close calls

S

stockmanlover

Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
97
i want to hear some of your close call stories
a few years ago i got charged by a large black bear lucky for me there was a low tree branch and i had my 45 long colt
 
Did it bluff charge you? Did you climb the tree and did it climb up after you or did you dispatch it?
Always curious to know the outcomes of black bear encounters.
 
fly fishiing in wyoming, came within 20' of moose . a moose is a BIG critter. what really skeered me was that it was a mama moose with baby. just did an about face and slowly walked/waded away. paul
 
Had a 400 lb+ feral sow and her young walk right into our camp 1 nite...was a "I think I need clean undies!" moment for sure. She sniffed the fire pit and just walked right out the other side of the campsite.
 
Woke up one mornin' in the bush and only found the tail of my dog. wolves or bear, maybe cougar, don't know. but that's as close a call as i've ever had given that i never heard any it.
been pinned by a bull moose, wouldn't let me cross HIS river haha. never really had any moose troubles though, stay away from bulls in the fall and cows in the spring and you're fine.
Have had bears bluff me a bunch of times. never any real threat though. the only true act of aggression i've ever encountered in the bush that wasn't a bluff was from whatever the hell took my dog that night...
 
I was in Panama and I stumbled upon an Ocelot. The thing was in heat and it turned around and pissed in my face. That was awesome.......:mad:

Apparently some indigenous people had raised it from a kitten and it had no fear of people.

When I was a kid I saw my little brother get attacked by a chipmunk. Seriously, the thing bit him 4 times. He was trying to feed it and then it just snapped. I had to kick the thing to get it to go away.
 
Had an adolescent male grizzly (so, big but not fully grown) take an interest in my camp site around 11:30 pm as I was sleeping in my tent. I was camping on a raised area about 10 m from the lake. I awoke to hear the bear grunting, probably about 10 m from my tent, on the opposite side. Had time to grab my head lamp, my knife, my boots, and my hiking companion. We booked it down the slope to the shore where we had left our canoe, put it in the water, and paddled like gold medalists. After about 15 strokes, we began to lose sight of the shore, due to the mist hanging over the lake. Now, it was a damn big lake. So, we had a decision to make - either stay out on a glacier-fed lake in the middle of the mountains in low-visibility conditions for the rest of the night (did I mention we were wearing underwear and t-shirts?), or return to camp and hope that the bear had wandered off. Since we knew that we had kept a clean camp and properly stashed our food, we opted to return. We started a fire and kept it going all night. The bear didn't return. In the morning, we found plenty of evidence of tracks. We broke camp, loaded our gear into the canoe, and set out for the northernmost (and most remote) tip of the lake (we had been camping on the eastern shore). When we were about halfway there, we heard a motorboat approaching. The lake was canoe / kayak-only, so we assumed that it was a park ranger, which it was. When we met up, the ranger warned us that an adolescent grizzly was in the area, and that it had charged several people canoeing in the shallow water near the northern shore a few days earlier. Theory was that the bear had been booted out of its own turf in the mountains / valleys to the north, and was acting tough in order to stake a claim on the area. We carried on with our trip, but doubled up on our bear precautions. We didn't have any further encounters, though we came across plenty of tracks and scat (some from large adults) during our hikes around the lake. A few nights after the grizzly visit, we returned to the same site, set up camp, and were treated to the most awesome northern lights display I have ever seen - which I wouldn't have noticed was taking place, save for the fact that I was taking my time getting to sleep while thinking about nocturnal bear visitations.

All the best,

- Mike
 
goatariba said:
Woke up one mornin' in the bush and only found the tail of my dog. wolves or bear, maybe cougar, don't know. but that's as close a call as i've ever had given that i never heard any it.
been pinned by a bull moose, wouldn't let me cross HIS river haha. never really had any moose troubles though, stay away from bulls in the fall and cows in the spring and you're fine.
Have had bears bluff me a bunch of times. never any real threat though. the only true act of aggression i've ever encountered in the bush that wasn't a bluff was from whatever the hell took my dog that night...
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Damn, that's some spooky stuff. Sorry to hear about your dog. Were you camping in Ontario at the time?

Best,

- Mike
 
Mentor said:
Damn, that's some spooky stuff. Sorry to hear about your dog. Were you camping in Ontario at the time?

Best,

- Mike
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Near Foleyet ontario. 100km or so west of timmins. And you're right it's about as spooky as it gets. coulda been a sasquatch?
 
Walked up on 3 cow elk with young, within 6 ft. I was 15 and they out wieghed me by 10 times. Looked in the lead cows eyes for a second and then quickly looked down and backed away. She snorted once and stomped foot, oh man I thought I was dead. I backed away slowly keeping my head down and they let me go.
Del
 
I was adding a porch onto a house in one of those little cookie-cutter neighborhoods with identical houses situated around an artificial pond. This particular pond had a gator, just one, about three feet long, who cruised around the pond like he was the baddest thing out there, which I suppose he was. Anyway, I saw a snake swimming near the bank, and decided to catch it and see what it was. I looked around for the gator, saw something on the far side that I thought was him, and made a grab for the snake. The little gator came up out of the water, hissing and mad as hell, right next to my hand. I screamed like a little girl and fell flat of my arse, the snake disappeared somewhere, and the poor gator, probably just as traumatized as I was, made a beeline for the far bank and didn't come back to our side for the rest of the week.
 
