Craziest thing you've had happen deer hunting

[BowHusker]

I was thinking about a couple of crazy/dangerous situations I've been in while deer hunting and was wondering what you guys have experienced.

My first crazy expierence came on my first ever deer hunt when I was in like 4th grade. My friend invited me to go along with him, his dad and the rest of their hunting party.

Well, to make a long story short, one of the guys in the group shot a pretty big buck and sent us two kids ahead to "check" it out. So we went on ahead of everyone and came up to the deer about 10 yds away, the only problem was he was far from dead! I was in front of my friend and the buck stood up and lowered his antlers at me, I knew what was about to happen wasn't going to be good so I took off running just as the deer charged. All I remember is looking back behind me and seeing him getting closer when out of no where my friends dad steps in and literally grabs the buck by the antlers and uses the bucks momentum to swing him about 180 degree's and throw him off track. As he did though, the buck kicked and hit me right in the lower back which sent me off my feet. Some of the other hunters on the hill ended up shooting him as he ran off and put him down.

I still have a scar to this day and when I approach a downed deer images of that day always creep into my head lol, I'm positive I could go to the exact cedar tree that this all happened at still to this day. As ive gotten older I just can't believe those adults let us walk up on a downed deer that they didn't know was dead for sure or not. I'll add my other crazy deer hunting experience here a lil later.

[ Post made via Android ]

[Crazinamatese]

When I was gun hunting my first year at age 12, my cousins and I were told by the old guys to drive out a deep ravine one afternoon. The bottom of the ravine was super thick with briars and a couple big uprooted trees. Since I was short the briars were well over my head.

To make things a little easier, I decided to jump up on one of the uprooted trees and tip-toe my way down the trunk toward the roots. I can see over the thick brush and thought that this was nice. I got to the roots and I sat down before I was about to let myself down back to the ground. As soon as I was sliding on my but down, I looked down between my legs and there laid a big black bear looking straight up at me. All I seen was a big black mass and little beady eyes. I caught myself and nearly fell backwards instead of forward, I got back up, ran back down the trunk and ran the heck out of there.

My cousin was up on the ridge and I yelled at him that there was a bear down in the ravine. He didn't believe me saying it was probably a wolf . He came down and I told to go look under the tipped over tree. So he snuck in there and after a minute he came out running for his life. The bear apparently got up when he went in there to get a look and the bear bull rushed toward him. We both decided to get the heck out of there after that.

If I didn't look down at that moment I would have probably been dead. I think I had two other different encounters with that same bear the year after, and when I was 16.

[BowHusker]

Wow!! I'll take a mad deer over a bear any day!

[ Post made via Android ]

[IkemanTx]

Back in high school, I used to hunt my great uncle's place. I was a rifle hunter back then, but drug a bow into the woods every now and then. One of those few archery mornings I snuck in REAL early and set up on a 5 gal bucket on top of what I thought was a varmint trail opposite a creek from a well established deer trail. I got settled in about an hour and a half (maybe two) before first light and allowed myself do doze a little while everything forgot I came through the area.
Typically, I was very good about waking without movement and very slowly inspecting what had woken me. On this morning, however, I wasn't so stealthy. I was jerked out of sleep by a very close noise (to this day I still don't know what it was) and snapped my head to where the noise came from. Coming from a dead sleep to awake in the middle of the dark, my first view was a huge face not far from nose to nose with me. I fell over backward in freight and whatever IT was made all kinds of noise getting away from me. I immediately told myself that what I saw COULDN'T have been what I thought it was. The image stuck in my head was a BIG cat.
Still shaking, I stood up to try to convince myself I had made it all up and decided to turn on my flashlight to prove it. When the light hit the ground in font of me, it shone on a paw print the size of a CD. Apparently, whatever IT was hadn't moved far from the area. The light startled it again and it tore out of the creek I was sitting against.
I high tailed it to the truck (400 yards) and didn't even realize until I got there that I was covered in fire ants. I rubbed them off and drove to my dad's house. He didn't believe me, and got me some breakfast while it got light enough for us to go "prove" I was mistaken. We got down to the my bucket and you couldn't see a thing from where I tore out of there.
Finally, I convinced him to drop down into the thick creek to check... low and behold, a deep cougar print in a sand bank down there. Needless to say, I ddo my hunt from the ground down there, or without a firearm again. About 2 weeks later, the sheriff had a confirmed sighting less than a mile away.
I got a lot more careful after that.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[rbuckleyjr1]

One of the crazy/ most hilarious things that ever happened to me was when I first started hunting with my Dad. As we were walking out early one morning we came to a small bridge he had built to help us cross over a deep drainage ditch. He was leading and I was just kinda staring at the ground following behind him trying not to drag my feet when he suddenly came to a dead stop. I ran face first into his back, then he started panicking saying "Back up, backup!" about running me over. Coming across the other side of the bridge was a big ole skunk. We gladly got out of his way.

The scariest thing I can remember was when I was 12 and first started hunting in Tennessee. I got lost on the way to my stand before daylight in this deep holler. Not knowing where I was, I just stood next to a tree till daylight till I could get my barrings. After daylight I realized I had over shot my stand by a long ways and started to sneak back to it. I came over a small hill about 50 yards from my stand and there was a pack of dogs following my scent trail. We seen each other at the same time and all 5 dogs came barking/ charging at me. When the lead dog got about 5 yds from me I shot him and the others ended up running off. To this day dogs and skunks are about the only thing I am worried about in the woods.

[Bonecrusher101]

That mt. Lion story is bad creepy. Those big cat stories are always the scariest to me. An 80lb cougar can end a 200lb deer with a quick bite on the neck. I always tell myself I'm the big bad wolf, but with a cougar you may not even get a chance to prove it. I know attacks on humans are uncommon.

The bears and dogs are unnerving as well!

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[BowHusker]

My other crazy story doesn't even compare to some of these above posts lol, but I'll share it anyway.

When I was 14 we went out opening morning after a blizzard had cleared off that had dumped about 12 in of snow the night before.

So my dad suggested I walk an area of thick cover that was about half a mile from the road. I was a lil reluctant as the snow was very deep due to drifting but I did it anyways and didn't see a single deer. So after walking a full mile plus through knee deep snow back to the truck my dad says "didn't you see that big muley buck"? I dropped my head down as I was absolutely exhausted and said no, all the while knowing I would need to go back in if I wanted a chance at him.

My dad though, saw how the buck had circled back in and thought he could push him towards me for a possible shot, so he placed me behind a farm pond dam and went around to the other side to try the drive.

Somewhere between when he left and started his drive I dosed off. All I remember is waking up to a loud commotion getting very close to me. As I awoke I looked up and saw two muley does and the big buck heading right for me (literally) at about 20 yds, they were going to literally run right over me! By the time I realized what was about to happen I had just enough time to get my gun and I just shot out of instinct just so they wouldn't trample me lol, they were pry at 5 yds at this point!

Then it's like I came out of the fog from sleeping and realized I needed to try to get this buck. Due to the circumstances of being scared out of mind to waking up like that and the excitement of having the big buck in shooting range I missed twice and the chance was over. I was so pissed because I would have had a perfect opportunity if I wouldn't have fell asleep lol and we didn't see that deer the rest of the season.

On a bright note, I harvested that deer the following season only 15 min into opening morning and he was even bigger than the year before and is my biggest muley to date. So in the long run I guess it all worked out :).

[ Post made via Android ]