minutes after the pigs left the bobcat showed back up slowly crept into the field grabbed the piglet and bolted into the woods.
Years ago I was hunting deer in late November, I had tagged out on bucks but had doe tags. A nice doe came into less than five yards and I double lunged her. She expired 20 yards from my tree. Shortly after a young one appeared and began bawling nonstop. I felt horrible. My buddy was in the woods as well and was buck hunting so I didn't get down as to not disturb much. The young one kept bawling for 20 minutes while her mother spilled blood out her nose. A large amount of blood accumulated in a pool near her nose.
The bawling attracted a huge buck and it came in under my tree and I figured him to be 170 inches or more. I was cussing as my buck that year was smaller. The buck proceeded directly to the downed doe and lapped up every drop of blood she had let out. I have never heard of or witnessed that behavior again.
I didn't see this but wished I had.....a buddy of mine was scouting for elk in early August in the mountains of Colorado and came around a curve in a trail and met a woman riding bareback and bare naked on her horse.
He said she was a damn good looking gal.
Sitting turkey hunting right before sunrise on public on the border of a Army Reserve Base and all of sudden the 105mm cannons let off about 100yrds away. The shock wave got every bird to respond and I watch the projectile traveling across the valley, took 54 secs until impact, yeah I put a tom down latter on in the morning. Set up in the same area several yrs latter and when I just sat down against a white pine I had a large black object that came up to my decoy 15 yrs out and as it got lighter it turn into a black boar bear, quiet as a mouse coming up just sat there smelling the decoy for a few minutes before moving on, which I did also.
Years ago, a buddy of mine built himself a cozy box blind up in an oak tree. He built it in the spring and never went back until deer season opened. Before daylight on opening morning, he climbed up into it, and it smelled sort of funky. About daylight he hears a squirrel hit the backside of the tree and start climbing up. He thinks to himself, man that is one noisy squirrel. So when the squirrel gets close to the window, he looks out and is face to face with a bobcat ! Scared hell out of both of them ! The bobcat literally turned loose and fell out of the tree backwards, but of course landed on his feet, and ran away. Joe had an old 30-40 Krag and had the presence of mind to stick it out the widow and fire at the cat. The cat crumpled and Joe is elated that he is gonna have a good mount. The bullet hit the cat in the back of the head and blew his entire face off. I saw the cat after, and it was a mess.
I went to Boulder Colorado once... once.
10 sq miles surrounded by Reality
A UFO flying low (probably a drone) 2 years ago along a fence line near a cornfield and woodlot edge. I came around the corner on the dirt road while on the way to deer hunt and the thing flew straight up then paralleled me as I was heading towards my parking spot. A small curve in the road allowed me to point headlights toward it then it took of like a shot through the woods exiting on a field on the far side. About size of a swan. Green, red and a white light-probably was shining. Maybe someone standing on the edge of a far field driving it, but definitely looking at the area where the deer would lineup in the field edge.
Saw something similar on the way to early morning fishing trip 25 yeas ago. That one was about the size of a 55 gal drum. Probably military, not alien...but looks pretty cool at 4AM.
This is my #2 favorite thread on this site,second only to the Rowdy Dowdy thread!
Bob
Come mid november, a few years ago, i had used my buck tags but still had a couple doe tags in my pocket. It was mid november and i shot a doe; she went down within 40 yards of my stand. I wish i had my video camera at that point as i watched a 2 year old buck circle the dead doe for 10 minutes before he tried to breed her. He was "fully extended" yet somewhat confused. I love the woods, in a matter of seconds you might see something you never imagined!
I had a bobcat sneak in on my turkey decoy, sniff it, stare at it a bit and then scent marked it and walked off.
I watched some sort of animal cross he road in front of me and disappear off the bank to the river (northern CO front range). My buddy and I agree that it looked like a seal. I'm thinking river otter but I remember at the time thinking alien invasion.
One morning before light we were driving down a dirt road to a lake in a snowstorm to go duck hunting. Something explodes from the ditch and takes off down the road in the headlights. Its an ostrich.
Glunt: now THOSE would be some big drumsticks! LOL
Went back to the farm in Missouri to bow hunt deer a couple of years after i finished college. Was going to use a tree stand that was an old wooden ladder leading up about 10' to a few 2x6 nailed on a horizontal limb. No safety harness. No backrest. Not safe by today's standards but was the norm back then around my home town. I would never use something like that now.
