Strangest, weirdest, coolest thing seen in the woods?

[Crunker1337]

The saddest thing I have ever seen is a dead body. A human body. In the street.
No one seemed to be paying attention to it, we all just sort of stepped over or around it. I was with my grandfather at the time, and he hardly glanced at the body.
Now I've seen bodies in movies of course, and in pictures and even in videos, but in real life it's very different.
What has kept this memory with me is that this guy can't have been more than five years older than I was, but I'd be surprised if he had weighed 90 pounds.
What's weird is that I have never really spoken to anyone about this ever.

The coolest thing that I have ever seen is a brightly colored spider whose legspan was about 1/2 the size of my hand. I was shooting the woods up with a paintball gun, and had tore half of its web apart. But it hadn't moved a muscle. I put the barrel of the gun against it, about 2 inches away, and somehow I missed by a clear inch. My next shot killed it though, and I've still been unable to understand why I wanted to kill it.

Another scary thing that I've seen is that when me and my buddy were riding bikes through a relatively unpopulated part of Jersey, we heard a guy yelling at his dog to come back. We looked back and there was this HUGE dog, had to be 3 feet high at the shoulder and really heavy running for us growling and barking. Though we were both on bikes, it was easily doubling our speed.
I fell off and lost my glasses. I didn't see it, but I heard the dog pass me and get like a yard from my friend when it finally turned around and ran back to its owner. The guy asked if we were all right, but we didn't stay for a second longer.

Weirdest thing I've seen was on the same buddy's sleepover birthday party about a year before.
Two goths, one skinny and one bigger one, had come over and we were just hanging around, playing pingpoing, videogames and talking guy talk. We all decided to just go outside and mess around, but somehow during the course of discussion, the goths had managed to escape us. Assuming that they had gone to the woods (my buddy owns like 6 acres of land and all manner of nasty critters (dogs, raccoons, deer, maybe more) pass through and live there. So we grab a couple of spotlights and head out. About 50 feet from the woods, we hear a loud crashing noise coming from the treeline. We all got really scared and aimed the spotlights lighting up like 100 square feet of the forest.
The really skinny goth came running out of the woods, with his pants down to his knees (still wearing underwear) and tripped and fell into a mud puddle. We were freaked the hell out at this point.
A few seconds later, the bigger goth came out, looking real wide-eyed and scared. We asked what happened, and they said they were just walking and talking and they heard a loud noise, got scared, and scattered. We still can't figure out how the skinny goth managed to have his pants fall down.

 

[Joseph I]

Bull Elk.

Coolest Thing:

Once in the forest North of Happy Jack Arizona I had found myself lost in the pines with a friend when we were walking up this small incline and about ten feet in front of us came running up from the other side of the hill an enormous bull elk. He paused and we just froze in our tracks and for a second all that I remember is silence until he turned around and literally walked off, without an ounce of stress that we were there. It was amazing.

 

[littlegator]

Seeing a golden eagle for the first time.

Walking in cougar tracks for the first time. (have yet to see one..

+1

Also, backcountry snow skiing a few years ago and was above tree line coming down the mountain. As I got to where the pines started I skiid right past a grey wolf sunning himself by a tree, just lying there by himself. I didn't see him until I passed him and noticed him out of the corner of my eye. I stopped about 20 yards from him and looked up wondering where the rest of the pack was. Not wanting to wait and find out, I left.

 

[Cougfan2]

1. Watching a Sharp Shinned Hawk take a ground squirrel off a dirt road by the Deschutes River.
2. Watching a Bald Eagle take a rainbow trout out of Rosalyn Lake.
3. (another lights in sky moment) About 30 years ago my brother and I saw a group of lights in the shape of a cross move across the sky at blinding speed while making 45-90 degree turns on a dime.

 

[frankcostanza]

almost got crapped on by a bald eagle while canoeing in MN

 

[benEzra]

An owl glided RIGHT by me (like, 5 feet away) when I was out one night in Florida. What amazed me was that it was absolutely soundless, like a ghost; I saw the shape, heard the quiet sounds of the woods (it was a really still night), but not a single sound from an owl. Any other bird, you'd have heard the faint hiss of air over the feathers, but owls are sound-suppressed like crazy.

