Strangest thing you came across while hunting

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Ranger Roberts

Ranger Roberts

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Like most of you guys, I've been an avid hunter/outdoorsman for most of my life. Throughout the years I have come across a few interesting things in the woods while scouting for a new spot or while hunting. A few years back a buddy and I came across an old Ford truck (1940's or so) in the woods while small game hunting. The thing that struck us as strange is that there is absolutely no access to this area by vehicle. I'm not just saying this because of trees. There were cliffs, tons of rock outcroppings and a sizable stream that you would have to get through to get to this area.

What have you guys seen over the years? Pictures would be a great addition if you have any!

I know there was a thread like this back in 2007:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=3375&highlight=strangest+thing+found+while+hunting

but we have a lot of new members since then, so I think it would be fun to get some new stories. Thanks guys!
 
I came across an old wooden tree stand about 7' off the ground, no limbs on the way up to it. There was a coyote sleeping on the platform, 7' off the ground with no obvious way to get up there. It was in the summer and I was just trailwalking, had no gun. I got to about 20' from him and he jumped to the ground and took off. I inspected the tree all the way around, there was no discernible way for him to get up there. I scratched my head all the way home.
 
One time when I was a kid, I was quail hunting with my dad, brothers and great uncle on one of the g. uncle's cattle properties. There was an ancient, broken down old house on it, and we found several boxes of plastic explosives stacked up inside it. There had been oil exploration companies doing seismic explorations on the property, and had apparently stored some of their explosives in the old house for a little while. They were tubes, probably 2-3 feet long, for lowering into drill holes and detonating to get seismic readings with.

Dad wouldn't let me have any, dang it.....
 
This is going to be an interesting thread.
I have found arrow heads, abandoned wells, once my buddy and I freed a nice buck caught in some loose barb wire fence, an antique JD pedal tractor, old tin signs. The most interesting thing was when we canoed up on a amorous couple on a sandbar. For some reason they were so involved that they didn't notice our approaching canoes.lol
 
My buddy and I talked a fellow in Alabama into letting us hunt ducks on the creek at the back of his land. We did really well on the ducks and squirrels and jumped a deer on the way in and a covey of quail on the way out but took a shortcut to his house to offer him some of the game. We stumbled onto his working still.

We gave him the squirrels and he gave us a pint for the ride home. :D True story!
 
I hunted the game unit south of Sterling Colorado several years in a row. Always for deer.

One year I spotted a small herd of antelope. There was a female in that herd that would sit on her butt like a dog. Hind legs out, front legs holding her up. Damnedest looking thing I ever saw.

I thought she might have been hurt or injured and I approached them just to see what would happen. She jumped up and they all ran like speed goats are famous for.

I saw the same herd a year later and there she was, sitting on her butt like a dog.
 
I found a complete instrument panel from an F4 jet fighter about 2 miles off the road in a public hunting area.
No, there were never any reports of an F4 crashing in the area.

I had a young couple 'Doing It' on a blanket under my tree stand one evening about a half hour after I got up the tree.
I kept clearing my throat to break the magic spell while they were walking up to the clearing and shedding clothes.
But apparently, they had other things on their mind at the time?

I finally said something like 'Please keep the screaming down. You are scaring the deer away!', or something equally witty?

And you should have seen the bare naked hasty retreat back though the poison ivy laden trail to the road where they left their car!

Oh! And the time I was out scouting a new hunting location along the Kansas river on a dirt bike.
I jumped the top of a levy and almost crashed into the side of a 70 something BMW parked on the other side across the trail.

Turned out to be one of the city's major & 'old family' business leaders.
And his young boyfriend.

Talk about a 'deer in the headlights' look from both of them out the side window!
One set of wide eyes above the other set of wide eyes.
They pleaded for me not to say anything to anyone.
And I ask them not to park sideways in the middle of a motorcycle trail on the back side of a jump again.

We parted ways with a mutual agreement for all of us, do just that!

rc
 
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does Bigfoot count? ;)

My dog went on point at the edge of a woodlot I came up expecting a grouse to flush but was totally shocked to see a snow white cock bird pheasant getting airborne, he was all white from tail to beak except for a bright red wattle. Needless to say I was so startled I never pulled the trigger.
 
While deer hunting in the Pennsylvania mountains,I came across an old cabin with a table,cot and some utensils.It was insulated with Reading,PA newspapers from the 1930's.On rainy days I would sit in there looking for deer and reading about 5 cent beers,cheap shoes and the police report.An old timer told me a hunting camp member lived there during the depression.Another experience occured during dove season in the 1960's.I would go home after work,grab the shotgun and head to the edge of a woods for the evening flight.This evening,while walking in the lane,I passed a parked car containing one of the bosses and a married female coworker.They were too busy to notice me and I walked on by.About 50 yds farther,I took a shot at a dove and the car started and backed out.
 
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I got surprised and attacked by an angry goose once. Felt like a fool, but I figured maybe she had a nest nearby.

That's all I got.
 
One time while bow hunting, I had a good size doe at 15 yards. She suddenly started walking away. A few seconds later, a bobcat, a big one, walked right under my stand toward where the doe went. I was so big, I first thought it was a mountain lion. They both disappeared into the brush. I have always wondered if that bobcat walked down that doe and caught her. (I never found her dead, could the bobcat even kill a grown deer?) It did make feel good about my scent control that it walked directly under me without spooking.
On a side note, I have always thought I would find a rusty rifle propped against a tree somewhere, but never have.
 