My brother walked me into the woods a good hour before first light and once I was at the ladder he left with the head lamp style coal miners used back then. Was dead calm while I waited for the sunrise.
Dawn broke and as the direct sun reached the leaves under my tree, turkeys began to fly down and land about 50 feet from the base of my tree. I was enjoying the show when a loud whoosh whoosh woos erupted just above my head. A gobbler had spent the night roosted about 10 feet above me and never made a sound or budged for the hour plus I was also in the tree. The sound of the wings flapping was loud then the turkey glided down to join his buddies. Took me about 15 minutes to get my heart rate back to normal.
Years ago the wife and I were bow hunting a large track of timber company land and come upon an old house place. The house had burned and there were 5 graves there. A man, a woman and 3 children and on each tombstone was inscribed Name, age, date of birth and death along with the words: MURDERED BY and gave the murders name. They all died on the same day.
My freezer the wife didn't shut the door on
I was hunting antelope last fall in Wyoming, sitting on a lonely rock on small knob and glassing the surrounding landscape. I was thinking to myself that hunters had probably been sitting in this spot and waiting for game for a very long time. I looked down a few minutes later and noticed that my feet were literally resting on a pile of rock flakes that were the by-product of another hunter or hunters, a long time ago, making spearheads or arrowheads. I hadn't seen any rocks that color or type the whole time I'd been on that hunt, they must have brought them in from somewhere else to 'their spot'. It was kinda cool, if not unbelievable...
I was still-hunting my way up the drainage that leads up to where the Elk usually are one morning. Trying to slow down like I belonged there....
And as I was passing a bare-trunked Doug Fir, a little pine squirrel - the kind that usually give you hell for trespassing - hopped up off the ground onto the lower limb tip of my recurve, ran up the string, scrabbled up my arm, and hopped from my shoulder to the side of my head and ricocheted onto the side of the tree.
Then he stopped and stared at me like "WTH did I just do???"
But he never gave me any lip. Guess he figured I belonged there pretty much after all....
Now if I could just get the Elk to agree....
A lot of these srories jog my memory of things that happened to me, although maybe not unbelievable, at least novel, and interesting. Treewalker telling of the turkey was one.
I was turkey hunting in Central Texas and went out into the yard to pee before daylight. A hen had roosted in the mesquite tree overhanging the cabin. When she vacated the roost, I almost dirtied my drawers.
Another time during deer season, I had a doe already skinned hanging in a tree about 15 yards from the porch. Went outside to pee, ( I like to pee outside ) and as my eyes adjust to the light, I think I see something under the doe. I step off the porch and it crouches, so now I KNOW I see something. Stepped three steps to the truck and retrieved my Glock and a light, but of course it ran. Walked back of the cabin and shined the light and it was a bobcat in the lot behind the cabin. I knew there was no stock there, so I took a hail mary at the eyes. I missed, but it didn't come back and gnaw on my deer.
top three. 1. walked toward toward bugling bulls at very last light, as I got close wood exploded with crashing horns and grunts. I ran up and stopped 8 steps away as one pushed the other straight down hill crashing small oaks and i had to jump out of the way to avoid being trampled. 2. I looked out of my small dome tent deep in a colo wilderness in sept hunting elk.The sound of a big chopper was quickly getting closer. I turned on my flash light and it flew straight over me and hovered,close overhead.Big double roter with big light on belly.Then it rose 300 ft and took off.I went stright off the mountain to my truck at a jog and called the sherrif after finding out my wife was OK.seem it was air force out of colo springs looking for a muzzleloader whose horse had rolled over on him and broken his pelvis. But I explained they had found me? 3. Was walking in to my tree stand in in nov in NE tex and at first light saw a big pumpkin head TOM MNt lion who leap up out of the Johnson grass 5 ft high 30 yds away and then down and catch a rabbit. It walked off with it in his mouth and I fumbled to nock an arrow..
this last year I had been after a 150ish 10 point whitetail I had seen him 5 times already but no shots! 2 days before rifle I was walking in about a half hour before dark and bumped some bedded deer, when I got to the bottom of the hill I heard some loud grunting and it just kept getting louder and louder so finally I turned my headlamp on only to find that 10 point was chasing me! I had him at 20ft broadside in my headlamp for a good 20 seconds and he took off never to be seen again. And no I didn't spray estrus on myself haha
I read a discussion on Bowsite about guys wanting to eat 17 year cicadas.. Actually have seen some pretty neat things over the years. Watched and tried to kill a coyote that was trying to eat an exhausted yearling buck while he was still alive and I was stalked/watched by a cougar in Colorado at a distance of 60 yards while elk hunting near the Black Canyon.
