Strange Happenings In The Woods/Scary Hunting Stories

[TexasRifleman]

One night in Woodson, TX (the big city) about 2am.

It was late October, early November and I was out in the jeep with a spotlight, just driving around hunting "movement" as we said back then (varmints only, don't panic).

Stopped to answer the "call of nature" up on a small rise. Very dark and very quiet. While doing my business I hear a woman scream for help, sounded like she was right next to me. I DID get my shoes wet I'll tell you that much.

Grabbed the spotlight and started looking....

Just off to my left, not 20 feet away was a solid black cat. BIG cat. I've heard them called "Mexican Panthers" but I'm not enough of an expert to know.

I mean standing RIGHT THERE looking at me. Got in the jeep and drove away, light on the cat the whole time. Never even blinked at me.....

 

[TexasRifleman]

Another night in Woodson, TX. This time I'm out on an oil lease in the middle of the night checking on some gas compressors after an electrical storm. It's midnight, maybe 1am.

It's winter again and I am out in THE middle of nowhere on 3000+ acres.

I stop to open a gate connecting 2 pastures and the lights on my pickup shine down the road and I see the most BEAUTIFUL perfect Whitetail buck I have ever seen, before or since. Magnificent.

Now I have to say the thought did cross my mind, my Mini14 was in the truck, but all I did was stand there and look.

I don't normally talk to myself out loud but I decided not to shoot it and just said out loud "That's the most beautiful deer I have ever seen".

A voice behind me says "You are sure right about that!".

Once again, nearly wetting myself, I turn around to see the local Game Warden standing 5 feet from me.

Once my heart started again I begged him to let me shoot it, not that it did any good

He said he's seen my lights and thought something was up so he snuck up behind me to see what was up. The deer finally wandered off and I went on about my business.

SURE glad I didn't head towards the rifle.....

 

[TexasRifleman]

OK one more. More comedy this time and showing the VERY poor judgement of a teenager with a gun


Woodson, TX again, I'm 19 and out with several friends ages 17-19.

We're not drinking, just hunting "movement" again (varmints only).

We stop under a tree to answer the call of nature. It's a BIG mesquite tree, unusually big actually. Maybe 11pm or midnight, November.

We're all being very loud and having a good time joking or whatever and we hear the rustling of limbs above us.

One of my less intelligent friends decides jokingly to fire his 20 gauge up into the tree. Now I am standing there watching this and he doesn't even aim the gun. He's looking at me and laughing when he pulls the trigger.

We all kinda freak out, thought he was just teasing, never thought he'd shoot.

Well we kinda stand there for a second and we hear some flopping around and there onto the ground drops, right at his feet, a WONDERFULLY bearded tom turkey. Dead as a doornail, 2 feet in front of him, just drops with a loud "WHAP".

OOPS.

By the way, I learned that night a very fast way to clean turkey, just breast it kinda like you would a dove. Breaded and fried, turkey fried steak........

 

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

Skipping school. Deer hunting...

I certainly couldn't get one of our family rifles, so I borrowed a .410 single shot from a friend. Mid day, four of us walking back to the truck. We hadn't seen a thing, then this Grouse flies up from the road. Roosted in a tree. My buddies hollar'd at me to take it.

Now mind you.. .410's with slugs were legal to hunt deer with here in Washington back when I was a teen.

I wheeled around and found this fat bird right out on a tree branch that seemed to be hanging from the gold bead on the end of my barrel.

I have a SHOTGUN in my hand. Um, not thinking that it wasn't loaded with #7 shot, I squeezed the trigger.

I must have hit dead center of her chest, because what happened next was a showering of feathers and bird body parts. That slug seemed to gut, skin, de-feather, carve and cook all at once. I'm not kiddin! We found a foot, and some other large chunks of meat. Feathers everywhere! I guess she was molting.

So much for fresh lunch.


I was on a small lake here in NW Washington several years back. I was trolling a fly on a fly rod at a slow paddle in my canoe. I caught a few small trout that way earlier in the day. But the bite was deffinately dead for the last couple of hours.

Then I heard the screach. This pretty little Osprey came down from the cliffs above to snatch a good 14 incher from the middle of the lake. I kept paddling and didn't catch a thing that afternoon. I was quite happy to be schooled by a better fisherman/bird that day.

-Steve

 

[Battlespace]

During my senior year in high school a bunch of us were out jack lighting rabbits one night. A local mink farm paid us two bits each and .22 longs were about fifty cents a box, so this was a money making deal. As we drove along a hay field we saw two red lights flick on and off and then on and off. We stopped and looked for a few minutes and then decided to get closer on foot. Sure enough, it was the Pontiac LeMans of one of the local jocks. We figured he had his girl in there so gathered around the car with flashlights at the ready. We turned them on at a quiet count of three. If she was meant to cover parts of her anatomy she would have had more than two hands. He wanted to jump out and find out who we were, but with pants around his ankles it was a little difficult.

That was about 40 years ago and as far as I know he never figured it out.

 

[critter]

Deer hunting. Found a tiny tree frog on a branch about 2' from me. Taking his picture when a wren landed-one foot on the limb and one on the frog. I have the picture!

Shot a bobwhite with a small, light 20 ga double. Went to pick him up from a small clump of grass when a SECOND one flushed about 18" from my face! Dead one had landed right by him. I 'panic shot' the second when it was still so close that I actually blew him from between his wings. Two wings only fluttered down.

Camped in a one man pup tent in the woods in a very dry fall. Heard coyotes, running steps in the leaves and then BOOM! A deer ran INTO my tent, kicked me in the head! Took me A WHILE to go back to sleep!

 

[.41 magnum man]

I once jumped a rabbit and as I was bringing up the shotgun he ran into a little patch of honey suckle and hit right smack into a grouse. The rabbit did a double take, and the grouse got caught up in the vines for a moment, then they both took off and I didn't get either one.

 

[skidooman]

A few years after I graduated highschool a buddy of mine went to college in chico, ca and was kinda bummed about not really knowing anyone up there, so a few other buddies and I met him at a small lake in northern CA. The 4 of us were sitting around the campfire bull-ishing when we heard a snap-thud, a little ways away. We all were instantly silent, looking at eachother to make sure someone hadnt snuck off to try a sneak attack, and all 4 were accounted for. I slowly grabbed my streamlight and hit the button. There was a small doe standing on a log not 15 feet away with the "oh ish" caught in the headlights look. My buddy said "watch this ima catch that thing" well as you all know deer are much faster than humans. That 15 feet we were away was the closest he ever got to that deer.

 

[stan in sc]

A friend of mine in Georgia was bow hunting for deer.He found a brush pile near a deer trail and settled himself right down in the middle of it.Just at sunset a doe came near him and he slowly rose and drew his bow....just as he heard and felt a snake vibrate on his leg.The arrow went wild and he urinated on himself jumping up and out of the brush pile to discover that the vibrating "snake" was his beeper in his cargo pocket which he has set on vibrate.I have never let him live that one down.

Stan