Funniest thing...was walking at night (again, in Florida), on a footpath between two ponds, in a "gator" area; a 6-footer had been pulled out of one of the ponds only a few months before, and a 13-footer had been caught in the bay. So, I'm walking by this pond, very dark, flashlight off, and unbeknownst to me there is a BIG beaver sitting on the bank ahead of me. And you know what beavers do when they get scared...

That beaver jumped in the water and slapped its tail, and it sounded like a 750-lb alligator 10 feet from me. Scared the CRAP out of me...I think I levitated backward about 20 feet...

 

[DennisB]

A dove hunt in Oklahoma got momentarily exciting for me some years ago. We were on a large pasture, next to a fence line equipped with a hot wire. (Don't get ahead of me, here!) Shooting was pretty good, but it was late enough in the season that the birds were sorta wary. I was using an old "long Tom" single shot 12 guage that could really reach out there. At one point as I'm next to the fence row I spot incoming birds and crouch down with the Stevens laying across my knees. Squatting there, I twisted to follow the doves as they got closer--until the barrel of that 12 guage hit that electric fence!

 

[Deer Hunter]

while riding in a small bass boat on a river heading off of Lake Livingston in East Texas, we ran over a duck.

That's not the cool part, though.

My dad was driving the boat, my friend and I were at the nose of it on our stomachs. The ducks were flying the same exact speed as the boat, right in front. My dad gassed it when I told him to, and down the duck went under the boat.

 

[Slugless]

2 yearling cinnamon bears in Colorado, less than 2 car widths away from me.

My camera doesn't have much zoom on it, 3x max. I drove right up to them, lowered the window, started talking to them and snapping pictures. They're eating chokecherries.

Same week, a 3 year old female about 8 feet beneath me (ladder entrance to a pole cabin). Talked to her, too (like I do my dogs, not a conversation) - didn't faze her one bit.

Saw 5 bears that week! A couple months after the Hayward fires.

First cougar tracks.

3 hummingbirds perched on my right hand at one time.

 

[target1911]

I had a dog when I was in high school. He was one of the smartest and most loyal I have ever known.

Me and my sisters BF decided to go shooting "movement" one day with our 22s. My dog would not go with me if I had my 22. However, he would if I had my BB gun.....yes....he knew the difference....But if it was gettin dark and I wasnt home yet, he would come find me. He was black with only a baseball sized white spot on his chest.

Well, we went out and shot up the woods and it was getting late so we headed back. It was getting dark but fortunatelty we had flashlights with us. As we are approaching a thick brush covered fenceline we see eyes glowing back in the light. First thought was a coyote......Billy raised his gun to aim and at the same time I spotted the white on my dogs chest. I shouted to not shoot it was my dog...
Billy......no its not
me.....dont shoot, Yes it is
Billy....I dont think it is
me.....(pulling his muzzle down) DONT SHOOT
Billy.....its not him (raising his gun again)
ME......NOW aimed at Billy's trigger happy Dumb.......umm....donkey.....IF YOU PULL THAT TRIGGER I WILL EMPTY MY GUN IN YOUR WORTHLESS.....umm...DONKEY.....

Billy.....ok not problem

and what do ya know.....I called my dogs name and he comes right up to me.....but wouldnt have anything to with Billy....imagine that....

I never had much to do with Billy after that. I didnt like him from the start but for my sister sake I was trying.

She found out shortly there after that he really wasnt worth her effort.

 

[alkazoo]

Once saw a unicorn picking apples with its horn.
We were in the woods hunting mushrooms at the time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sounds like you may have "found" the mushrooms by that time..LOL..