I grew up on a farm out in South Africa. On one of our night drives using a spotlight to count game and hunt predators, we drove down into an old dam that had lost its wall to a flood a few year before. It was dry and about knee high in grass. Out in the middle was a big old Bushbuck Ram, solitary by nature and frequent the thick riverline bush. I passed over him with the Spotlight and by the time i got back on him with the light he was gone, no where to be seen, I kept the light on the area and we drove the landrover right to where I saw him last. I started scanning the grass only to see him only meters from the vehicle on his stomach crawling away from us.
Hunting mid-November in a snowstorm, about 12-14 inches of snow on the ground and still snowing hard. Walking through the woods, nothing else around but trees and snow...until I came up to a rock that was totally uncovered and every snowflake that landed on it melted immediately. Took a glove off and felt it and it was definitely warm. Looked around and didn't see any other rocks like it but I marked it on my GPS. Came back in the spring to check it out after the snow was off but the area was being logged and the ground was all torn up. Wasn't able to find that warm rock; I've never seen anything like it before or since.
Hey RCarter, my story is more like yours. We were bank fishing and I leaned my rod under a picnic table to help my son with his line. Before I could stop it, a fish hit my line and dragged my rod and reel out from under the table and into Bayou Lafourche. I almost jumped in after it because the cork handle was floating by and it was an Amassador 5500 on a Bass Pro rod. About a half hour later my son hooked a fish and was having trouble fighting it. He asked for help but I told him to beat that fish (he was about 10 or so). Something looked odd and he couldn't get it in so I took over and reeled in my Bass Pro rod by the tip top guide! It still had the fish on it> but what I had declared was a nice redfish was now about a 2 pound hardhead catfish.
Another time a friend and I were surf fishing for speckled trout and the bigger ones were hitting spoons. He tied on a spoon and had me show him the retrieve that was getting hits. Next he landed a 2-3 inch hardhead that was hooked on the treble hook by the anus! Then he duplicated the feat minutes later!!!
That's called the --"Bowsite Physics" fishing technique.
Packing up camp on an elk with my brother years ago and a squirrel dropped a heavy, green, pine cone on my head from probably 40 feet up in a ponderosa pine. It buckled my knees, left a nice welt, and dang near knocked me out! I don't think I have ever seen my brother laugh so hard to this day.
Elk hunting with my Dad above Los Alamos, NM with the creepiest feeling I have ever had. We heard bulls bugling in the Valles Caldera (Baca Ranch back then) and planned on staying the night in the back of the truck. It was getting dark so we headed back to the truck walking on a logging road. I kept getting this terrifying feeling like something trying to overpower me. I kept looking around and nothing was there. My dad was looking around as well but neither of us said anything. We made it back to the truck just before dark and he left to go take care of business so I jumped in the truck and waited. He came back in a hurry and asked If I really wanted to stay the night and I said NO WAY! He promptly agreed and we took off. We both said we experienced the same terrifying, dreadful, feeling. All we can think about it is that maybe something terrible happened there and there were some kind of bad spirits there or something. He has felt the same feeling in other areas in NM as well. I'll never forget that one.
On the Indian ocean on an LHA Marine assault ship, for most of a week the ocean as far as you could see was like a sheet of glass. No swells whatsoever. No wind. Nothing. It was like another planet.
ButcherBoy-- if you were a little west of there or a little north (either on the Navajo res or the Jicarilla), would be a case of "skin walkers"... Strange things indeed.
