Strangest thing you came across while hunting

[xxjumbojimboxx]

This didn't happen to me but a friend of mine was archery hunting in the woods behind his brothers house and came down through woods yelling he needed help.

This was in Pennsylvania in the fall and he was deer hunting. He said he saw an Ostrich. We of course asked him what he was smoking and he "No, I just saw an Ostrich so I shot with my bow. I need help dragging it out"

Low and behold there was an flippen Ostrich that probably was at least 6' tall laying there on the ground with an arrow sticking in it and it was still warm.

They actually taste pretty decent. Never found out where it came from.

Another time I was hunting in the woods in a pretty wild area and I found an air vent for an old Limestone mine. The brambles had grown over this 2' square hole and I stepped in it. The next thing I knew was my arm pits were at ground level and my new 12ga was bridging the hole and holding me up.

I finally got out of the hole and the barrel and receiver of my shotgun was bent. I looked down the hole, and could see bottom about 20' down. I went over the other side of the railroad tracks and found the entrance to the mine in a large depression in the woods. The mine had to have ran under the tracks or the tracks were built over it not knowing it was there. The entrance to this mine was huge, like 12'x12' and was standing wide open. I didn't go in there, I had had enough excitement for one day.

These are two of the best ones so far. Thank the good lord baby Jesus that shotgun held up

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Thank the good lord baby Jesus that shotgun held up

Yea, I think about that all the time. After realism set in I couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if that Winchester would have snapped at the barrel. I doubt I would have survived.

I never hunted there again.

 

[bainter1212]

Yea, I think about that all the time. After realism set in I couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if that Winchester would have snapped at the barrel. I doubt I would have survived.

I never hunted there again.

I think if it were me, I would have felt obligated to try to make that hole safer for others. Maybe get a truck back there and drag a boulder over the hole or maybe put some traffic cones around the hole or put up a sign there.

Just thinking the next guy might not be so lucky......

 

[tightgroup tiger]

The people that owned the property heard about what happened and posted the ground for hunting and trespassing and also dumped I don't know how many trees over the entrance to the limestone mine. A hunter I knew that lived up there told me this.

They didn't know how many more air vents there were and didn't want anyone getting hurt there or disappearing. No one complained about them posting that piece of ground from what I heard.

It ended up like pet cemetery, everyone was afraid to go into those woods after they heard what happened to me.

That area in PA where I grew up was riddled with mostly coal mines but Limestone mines also. The woods behind my first house had at least 20 drift mines dug into the hill sides in the woods. You could see the depressions animals would dig them open and we could see back into the mines.

There was an old narrow gauge railroad that ran up through the woods behind my house, I think it was the Clarion, Shippenville, and Emlenton RR that ran from 1880s to the 1940s. When I first bought that house and found the old railroad bed my neighbor, who was 86 said she road it when she was a little girl. There were several places where the train would stop and the crew would dig back into the hillside to get extra coal to make the mile long trip down hill and switch back up the other side. These drifts would go back into the hill side about 30'. They used a Climax geared steam locomotive to make the trip to the depot where Clarion University is now.

You took me back memory lane, sorry about that. I'll stop now.