1: fishing in northern saskatchewan on a fly in trip , june 04, While trolling for northerns at a fly out remote lake, two beavers came up beside our boat, less then 4 feet away and were keeping up with us for over 20 minutes or so.occasionally one would dive under the boat and come up on the other side. Our Indian guide grabbed the net and wanted to net one and skin it out, but I stopped him , telling him " I dont want that SOB thrashin around in the boat" lol.
2: Deer hunting couple years back inside my wooden "outhouse" kinda blind (3 windows. A bluebird flew in one of the windows, kinda banged into the inside front, musta dazed him, he sat on the lip of the front window for five minutes, less then two feet away from my face,after he sobered up he freaked for 30 seconds or so,,,flying around the inside, crappin all over, then out one of the windows again....
3:I also have a ufo sighting, sitting on a sand dune with a bunch of friends back in the late 60's, overlooking saginaw bay in michigan at night...Orange light out on the water, going back/forth,left to right, right to left, closer then more distant, moving what would be miles on the horizen in seconds....Of course, we were all partaking of the local herb when we observed this so our accuracy of events might have been a little dulled at the time..lol..

 

[Pigspitter]

my story isn't unusual but I remeber having a antlerless buck cross a very dark street in front of me one night and let out a rut grunt. That was a little scary.

 

[EatBugs]

this actually happened in my garage as opposed to in the woods. I had a dove traped in the garage and while trying to shooo it out it layed an egg in midair and the egg landed on my arm and broke open. weird.

Saw a hairless coyote while deer hunting last year.

while on my first deer hunt ever.... my uncles doe practically died ontop of me so while standing up and looking at her two bucks come grunting up to her. So the three of us stare at each other and the doe for who knows how long. so close I could reach out and touch them This is my first hunt so I don't know what to do. I finally realize the bucks didn't want to leave the doe so I start swinging my gun slowly around and try to make up my mind which one I want. the doe lets out a death grunt and the bucks take off. I then hear my uncle start to scream as they nearly run him over. weird

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

Took a road trip back in 1969. I had just lost my drivers license for speeding/careless driving. I was driving anyway as we had a lot of miles to cover. We were either in Louisiana or Texas. I see this skinny bird run across the highway right in front of us. Everyone else was asleep. It was a roadrunner. Up until that I thought a roadrunner was just a cartoon character. It took a while before my buddies believed me.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

Last year took my youngest son m/l hunting. We both had cva bobcats. We're driving to our spot and this deer walks out in the middle of the road. I stopped the truck and asked my son if that deer had horns. His eyes are better than mine. We both get out of the truck with our m/l and it's a legal buck for sure. I'm telling my son to pull the trigger. Pull the trigger, pull the trigger. Finally his gun roars and the deer runs off. He doesn't know to this day, nor will he ever know that the instant he shot, I shoot also, just in case. When we shot the deer was broadside to us about 60 yds. My son heard the bullet hit the deer so we took to the woods to find him. No blood, not a single drop. We looked for several hours. My son was heartbrokern as this would have been his first buck. I wasn't about to give up. We did a ziz zag out of the woods and my son found the deer. I looked and found no blood, no hole. I turned the deer over. I lifted it's tail where I found a little blood. I know that deer was broadside when we fired, but the deer did an about face and the round ball hit him squarely in the rectum.

 

[CajunBass]

I've got a funny one. We hunt deer with hounds and shotguns around here. One morning there were only a few of us at the clubhouse, so we were putting on a series of short drives. One of the regular dog drivers had taken a stand at the end of a hedgerow, in the middle of a cow pasture. I was about 50-70 yards from him at the other end. All the cows were up the hill behind us around the barn.

As he stood there, one of the cows noticed him, and moseyed over to see what he was doing. This cow came up about ten feet from him, and pointed him, almost like a bird dog would point a quail. Just stood there and stared at him. This old boy (we'll call him "Bob"), started to get nervous. "Go on cow. Get out of here."

Well, the cow, didn't pay him no mind. Cows seldom do you see. Well before too long, another cow noticed the first one, and came over to see what was going on. Then another one. And another. Pretty soon there were cows coming from all over. They were running from around the back side of the barn as the word that something was going on down in the bottom spread through the herd by cow telegraph I suppose.

Now old "Bob" had been nervous with one cow staring at him. Now he had twenty or twenty-five in semi-circle around him, and not one of them was paying any attention at all to him yelling "Get Cow..go on now.. GET!!"

Then the bull started down the hill to what his girls were doing. At that point, Ol' "Bob" said to heck with it, and walked out to hard surface road muttering something about "stupid cows."