I was bowhunting a new ladder stand I had just hung the day before in a nasty thicket. To get to it, I had to cut a trail and tack it. Early dark thirty, I am walking the newly cut trail and after a hundred yards I hear something following me. No way I think, it's my imagination. I keep walking and after another 200 yards, I am now certain something is following me. I pick up the pace and get to my stand. whatever it is, it's now only 50 yards away. I barely touch the steps as I get up in the stand and secure my safety harness. My bow is still hanging on the pull-up rope below me and I see the big form approach on my exact trail. It's still dark but I can see it's outline and a giant white rack. It walks to my ladder and proceeds to whack my ladder and my bow with its antlers. After a minute of this, it snortweezes and then slowly walks off stiff legged. I regain my composure and finally think to pull up my bow but the deer is now 50 yards away and walking out of the thicket. Even if I had the bow in my hand is was too dark to shoot and see my pins. I am certain that buck would have tried to kill me if I was on the ground. Never did I see that buck again and every time I hunted the stand I was on edge walking into the stand.
I was in MI hunting the Manistee National forest in November a few years ago. The evening hunt was over and I walked out to the trail to wait for my buddy to pick me up. It was one of those cold, super clear nights where you could see forever. I sat down to wait and looked up at the sky. I saw a red light in the distance. It hovered for a while, then darted up, hovered awhile, then darted to the side. I watched this for about 10 minutes and then in the blink of eye it was gone. Of course my buddies didn't see it and accused me of drinking already!
Two years ago while hunting sheep in the Wrangell Mts. with my hunt buddy we were bivied out on a saddle at 7,000 ft. the saddle was about 6 ft wide and dropped nearly 1000 ft straight down on each side. a beautiful night, calm and a sky full of stars. I was in a slate colored bivy sack over my sleeping bag that matched the color of the loose shale of the mtn. my bivy had a hoop in it, and as I lay there awake I felt something hit the hoop and a millisecond later felt a feather brush my cheek. as I jerked my head to the left I saw a silhouette of a large owl against the night sky. I can only imagine that the white of my face sticking out of the bivy was the target and do not want to think what would have happened if the owl had not connected with the hoop of the bivy while coming in for his 'prey'. I no longer sleep in the open while biving out, but choose to put a tarp over me. a little extra rain protection and gives me peace of mind about not experiencing that again.....
While running a raccoon trapline, my friend and I found a dead black man dressed in a blue bikini with a pair of binoculars around his neck.
The night I shot my biggest buck ever- a 180"s 6x6 that jumped up and ran off after I knocked it down with a 7 mag- We were hiking back to the truck in the fading light after the sun had long set and we noticed bright lights on the eastern and northern horizon that would appear and disappear. very strange and different than the magnesium flares on the B1 bomber runs.
Rcarter - I live a stone throw away from the Navajo Rez and a short drive from the Jic, Ute Mountain, and Southern Ute Reservations. I think it was some kind of bad spirit there. Where this occurred was actually just north of the ski resort above Los Alamos and along the east border of the Valles Caldera. Definitely spooky things out there and I would prefer to run into a thousand Bigfoots than experience what happened that night!
Butcherboy-- I'm from Abq, lived in Kirtland, worked in Newcomb so what you are telling me.... No news there. Real stuff one way or another if you know what I mean. However- up on the tops of the mountains- west of what used to be highway 666 (yes it really was called that until a few years ago) which runs from Gallup to and into Cortez Co---not a prettier and quieter place up on the Rez above Toadlena on the AZ line.
Not even gonna comment on this
Scar--I had a similar run in with an owl. Several years ago I took a portable tree stand into a woods looking for a good tree to place the stand for the evening deer hunt.
I found a good location and climbed the tree to begin setting the stand. As I was placing the stand, I noticed a bunch of sticks laid across the limbs of the tree just to my left. I didn't think much about it and removed some of the sticks so they would not interfere with drawing my bow.
A few hours later I got into the stand to prepare for the evening hunt. About 15 minutes after sunset, I caught sight of something flying straight at me and I raised my arm to protect my head. At the last second it swooped up over my head and as I turned to see what it was, I could tell it was a very large owl.
Just as I was regaining my composure, the owl decided to make a second run at me, however, this time I didn't see it coming until it was too late-- it hit me in the forehead knocking off my hat and leaving me stunned. Somehow I was able to grab my bow and exit that tree in record time before another Kamikaze run was launched.
As I thought about the incident later, I think those sticks were some sort of a nest and the owl took exception to my re-arranging of his home!
Butch
KJC wins if the Black man was a midget.
All these reports from a lot of people outside enjoying the outdoors and not one report of Bigfoot! He must be a pretty slippery critter!!!
