What was your scariest moment.....

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Wannabelikedan
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Wannabelikedan » Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:01 am

Those limbless demons are no laughing matter. I was scouting a couple years back on a private piece I can hunt. There is about a 5 acre pond centrally located on 50 acres with heavy cattails lining the banks. I was scouting the edge of it near this pinch for stand locations. Knowing good and well I might encounter a snake I figured I was making enough noise they would be out of my path before I would see them. About the time I hit a bare muddy patch I caught movement at my feet. I froze mid stride and looked down at about a baseball bat sized cottonmouth. To this day, I still can't believe he didn't strike and my muck's wouldn't have done me any good.


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Boogieman1
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Boogieman1 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:09 am

Snakes???? Come on people lol! Ive got a rule if one bites me I'm gonna bite him back.
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Ghost Hunter » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:17 pm

Well I've got three.
1. This was about 2003 or so. I was working my way in to my climber. I got to tree made a look around before I started up. I could see a set of eyes that was yellow in color an about three feet off ground. The eves had a little space in between them. It was dark could not tell what it was. I shined light on it for several seconds it just stood there. I got in stand an started up tree. It was still there after I got settled. Got daylight an nothing was there. Hmmmmm.

2. I was working my way out one evening an it was just about dark. Coyotes were doing there thing like they always do about dark. But, this time they were on other side of AGRI ditch. I could here them in leaves an they were doing a lot of howling. Could not see them. I was glad to start up hill toward camp.

3. I was sitting on edge of cutover in a creek bed on a stump. I was watching a crossing it was late summer. I heard something coming down dry creek bed at a good pace. I turned an look an there was a full grown skunk with in about six feet of me. He stopped an our eyes meet. He puffed up an turned around an went back up creek. That was a close one.
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby matt1336 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:43 pm

More than a few times I've fell through marshy/boggy areas up to my arm pits. My boots were not on solid ground. My arms were the only thing keeping me from going all the way through.
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby SneakyHunter » Thu Aug 17, 2017 2:51 pm

3 situations come to mind.

-two years ago I got in between a mother bear and her cubs on a very thick logging road with my climber on my back. She gave me one of those bluff charges and was bouncing on her front feet at less than 10ft. I tried screaming but i don't think anything came out. I waved my bow around enough that she eventually turn and ran away.

-I was hunting a property in Gettyburg PA, the whole area is supposedly haunted if you believe that sort of thing. I had just got to the base of my tree when a very loud scream opened up behind me at about 15yds. It was almost like a lady screaming, it was like nothing i had heard before. I have no idea how i ended up that tree but within what felt like seconds, i was a safe distance off the ground in my climber. Turned out to be an angry bobcat.

-I was hiking in to a spot on a rainy, windy morning. I was closing in on my tree when i heard something break a branch off to my side. When my headlamp hit it, all i could see was a set of eyes about 5ft off the ground and I saw movement alongside the tree. I immediately thought big mother bear with cubs. Fight or flight kicked in and i started yelling and waving. I realized it worked when the big raccoon jumped on the side of the tree and the others with it scampered off through the woods.
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magicman54494
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby magicman54494 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:38 pm

realizing I left the toilet paper back at the truck. :lol:
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby magicman54494 » Thu Aug 17, 2017 3:48 pm

i should have been scared but......

I was walking out in the pitch dark during the rut thru swamp grass when a deer heard me and came running right up to me. It stopped about 10 feet from me and I couldn't see it. I grabbed out my grunt call and started grunting at it. It stood there for a few seconds then took off running. :lol:
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby MikePerry » Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:04 pm

Back in the 90's I was bowhunting a farm in western NY that had a loud mouth stud bull in a pasture full of his girlfriends, he would follow me down the fence line on my way in to the swamp and make quite a racket. One morning while walking in at gray light I tried to walk through the pasture because I thought the cows were all bedded on the other end of the field, mistake! A cow stood up in front of me and then the bull got up and started walking toward me, I hurried nervously toward the bottom of the field I crossed over a fence and thought I was safe and continued down the fence line, it was still pretty dark and foggy what I didn't know was the section of fence I crossed was the old broken fence from years ago, I had no flashlight and was following the fence posts and the bull was walking the other side of the posts, all of a sudden he came at me knocked me backwards and started mauling me, thank God his horns had been cut off or he probably would have killed me, I got on my feet he took them right out from under me and started mauling me again, I was kicking him punching him screaming at him I pulled his nose ring and finally got up and ran for the swamp, he stood there and mooed like he was the king I waited till light and when he finally went away I retrieved my bow witch he stomped the quiver off of, luckily I was just bruised up and humbled, it's amazing the power he had, he was easily pushing me backwards with just his head, I have to admit for a second while that was happening I thought he was going to kill me and I'm pretty sure he was trying to.