 

[rdela29]

My future father in law (at the time) and I were out calling coyotes on a 24k acre cattle ranch near a stock tank. He sat just below the dam, and I was out about forty yards below him to his right. We both expected anything responding to the distress call to come up in front of us - directly in front of him, and/or to my front/left. He had been hitting the rabbit call for about 5 minutes when I noticed a longer pause in his calls. About the time I decide to look over my left shoulder to see what he was doing, I hear a loud BOOOOM and turn just in time to see him peeking from behind his old 30/30 - which mind you is pointing WAY too close to my spot.

Here is where I pause for a second to let you all know that I was engaged to his daughter at the time - the big day had not taken place. THe thought crossed my mind that he did not want me as a son-in-law.

He stood and I heard him mumble, "damn, I missed him!". As I stood and looked over my right shoulder I could see a tail flapping in the brush about 10 yards away from me. I stood and hollered, that contrary to his concern, he he did in fact hit "it". As I walked over I saw this laying on the ground. (Picture of animal after it had been moved)

As he tells the story - the bobcat was sitting about 10 yards to my 4 o'clock, perched on his rump and hind legs watching me. He turned and shot him off hand from about 50 yards, iron sights, 30/30 square through the throat. It was an absolutely clean kill and dropped him where he stood.

I was completely oblivious.

I still think he was aiming at me and happened to hit a bobcat.

 

[Deer Hunter]

I'll tell a story on part of my Mother.

It was her first time hunting. She's a Rich Southern girl that didn't know anyone who owned a pick-up truck before she met my father. She drove an Alpha Romeo and came from a very prominent family. My dad? A good ol' country boy at heart. So he's taking her on her first hunting trip, ever. He sets her out on the stand with an old BAR .308. He shows her how to use it (as much as she'll understand) and tell her that sometimes, if you get one down, they wont go down all the way and try to get up again. So if that happens, shoot it again. He really didn't want her to lose a deer.

So about twenty minutes after he left her, he hears BLAM!

He isn't even on his stand yet, so he starts heading back to the four-wheeler. As soon as he goes to turn the key, he hears BLAM! again.

Then BLAM again... And again.... And finally again for the fifth time. I'm sure that if he had been close enough, he would have heard a "click" too.

Well he drives up on her as she's getting out of the stand. About 20 yards away lies a badly shot-up little fawn. I guess she mistook the occasional "Twitch" for an escape attempt...

You'll get a funny look from her everytime you bring that story up.

 

[KiltedClaymore]

out here you see some strange things. and the occasional bombshell of the female type

i remember one time i was with a group of about 15 friends at a place in northern AZ called "Wet Bever Creek". real popular for camping, hiking, naked girls sunbathing, ect. either way, the day ends with some guy coming down the trail looking for something. turns out he had lost a brand new, totaly tricked out Walther P22 that he has stashed in a side pocket of his pack. at some point on the trail, the pocket had come open and the pistol fell out into the brush lining the trail. we decided to help and about 10 minutes later one of our group hollered out that he found it. guy was very very happy, and thats understandable, but this is the best part. he ends up hiking out in the morning before any of us got up. turns out he thanked us for our help by leaving about half a case of beer (cheap Tecate but i guess one shouldn't look gift beer in the foam) for us. great camping trip, with no serious injuries (except a friend who took an arrow to the heart thanks to cupid and a blonde sunbather) and alot of great memories.

 

[kayl]

This is definitely one of the best threads I've ever read here!

Most of my most amazing outdoors experiences happened in the Everglades, not the woods, but here they are anyways.

We were camping on islands in the Everglade National Park, canoeing between them during the day. During the day, when we had to go to the bathroom, it was just a matter of hopping in the water and going (we were out in the ocean section of the park). So I hop out of my canoe and go. I get back in and we keep going. About 2 minutes later a white fin comes up behind us and swims in our wake. We look back and realized that a shark was following us! We'd had dolphins swim by us, but obviously, dolphins come up to breath...this one never did and then just sunk down into the depths.