Nope, not a midget. Just a perv. He climbed a tree to look into the apartment windows on the other side of some rail road tracks, fell and broke his neck. I guess he should've worn a safety harness!
I saw a guy on TV using an electronic thing shaped like a mushroom to tell him if the wind was blowing and if so in which direction.
Won't go into the bigfoot thing again. Will just say I look over my shoulder alot when I'm caribou hunting in Quebec. See you on the tundra. Rory
Shep won this one hands down ! KJC was a close second though.......
Not a joke or prank item, it was in the ethnic foods section at a grocery store here in Maryland
1983 Pine Acres Ontario. Hunting with my Brother, and Gene Petri West Virginia now passed. I recently learned. I was hunting a bait on old 16, now Chaval, 8 miles from red bluff road. Had to walk in 3 miles to last bait due to washouts, I come out at dark and wait, wait and wait. They show up around 2AM. As we got into camp Chris was just coming to look for me. I'm pissed to say the least. When I finally stopped walking got in and they talked to me, I was upset wasn't talking to them. Here it is shortstop. Jerry and Gene swear they saw a bigfoot walking upright on a ridge on there way out. Next they get out and Sonny from W.V. got run out of his bait by a sow with cubs that also stormed his truck. Had to help old Roy who shot a bear retrieve it and they kept getting charged by a big boar who wanted the dead bear. My brother still stands by the story.
Camping in Isle Royale a moose came into the campground about day break. I saw it and since my fiancé handn't seen one on the trip yet I woke her up to look a the moose. After telling her several times to look out the screen she flatly stated "you can't see anything its still dark!" No dear that is the moose, yeah standing over the tent, she was looking at its side inches away.
Running baits after tagging out West of Vermillion Bay, Pipe Line bait. I and a young guide pull up to check on the hunter. The Hunters Very Hot Fiance is sitting in the truck in her underpants only, no top catching some rays in the truck. Had a "nice" chat and left them alone. They had two way radios and he never saw a black bear. Suspect why! LOL
OK, that kind of story. Came upon a couple romancing it streamside with a minnow bucket, stringer of fish and rods in hand to get back to my car, but the couple had parked on the trailhead. Um OK I can go back to fishing for a another 20 minutes or so.
Similar occurrence at a trout fishing hole with two of my buddies, hiking for 1/2 hour to the secret pool. As we got to it about sun-up there was couple bare naked in it. Really ?? That water had to be only about 40 degrees.
This all happened to me during a turkey hunt on a South Dakota Indian reservation. I'll just call it an interesting walk/hunt.
It started with finding some very old bones along a river bank. The bones were exposed on a bend in the river. After discussing my findings with the locals they said it very common to find human bones in the area I was hunting as it was an old burial ground.
After I shot my first turkey I made my way to the top of a butte to get a good look around. I had one more tag to fill. The area was beautiful and I could see for miles. Off in the distance a flying object caught my attention. It was high in the sky soaring and working its way my direction. As I sat motionless, the vulture made its way directly over my head and began circling directly overhead. With each circle the turkey vulture got lower and lower. Directly overhead and getting lower and lower the bird continued it descent. The vulture lowered itself to about six feet above my head and looked me right in the eyes. I've never locked eyes with a bird before but it was amazing. After looking me in the eyes it reversed its course and lifted itself straight up and went off in the direction from which it came. I sat there for awhile and took it all in.
Later on I glassed a flock of turkeys off in the distance. It took some time to work my way to where I last saw them. As I was glassing the area I looked back from where I came and out of the woods strolled this giant bull bison. I was not aware that bison were in this area and I watched it in almost disbelief. It walked along the edge of the woods for about a minute before disappearing. It was amazing.
So far it was a turkey hunt like no other and the funny thing is the weirdest thing was yet to happen.
I was on a three day hunt and on the evening of the second day I worked an area close to where I found the bones. I was glassing the hillside from across the river looking for turkeys and also watching the approaching storm. Storm clouds began rolling in over the hills and came straight at me. This cloud that was coming at me began transforming itself into the shape of a face. The features became detailed and as it was almost overhead I could see a man's face smiling at me. It disappeared about as quickly as it appeared.
At this point I put all the signs together and walked over to where the bones lay and covered them up with sand.
My hunt ended early the next morning with a lone tom strolling in to a lone hen decoy.