I shot a buck there a few days later and the farmer helped me get the deer to my truck with his tractor, I brought him some jerky and deer sticks a month or so later to thank him. I told him about that bull attacking me he said you don't have to worry about him anymore, when the bulls owner came to get him out of the field the bull mauled him also and the owner put him down...i just smiled.
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Dan T » Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:28 pm

I have two episodes both equal in pucker factor. They both involved doe in heat back in my experimenting with scent days. The first was in a state that had a newly growing population of not so shy black bears and no open season on them. One evening I headed in with my climbing stand while laying down a scent trail with doe in heat, I had a drag and sprayed the bottoms of my boots. I left the drag about 30 yards short of my chosen tree for the night and proceeded to the tree and up. When I finally got settled up in the tree, I shut my eyes for a few minutes to listen and relax. I heard/felt some scratching coming up the tree, this happens on almost every sit with a squirrel or two. I played it out as I always have in the past, motionless and see how long I can remain undetected. Suddenly with my eyes closed, my knees slammed me in the chin, I opened my eyes to a black bear clung to my tree directly below me pushing up at the bottom of my stand. I stood up, he slid down the tree and circled around a bit. He came back up close enough for me to knock him in the face with my bow cam. That sent him down the tree, he lingered for a bit then finally walked off. I left the woods early that night.
The second was on a morining hunt in Maine one of the times I had the brilliant idea of spraying doe in heat all over my self as cover scent or who knows what I was thinking at the time. It was two hours before day break and I had a long walk working my way up a mountain side through a series of skidder trails. As you get closer to the top, the spruce becomes so thick that I think even snowshoe hares have trouble navigating it. As I approached this area, despite my lousy hearing I kept picking up on something way up ahead of me. It was the waxing side of that month full moon so the ambient light was fairly good at that time of day. I kept stopping to listen and I could tell it was big, finally one time I stopped and could see movement directly up ahead. I turned on my head lamp to see a monster bull moose standing facing me maybe 40 yards away. we had a bit of a stand off and eventually I got up the nerve to move towards him, hoping he would spook and go the other way. Well just the opposite happened, he started toward me as I started toward him. I did an about face and started back down the hill, I could hear that he was following me at about the same pace. I picked up the pace and from the sounds of it so did he. Long story short, I made it down that hill and to my truck in record time. Mind you this was about a mile or more of distance I had slowly been working up hill at. I decided to wait for it to get light out before heading back in and would sit a lower stand. Just when I thought it was over, can you believe that damn moose showed up at my truck about fifteen minutes after me. One, I was amazed, he must have followed that doe in heat scent or something. Two, him showing up fifteen minutes after me gives you an idea of how fast I covered that ground, I'm think I have that thick nasty spruce to that that day for not being a moose rape victim statistic.
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby backcountrychronicle » Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:44 am

I have been saving this story for the book that I am apparently never going to write...

Back in the late 70s, I was living in West Africa. I was just out exploring new areas, looking for wildlife and enjoying being young (and dumb). West Africa is mostly rain forest, except where the forest has been burned to make farms. After the slash/burn farms are abandoned, the habitat grows back into an unbelievable thick brush. So it is a patchwork of small open farms, bush and isolated patches of forest.

I was trying to go "native", so I was walking down a path barefoot, short pants and no shirt about a mile from my village. I was pushing my way down a narrow path through elephant grass that was 12 - 14 feet tall.

Something hit me on the foot. It was like being shot in the foot "BANG"! I couldn't tell if it was a bite or a stick. I chopped away at the grass with my machete to see what bit or stuck me, but I couldn't see anything.

My mind was racing and the adrenaline kicked in to the point my vision was shifting every time my heart beat.

My first thought was Cobra, but striking in thick grass was not his style...
Then I though Gaboon Viper, because they have a habit of waiting to ambush prey coming down a path. That though made the adrenaline kick it up another notch.

I looked at my foot and saw one puncture mark. What did that mean? One fang? Scorpion? What?

My foot felt like gasoline had been injected into it and it was swelling up rapidly. I started back to town knowing I would never make it if I had been bitten by a Gaboon Viper.

I was reminded of how venomous these snakes are while visiting a snake farm in Zimbabwe 30 years latter. The old man with one arm leading the tour pointed to the Gaboon Viper and said "Dis snake bite you... you die tree minute".

I had to ask the old guy what happened to his arm. "Snake"? I asked... He answered "No...Crocodile".

Back to the story...

After several minutes passed the adrenaline started to wear off and the pain was about the same, but the swelling increased. But since I was not dead yet, I decided it was not a Gaboon Viper that got me.

I continued towards town trying to think positive, but was also thinking that if I died out there in the bush that day, my body would never be found and my family would never know what happened to me.