Down in New Mexico there was the ever present Indian Ruins as well as mining evidence dating back to the Spaniards. It is the most interesting place I've ever lived.
I've seen pit houses, cliff dwellings, line shacks, saw mills, mine shafts with old cars rigged up to run the hoists on the head frames, spanish trails, ghost towns littered with empty cartridges in Apache country, stage stops on the Butterfield Trail, Cavalry outposts, steam engines and I'm sure I'm still missing stuff.
 
A friend of my brothers came across some people digging a grave. He claims he heard them, and came upon a half dug grave with the shovel on the ground nearby. They must have heard him, and hid. He got out of the area ASAP, and notified the police. As far as we are aware nothing was ever found.
 
Nothing too crazy.... this is from before i was a firearms enthusiast... i was in college in the woods by a small creek... (i spent a lot of time in the woods in college!) I was walking down the creek and i saw a doe drinking so i stopped dead in my tracks... the doe must not of heard me over the sound of the water running...it started walking the creek line toward me... i never even winked... just stood completely still... the doe got withing about 6 feet of me.. sniffed.. and BOLTED... it was awesome to watch that thing take off the way it did... being that i was in college... in the woods... the situation may have seemed more grand than it was ::wink wink::... but ill never forget it... btw deer are much bigger in mass than they arw in texas... it scared me pretty good :)
 
There were two interesting things I've found while outdoors. The first one wasn't during hunting, but it was in an area that I'll probably be hunting this year. We were up on the edge of a cliff overlooking a salt flat in the valley below us and a plane came in really low and landed and pulled up to a couple of trucks. It was only there for about 10 minutes and then it took off again. It was a twin engine plane of some sort and it came in below the level of the mountain that we were on. This would have been in the very early 80's and there was apparently a corridor from northern Mexico into the west desert in Utah without any radar coverage. We actually went out to watch the Air Force jets that flew through there pretty much every day. But this day, it was a drug plane.

The other one was while fishing about a half mile from my house a couple of years ago. I was fishing at a local pond when I started cleaning up some of the trash that keeps getting left there. Irritates me to no end...... but that's beside the point. There was a paper bag shoved in a hole in a cinder block retaining wall. I pulled it out and it was full of rolls of $20, $50, and $100 bills. Now, I doubt some rich dude accidentally dropped it and it magically made it into that hole, so I left it alone. Sort-of. I'm on a first name basis with the local police chief and I called him and told him about it. He told me to leave it alone and they'd send over a couple of guys to watch it. Within about 10 minutes of that call, I was leaving and they caught a guy coming to pick it up. I was still there, but across that part of the pond. I didn't get any of the money, but the guy was arrested on outstanding warrants. He's a pretty violent guy from what I understand and he's still in prison.

BTW, it was awesome watching some of the jets over the mountains. We'd get F-4s, F-16s, F-15s, F-111s, B-52s, Cargo jets that I didn't recognize, A-10s, A-6s, A-4s, and lots of other F- planes. We even saw a B-1 once. Some of the smaller jets would make supersonic runs through the valley and we'd hear sonic booms in town quite often. The only sonic booms I've heard lately are from Meteorites. One in 1995 in Colorado Springs, and another here in Utah a couple of years ago.

Matt
 
Poachers. And they weren't very good at situational awareness. That's what was so interesting to me. I literally got within 20 feet of them and the antlered doe they had just shot. The were both armed but I had the element of suprise. And a 7.5" 44 mag :) I just said very loudly "Good afternoon guys!!!" They didn't even look up. They just instantly took off at a dead sprint. Called a game warden buddy of mine and he caught them on the way out. It was a good day.

Now as far as inanimate objects: old cars, trucks, old schools, churches, wells, cellars, graves, indian burial grounds, and a mannequin (that was very interesting for about 30 seconds).
 
Good thread!

At a younger age I was off small game hunting on Federal land, about 3-4 miles off the nearest road or trail. I was creeping along in the bottom of a deep draw and started hearing a deep throated purring some where over head. In our area it's very rare to see but we do have mountain lions. I don't for the life of me know if a big cat even makes a purring noise,but at the time it didn't matter. Scared the dickens out of me as at the time that's all i could figure it would be and here I was with a severe low ground disadvantage. I went home that night with a severe neck trauma from trying to view 360 degrees at once. Never did see what was making the noise.
 
Aww you guys have all the fun. The one strange thing I've ever seen was a bat with a wingspan longer than I am tall so about 6 foot. I watched it land on the side of a cave and it was about 3 foot tall. Not black like your normal bat but like an off, sickly grey color.
 
The one strange thing I've ever seen was a bat with a wingspan longer than I am tall so about 6 foot.
Click to expand...

Wow!?!?! What state were you in? The biggest ones I've ever seen were in South America when I was in the Army, but they weren't even close to as big to what you described!! I think you saw the Jersey Devil!! lol
 
Don't know how I forgot this one: Two of us found a member of our hunt club dead at the bottom of a tree. He had been missing all day. That morning he had been 30 ft. up in a tree on his Tree Lounge stand when a severe thunderstorm hit. Somehow the stand slipped and pitched him out.
We were out there until 2 A.M. in pitch dark with the coroner and coyotes yelling all around ... creepy.
 
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