I just found parts 1&2 of this thread yesterday, it's been awesome reading all the stories. I have a couple to share.
I live in SE wi and during the summer months my wife takes a four mile run each weekday morning at 4 am. Sometimes I'll take my coffee and ride my bike while she runs. I usually stay around thirty yds behind her so I don't disturb her. Our path takes us past a golf course that runs along the shore of Lake Michigan. It's not uncommon to see deer on the course that time of morning. This particular morning as we round the corner and start the half mile along the course here comes three deer and all three ran within ten yds of my bike the entire length of the course. They stayed at my speed which was only as fast as my wife was running. We were 30 yds behind my wife and she was oblivious to what was going on behind her.
My son was in his first year of bow hunting and was going to head up to my in laws and hunt with me after his football game. He told me where he wanted me to hang a stand and asked me to hunt it basically to observe. I didn't like the spot but obliged his request. At first light a yearling doe comes in and mills around for a while. She came right to the bottom of the ladder stand and started licking the frost off the stand. She climbs the hill and was now 5 yds away at eye level directly downwind. She smelled me, looked at me and layed down right there. No care in the world. She slept until it was time for me to get down and I didn't want to bust her out of there so my son may have a chance at her so I lit up a cigarette figuring shed smell that and leave. Smoke cloud going right in her face and she still didn't care. She'd lift her head, whatch me smoke and lay her head back down. I decided I'd grunt, she didn't care. I tried rattling, she got annoyed, stood up, turned the other direction and lay right back down. All while still within five yards at eye level.
I was sitting in a camp chair with my oldest on my lap, looking at the stars. We spotted a satellite moving South to North and it became brighter and brighter until, suddenly, the entire area was lit up like midday.
We experienced a satellite flare, where the sun reflects off of the solar panels of a satellite and down to the Earth like some cosmic flashlight sweeping across the planet.
I doubt I'll ever experience that again, but there are apparently people who track the satellites now and try to intercept where a satellite flare will occur.
Yesterday, scouting for elk. I ran into an attractive geologist looking for rocks back in the woods in a BIKINI. Of course I stopped to talk with her for a bit, about rocks, you know. She just moved to the area, is single (alas, I'm not...) and works part time at a mountain restaurant near my cabin. I told her where to find some crystals in the area.
As I was leaving, she said "Wait a minute", reached in her pack and gave me a crystal for good luck, wrote down her name and phone number, said to give her a call sometime.
Alas..... This stuff never happened when I was single....
...... and then the alarm went off. :^0
Like many others, these stories have brought back memories. Some strange, some eery, some just interesting.
In HS, hunting predators in the Angels National forest (decades ago). My brother was calling and we heard something coming through the dry leaves toward us making quite a racket. Must be large we thought. Coyote? bobcat? The noise was now between us (and we were only 10 feet apart). to dark to see anything so we ditched on our lights- paralyzed in the center of the beam was the smallest, scaredest little fired mouse I have ever seen.
shift to 1975- midwatch (about 3 am) : iwas standing on the wing of the bridge looking down about 30 feet to the dark water. Ship (a DEG) was doing about 2 knots as we made circles on station waiting to evacuate Cambodia. a greenish glowing shape, about 10 feet long slowly moved undulating down the side of the ship. Felt a chill as this ghost shark passed by. Well, a shark, yes, but not a ghost- just under the surface causing plankton to lumenesce as it slowly sawm along.
1977, west of San Clemente Island again sometime during the mid watch on a dark night. 90 FT Opsrey class PTF. dead in the water waiting to ambush blue force units during an exercise. Two parallel green luminescent tracks off our beam heading directly at us amidships from 200 yards away. Think torpedo wakes ala almost every WWII movie of the war at sea. Suddenly they disappeared under the boat. All i could figure was playful porpoises stirring up the plankton.
Bowhunting in VA. Watched a groundhog climb a tree
Rifle hunting in the snow in PA- another ground hog ambled up the slope and stopped between my feet before looking up at me, I swear its eyes opened wide in surprise before it turned and scurried off.
Century bike ride in Southern Maryland; Along a rural (paved) road watched as a hawk dove and hit the helmet of the rider about 10 yards ahead of me.