Another amazing experience was seeing three Bald Eagles on an island, 2 adults and one juvenile, from no more than 75 yards away.

The Everglades is an amazing place; I highly recommend that you go!

 

[308win]

Went Morel hunting after a morning of Turkey hunting with a hunting bud. The ground was more rocks than soil and the Copperheads were coming out of their winter dens. One of them started vibrating its tail in the leaves and my bud decides to John Wayne the Copperhead. I was more afraid of being hit by a ricochet than getting snake bit.

Turkey hunting and was set up against a large Oak. A fire trail ran along the hill below me. I heard a tick tick tick tick in the leaves and here comes a Coyote up the fire trail. It got even with me and stopped dead; it knew something was there but couldn't wind me and I wasn't moving. The only things touching the ground were its toenails and its tail was as big around as its body. I finally yelled boo and it did the 10 yard dig before it finally got enough traction to get gone. At the slight risk of exaggeration, the rooster tail of dirt looked like what you would see at a tractor pull.

 

[coolcloo1019]

Coolest: I was about 11-12 years old. I was still-hunting with my Grandfather. We were sitting at the base of a HUGE tree. A small doe started walking towards us and came within arms length of me. I've never sat so still in my life. She just mosied on by like nothing. Was one of the coolest things ever, being that close to a whitetail deer in the wild.

Scariest: About the same age, my uncles and I were putting on a small drive for my Grandfather. We were walking through some brush about 3-4 feet tall when all of a sudden a doe jumped up in front of me about 2 feet away. She was bedded down and I spooked her up, but I think she spooked me more!

 

[Wildfire]

Leraned My leason.

Siiting in my ground blind. I saw a line in the air about 30 yards out.
could not figure out what it was. Well, Turns out it was an Owl heading straight at my face. I was wearing one of those mad bomber hats with the rabbit fur.

 

[springmom]

Having not grown up in a hunting family, and then being far too busy raising my own family, it wasn't until two years ago that I went on my first deer hunt. I sat in a little ground blind all morning freezing my butt off (rite of passage, I think) and we went out about noon to get some lunch. Came back about 1:30 and I said "I can't just sit anymore. I'm going to still hunt that little path." So Archerandshooter headed back to his stand and off I went. Got about 20 yards down the path and hear rustling in the bushes. This sounds promising, so I got my call in my mouth and keep creeping down the path. I called, heard more rustling, and as I started forward again, out stepped the biggest buck I've ever seen anywhere (including back in Connecticut around my late mother in law's place, where they are huge). Antlers well branched, well outside the spread of his ears. He just....stood there. *I* just stood there. We stared each other in the eye for probably 30 seconds. I very slowly raised the rifle and took my shot.

Unfortunately, given that he was probably only 20 yards away, and that I didn't know enough of what I was doing, I shot too low, nicked his tummy, and he spun and darted back into the brush. We tracked through that forest bracken and scrub for two days to ensure that I had not, in fact, fatally wounded him, and we found one drop of blood and one tiny patch of tummy fur. So a wiser buck escaped to be hunted another day, and I have a memory that is better than any trophy on my wall.

Funniest...as others have said, it's a hoot to have songbirds land right next to you and never have a clue that you don't belong there. That, plus playing "tag" with a spider that kept trying to build a web on a strand of grass right in front of my face. Every time he'd drop down a few inches, I'd touch him with my gloved finger and off he went back up. We kept that up for about 10 minutes before he decided enough was enough and went elsewhere to build his web.

Possibly the weirdest thing in the woods are the endangered woodpeckers that live in the Sam Houston National Forest. When they peck a tree, they sound like a carpenter hammering 2 x 4's. The first time I heard them I had no idea what it was and thought some idjit was building himself a permanent stand somewhere in the forest, lol.

I love the woods. I see *something* new every time I go.

Springmom

 

[Twig]

I was in a deer stand with a tin roof to keep the snow out. It was a nice warm sunny day. Then I heard this loud crash on my roof. Almost made me jump out of my stand! A bald eagle decided to use it as his perch until i jumped up and hit my head on the other side.

Watched 4 crows and a owl go at it yesterday in a tamarack swamp that was very noisy.