By the time I walked about half a mile, my foot and leg was no longer in agony, but was going numb. I could feel the swelling all the way up to the lymph nodes in my groin.

Soon, my leg was completely numb and I couldn't voluntarily move it. I cut a stick for a crutch and leaned on it as I swung my leg forward each step. The last quarter mile to town was taking a long time.

I finally made it back to the main road, but found no people and saw no cars, so I limped toward town. My house was the first house coming into town and I didn't meet another person or a vehicle until I got all the way home.

The only person in the village with a car was my friend "Mr. Eddie" who owned the gas station and the bar. I decided to limp on down to the bar to ask him to take me to the nearest doctor 40 miles away.

When I got there, he was having a serious business conversation with an important looking fellow, so for some reason I decided not to interrupt their conversation. Eddie instinctively reached into the only cold fridge for 20 miles, opened a beer and handed it to me. I took it and set down on the bench.

After about 15 minutes, their business conversation was over and the important looking guy got into his Mercedes and drove off.

Eddie looked at me and said "You don't look good".

I told him I didn't feel good and that I had been bitten by something. He got very excited and said he would drive me to the hospital.

By then, I was very tired and probably not thinking clearly, but said I think I'm going to finish this beer and go home and go to bed. And that is exactly what I did.

I was obviously still living the next morning. My leg was still swollen, but the feeling was coming back. I limped around for several days before returning to normal.

It's kind of anticlimactic, but I never had a clue about what kind of creature bit or stabbed me. But I'm still above ground and have a story to tell.
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bowfreak8
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby bowfreak8 » Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:02 am

You guys are going to laugh at me but here it goes.

During Gun season we were doing drives and I shot a doe. The Doe dropped where she stood and I continued pushing deer for others. By the time we were done It was dark so my buddy went with me to help recover the deer. When we got to where the deer had fell we shined the flashlight on her and she lifted up her head and stared right at us with her eyes glowing in the dark. She was backed up to thick brush and were probably only 15 feet away from her but she was cornered and the only way out was through us. That deer jumped up and charged right at us. We both took off running from a 85lb doe.

:oops:
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PK_
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby PK_ » Sat Sep 23, 2017 12:35 pm

Cows. I hate cows.

Had a huge bull charge and about a hundred head nearly run me over because they don't know how to stampede correctly.
No Shortcuts. No Excuses. No Regrets.
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JAK
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby JAK » Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:29 pm

My first bear I shot .. shot it pretty early in the evening bear runs off and I knew where it went down from the bushes shaking death moan whole 9 yards . My dad and buddy come to help get the bear I told then I know where it's down so I just head right to it but early September everything is so green and thick.. Well I go around a tree trip over my bear as I'm falling I see it's the bear and for some reason I was scared out of my mind I was doing a crawling g stumble before I even hit the ground :lol: pretty embaressed
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Mnfisher92 » Sun Sep 24, 2017 12:08 pm

Mine happened to me two seasons ago in the BWCA, 25 miles from our entry point. I was hunting grouse with my brothers friend. We were slowly making our way down an old portage trail, back to where we had stashed our canoe. We were half way back when I heard a noise about 100 yards ahead of us. It was someone portaging down the trail, we stopped and talked with the lone camper for a few minutes and then continued down the trail. We spotted a grouse off the trail, it flushed and we broke trail to see if we could spot it again. 10 minutes later, we had dinner. So we proceeded back towards our canoe. I again heard something ahead of us, I thought it was the man we had passed some 20 minutes ago making a second trip with his gear. But the noise kept getting louder, almost a galloping sound. We rounded a bend in the trail and I looked up to see a Bull Moose only some 15 feet away in a full SPRINT headed right at us. It was only Mere feet away when I leaped into the underbrush. As I hit the ground I braced myself for impact.. Luckily for us, the moose decided not to trample us and kept on running. Definitely my sketchiest encounter with an animal in the woods
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Re: What was your scariest moment.....

Unread postby Tufrthnails » Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:09 am

I think my scariest moment wasn't even for myself.

So there I was....on an Island here in FL hunting. On St. Vin you can walk or ride a bike. I'm not built for the bike so I walk. I'm walking 4am to my area and as I am walking I see a huge log across the trail/road. As I get closer it is actually a monster Gator. Easily 12' and fatter then heck looked like one you would see at a zoo. Easily the biggest gator I have seen in the wild. So I trying to decode how to get this gator to move off the trail into the pond next to it when guy on a bike comes riding up I'm waving my arms yelling and he's not stopping so I literally tackle him off his bike. He comes up fighting mad swinging on me as I retreat I am shining the gator and he realizes I just saved his but. We laugh about it when we see each other now, but man were we both shook up that morning.
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