Off the coast of Klaipeda, Lithuania in a small boat shuttling us from UNSN Comfort (hospital ship) for some liberty, saw mystical "green flash" (A linear flash of green along the horizon at the instant the sun drops below the horizon under certain conditions). Years of sea duty, hundreds of sunsets and sunrises, that was the only time I saw the flash.
I met some Colorado mtn bikers once that were scared out of their wits by a bloody elk carcass with the legs and head lopped off that had dropped off a steep cliff right onto the single track trail they were bombing down.
Lou, my fishing buddy had a similar experience. He ran into biologist in our area who took a bikini break on the back of her atv in the middle of surveying fishermen on the river...he was also not single at the time...
About 15 years ago at Tejon Ranch (near LA) I spotted sounder of 20 or so wild hogs. I quickly clipped on the release and let fly at one of them. About 1/2 second later I learned firsthand the meaning of the expression "Squealing like a stuck pig!" Porky had a Muzzy buried in the spine. It rolled down the hill (breaking the arrow), whereupon another pig ran after it and commenced to biting the hell out of it! Whoa! I'd never seen such a thing before. I scrambled toward the ball of rolling, shrieking porkers and stuck my pig again. It rolled and broke that shaft too. After two more arrows it expired, and its antagonist, finally realizing that something was amiss because his victim looked like a pin cushion, ran back to rejoin the retreating herd. (For a brief second I was tempted to thump the other pig, but then decided that dealing with one dead pig would be more than enough work.)
I guess there's no honor among pigs.
Not among pigs, nor Tom turkeys, right? My brother arrowed one a few years back, and the other Toms immediately started acting like a bunch o' gang-bangers initiating someone fool enough to join up...
I guess birds are just nasty. One afternoon I watched a Cobb mute swan destroy a clutch of Canada Geese eggs that were just about ready to hatch... Ate every single one.
About 4 or 5 years ago I was leaving for work. That is around 4:45AM in the morning.
I walk out to my truck and all I can hear is every bird within miles chirping like crazy!
There are zero storms, No funky weather but it is always death quit when I leave that early in the morning.
About 3 hours later we had a good earthquake in the Cincinnati area.
All I can say is they new shit was coming down.
Watched an osprey parallel my path on the drive to work. The bird was holding a pike who had another fish sticking out of its mouth.
During a elk/deer hunt in the Jemez Mtns. in New Mexico. I had killed my elk and was trying to get my deer, Also bear season was going on. I had heard bear dogs earlier in the distance that morning chasing a bear. I was on the edge of an old logging road looking down into a canyon when I heard a twig break behind me. I looked up toward the top of a ridge behind me and saw a bear loping down toward me. I didn't move at all and thought that it was pretty neat to see a bear running toward me. The bear stopped right next to me and sat down and was breathing hard, I could have patted his head but didn't want to spoil the moment. After about 30 seconds the bear turned his head around and looked back the way he came from. Just then I heard hound dogs and two came over the ridge following the scent of the bear. The bear started running down into the canyon and the two dogs went by me and looked at me as ran past me. Both of the hounds had radio tracking collars on. I still had not moved, another 30 seconds pass and here comes another four hounds on the same path as the others. These hounds passed by on both sides and even hit my leg with a wagging tail.
Later on the same day I stopped by the bear hunters camp and asked them if they caught the bear, they had treed it and let it go as it was only about a 200 lb. bear.
I thought about this thread after my morning bike ride today. I stopped to rest along the Mississippi River. As I got back on my bike, a squirrel hopped up on the sidewalk from the brush by the river and stopped right in front of me with a small brown rat in its mouth. It took off before I got a real good look, but it was maybe 3-4 feet away and I saw a leg and the tail of the rat. Not unbelievable, but pretty strange.
Bullshooter - I'd bet momma squirrel moving her baby... Baby squirrels kinda look like mice or small rats...
I thought I was the only one that had owls swooping and dive bombing in the Colorado Rockies, guess not... Am not real sure the species, but they looked bigger than screech owls to me...
Pretty sure they are hoot owls - myself and both my hunting partners while hunting in CO had the same thing. Every time we passed a certain area just at dark that damn owl would come out and dive bomb us. I swung my bugle tube at it and when it made a loud "swooshing" sound the owl finally belayed his attacks on us.
Zbone, I thought about that but that rat tail looked pretty "bald". If baby squirrels have that rat tail look that must have been what I saw.
