Confrontations with wildlife

[uncle buck]

Surely some of you have had confrontations with wildlife.  Maybe a unique experience...something out of the ordinary...Not like a animal growling at you in a trap.. Real wildlife confrontations...One on one so to speak...

I was bow hunting back in oh about 1980.  It was about 9:00 AM and I decided to move to a higher place on the ridge...I was walking along the  edge of banks at a well known quarry.....I am going up and what do I meet coming down along the bank is a mother coon and two of her young...The young squeeze themselves under a small rock...The mom comes right for me... The mom thing kicked in....Here I am not with a gun but with a bow...I'm not the best shot with a bow at a small incoming hyper coon...I took the bow and threw it to my side... I pulled my Coast Guard Pilot survival knife I brought home from the Coast Guard.  this is the kind you can make a spear out of it...I figure I ain't gong to miss her with an arrow and she nails me good.  Figure she have to come through the knife and I get her first... All the hessing and carrying on we both stared it other down.  Finally she backed off...gave a few chirps and the two small coon came out and they headed back up the mountain...


Also funny more then hair raising...I was hunting deer...I sat on a trail in some honeysuckle over looking a ravine.. The strategy was to pop a buck when it came out of a woodlot and entered in the ravine below me..Shot would have been 50 yards..  I am sitting on the game trail in full orange.. All of a sudden I feel this pain right square in my back..Felt like someone took a rock and hit me in the back...what it really was

I was sitting on a game trail...A Cottontail rabbit was hauling it and it ran smack right into me...Rabbit flew this way, pain made me think someone approached me and hit me in  the back...I just sat down in the wrong place on a game trail traveled by a speedster rabbit...The rabbit ran away and I continued hunting but I sure was laughing to myself!!!!

[swarter2]

This happened in either '99 or '00.  I was spring gobbler hunting on a farm in Bucks Co.  I had set up on an openning between the 2 farms where I knew the turkeys would cross.  I first set up on 1 side of the openning but could not get comfortable because of the way I was sitting.  So, I quickly moved to the other side and sat in a pile of leaves.  Much more comfortable on the bumm.  After sitting for about 5 minutes.  I hear something walking up behind me.  I looked over my left shoulder and hear comes a buck.  It came up to me smelled me and started to lick my pants.  It did that for a minute or so.  Then it started to rub its fairly developed antlers on my leg and my head.  In the middle of this I was able to call my father-in-law to tell him what this thing was doing.  As the buck walked away from, straight in front of me at this point.  It turned its head to look at me and gave me a look, like well don't you dare shoot me this fall.  Wish I had my video camera then.

[Pa Goosehntr]

Second day of deer season my daughter was setting in my set....had three doe come running in and as she was watching two of the doe...the biggest one jumped across her legs between two trees...she said her eyes were big and so was the deer's...both got one heck of a surprise....no she didn't shoot, she was regaining her composure....

[Lifes2fun]

The 2 situations that had me the most nervous were.......

#1   Deer season 1999 first time my brother and I were up at our, then newly acquired land for deer season.
We were walking down a trail when I heard what sounded like a freight train rolling through the woods....I looked up and barreling down the trail right at me was a very large Pa Black bear.
Yes I had a gun, but I literally just froze as that thing was running right at me.....it was almost a scene from "The Great Outdoors" with John Candy...I stood there saying.....bbbbbear.....big bear, and as it finally realized I was there, it came to a screeching halt, as I watched every muscle in its legs ripple.....it turned and ran, and thus ended my very first "true" experience with a pa black bear (I had seen several bear previously, but they were usually tearing into a cooler on the porch of my brothers camp....lol)



#2  Out predator hunting at night....set up on a hill side next to a field.
Partner was down below watching to the left as I was watching out and to his right.
As the calling commenced, I intently scanned the field ahead of me, but then I caught movement to my right...."crap, here comes a something to my right over the steep hill"    as I turned my head *SMACK*
a nice sized owl cracked me in the side of the head.
Somehow I lucked out and never caught a talon in the face...the only "damage" was its wing had brushed my eye and my vision was a little blurry.

So as I stumbled down the steep hill I was on...my partner is giving me heck for moving, until he realizes what happened.....so after a little coaxing from him.....and some smart comments about being a real man and toughening up a little..we decided to move up the property a bit to call another area.
So I sit and the calling begins...and low and behold doesnt that owl start swooping down on me again.......I looked at my partner and asked if hes ready to go somewhere else, as i am now a little "owl shy"....he still gets a kick out of how a little old bird kicked my big butt......but I did notice on that last stand that he kept looking up as the owl swooped by him as well 

[scott]

i was bear hunting on the first day of bear season about 5 years ago, around noon 4 shots rang out from about 200 yards away from me, about 5 minutes later this a bear running through some laurels and cuts up the mountain at about 80 yards it stops i put the gun up and pull the trigger it stood up, let out this growl and swatted the air like it was swatting a bee, its momentum brought it running down the hill right at me, i remember taking a step or 2 back then thinking what the heck am i doing i have a gun in my hand, put another one in and shot it about 50 yards away, again it stood up and swatted like a bee stung it then it died. 

i have had owls swoop me at night,  there is one owl, not sure what kind but it likes to land in the tree i am standing near and make this god awful scream.  that makes the hair stand up.   I have also had some experiences with domestic dogs in the woods, never had to shoot one but have had the saftey off on a few over the years.   

[bigben]

I was gobbler hunting with a friend of mine two years ago and he had a bear 5 paces away from him before the bear knew he was their.  after the bear detoured he came towards me and got about 10 yds away till he seen me and detoured again.  talking about up close and personal.  I wished I woulda had the camera on that day.

I have had runins before with numerous critters.  actually got caught by a largemouth bass once.  I caught a pretty big largemouth in our pond on a jerk bait.  when I reached down to lip him he flopped and the free hook come around and dug in deep.  fish floppin and me stuck to the other end of the lure.  I did let him go and caught him numerous times before something killed it.  coon or fish crane. 

some are best left for around the campfire though.