Carolina River Rat said:
I was adding a porch onto a house in one of those little cookie-cutter neighborhoods with identical houses situated around an artificial pond. This particular pond had a gator, just one, about three feet long, who cruised around the pond like he was the baddest thing out there, which I suppose he was. Anyway, I saw a snake swimming near the bank, and decided to catch it and see what it was. I looked around for the gator, saw something on the far side that I thought was him, and made a grab for the snake. The little gator came up out of the water, hissing and mad as hell, right next to my hand. I screamed like a little girl and fell flat of my arse, the snake disappeared somewhere, and the poor gator, probably just as traumatized as I was, made a beeline for the far bank and didn't come back to our side for the rest of the week.
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Could have been a camen that somebody decided they didnt want anymore.
 
Several years ago we were camped near our favorite trout stream in a small camper. During the night I was listening to noises coming from the table outside the camper. I didn't want to disturb a skunk so I just laid there and listened. After some time I noticed a shadow near the window so I sat up and moved as quietly as I could to it. A black bear was standing on the table looking towards the camper. Within a few minutes he had his nose against the screen and my face was close enough that I could feel his breath. He then moved his front paws to the side of the camper and appeared to be getting ready to climb it when I decided to yell and scare him away. It is hard to describe the mayhem that followed. I don't know who I scared the most: my son, my girlfriend, my dog, or the bear! It was a night we still talk about especially when we are sleeping in a tent.
 
fishiker said:
Several years ago we were camped near our favorite trout stream in a small camper. During the night I was listening to noises coming from the table outside the camper. I didn't want to disturb a skunk so I just laid there and listened. After some time I noticed a shadow near the window so I sat up and moved as quietly as I could to it. A black bear was standing on the table looking towards the camper. Within a few minutes he had his nose against the screen and my face was close enough that I could feel his breath. He then moved his front paws to the side of the camper and appeared to be getting ready to climb it when I decided to yell and scare him away. It is hard to describe the mayhem that followed. I don't know who I scared the most: my son, my girlfriend, my dog, or the bear! It was a night we still talk about especially when we are sleeping in a tent.
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That... is a great campfire story!
 
Face to face with a black bear. Only thing separating it and I was a cheap Coleman (IIRC) dome tent! Some friends and I were camping in The Shenandoah National Park or an established camping area next to it, I cannot remember which. We had a long day hiking up to a place to go swim in this natural rock bowl that was bigger than a large house. Hiked back down, did all the stuff around camp and the campfire thing, having fun! Bed after midnight sometime and it seemed like about an hour later but I don't know how long it was, something kept lifting up the Coleman Stove lid and it would creak going up and SMASH! Going down, I mean, for like five minutes and I'm like, "Man, I'm too tired to go out there and even mess with that thing."

It stopped doing it and I passed out.

I don't know how long it was, maybe five minutes or two hours, I just don't know. I heard the leaves and twigs and branches skittering and crunching...getting displaced. :)

It's really no big deal looking back but I was about 16 then and I was scared shitless to be honest. I'm used to dealing with wild animals when I have a gun in my hand, not in this type of situation. It poked its nose into the side of the tent, sniffing and snorting, it looked like something out of "Jacob's Ladder" or "Supernatural" or something. :D Just the nylon taking the shape of this medium sized bear snoot. I was lying there and I couldn't believe it. IO just punched it right in the nose! I didn't know what else to do! :D

If you take all of the angry and aggressive sound out of the word "roar" and make it sound mournful, that's the sound it made and it thumped and skittered off into the woods.

The next morning I was up and around and used an ice scream scoop to get the shit out of my sleeping bag ( :D ) and I'm messing around with the coals, putting some kindling on them. There was a break in the trees in front of me, they had caused that break years ago when they put the dirt road through for the campground. The sun was coming up there, over the trees in the distance and I see this bear that I never heard when I was doing everything else and it has this milkshake cup, one of those huge 40 ounce things and it has the lid and straw off of it and it has rotten milkshake running down it's face and he lifts the cup and sun is behind it and I see his/her/it tongue up in the cup, lapping up everything it can. It was really a bizarre sight to say the least, I wish I would have had a camera with me.

The only times I have come close to really dying outdoors is when I was about nine or ten and I was out on the Susquehanna River below the Conowingo Dam and I was out there collecting things that people lose. Fishing weights, lures, pocketknives (never found a good one but a lot of rusted to death ones) and other stuff. And...I didn't pay attention to the sirens for the dam. I got used to them not letting the water out very fast so I thought I had time to get back and I almost didn't make it back. My Dad was going to kill me over that one but I think the irony of him killing me because I almost killed myself by accident got the better of him. :D

Been lost about three times, once in Western Maryland in the mountains, twice in the swamps of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, deer hunting all three times, no biggie, just kept walking. Unless you break your leg or something, getting lost around here is not life threatening. Just a little humiliating if someone calls the law to look for you...which never happened to me anyway. :D
 
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