Close Encounters of the Wild Kind

We had a black bear that refused to leave us alone, despite throwing firecrackers at it, some puffs of 10% OC mace, throwing a baseball sized rock that hit it on the nose, every time we would think it was gone and about ready to head into the cabin, it would show up again. I was ready to shoot it, but the people I was camping with were wetting themselves over the consequences, I was thinking after 3 hours of it on video tape not leaving us alone, it was a nuisance bear. I finally said thats it, I am sleeping in the canoe, and floated out 60 yards and dropped an anchor and slept well. When we reported the bear, the ranger said "Why didn't you shoot it....?"


I have had a chickadee spend most of the morning on the bill of my hat one cold deer hunting morning, I must have emitted enough heat that it liked it there.

I was calling Coyote's in western Minnesota when I got jumped on from behind, I had seen two coyotes in the area, and was trying to call the one back to where I could shoot it, when its buddy jumped on my from behind, I screamed like a little girl, it yelped like a puppy and that was that. I don't think that yote will ever stop running.

My brother was hunting the edges of a field in southern Ill looking for pheasants, and he was kicking the tufts of grass and managed to kick the remains of a human arm. Some old timer had gone out and gotten lost, and died, he had been missing for a couple of weeks at least, maybe a month, and it was pretty ugly.
 
My cousin and I were out squirrel hunting one day and decided to explore this old abandoned barn. We climbed up into the loft and were looking around when something began to hiss at us from the corner. We wallked over to the corner to investigate and a buzzard that had been roosting in the loft rose up about ten feet in front of us. I don't remember very much about how we got out of there, but I'm pretty sure my feet never touched the ladder on the way down.

Chad
 
Early this fall I backpacked into the woods on a solo bow-hunting trip. The first morning, I was standing in the silent woods at dawn, completely camo'd including headnet, looking for the right tree to hang my treestand in. I must have looked like a big treestump... a woodpecker flew up from behind and landed on the side of my upper arm. It felt just like someone had grabbed me. =:-0

That may be the closest I've come to having a heart attack out of fear or susprise in my life. :-)

Stay sharp,
desmobob
 
In the summer of 06 I had a black bear following me along the shore in the narrows while I was in the canoe. I was paddling back to the camp and it became clear that he was interested in me keeping up the pace as I paddled.

I changed course and paddled straight at him. 50 feet from shore I held the paddle over my head and yelled at him. Only then did he stop turn and amble away slowly I might add, letting me know that he was leaving but not afraid.

That same year a larger bear ripped up my BBQ on the deck. I heard the banging sound in the middle of the night, turned on the back light. Super sized (600lbs or so) hunched over licking off the grill, bricks burner tank all rolling around. I yelled at him and again he left, very very slowly while staring back at me with his glowing eyes in the flashlite.

It may have been the same bear that renovated the neighbors kitchen earlier in the summer, but who knows with all the different bear sightings that year.
 
I've run into a lot of stuff over the years, but the scariest had to have been when I was a kid in boy scouts. We'd arrived for a weekend camping trip pretty late at night, so instead of setting up our tents we just unrolled our sleeping bags on the ground and slept under the stars.

Next morning I woke up nose to nose with a billy goat. Scared the living crap out of me.

Turns out he was the pet of some farmer in the area. Just being friendly. Still, I'm glad that happened to my 16-year-old heart instead of my 40-something heart. :D
 
We had just spent a week in the Kruger Nat Park, watching and photographing lion, elephant, kudu, crocodile, buffalo, rhino etc. On the way home (about 1000 mile trip) we stayed at a resort in the country. I decided to take a walk in the hills behind the resort. One of the local farmers' cows took rather an active interest in me. There I was, safe from all the dangerous stuff and now I was jogging away from a rather amorous bovine. Almost resorted to using my pepper spray. Good thing I didn't - tested it about a week later - can just went 'Phut' and spat out some foam about 3 feet. Oh yes - escaped the cow by running up a rather steep embankment...phew. My wife almost died laughing.
 
Keith_H said:
That is un-human :D
Click to expand...

Well some can be un-human.:D I encountered rattle snakes, skunks, porcupines, and various other small critters in PA. I had a bear almost walk right up on me will I was sitting on the front porch at 2-3am in the morning out there too. That scared the living crap out of me.:p
 
My two black bear encounters were in Upper Michigan. We met them on the trail and before we could react the bears tore off into the woods. Rattlesnakes are a different story. While doing geological surveys in SD we were buzzed constantly by Prairie rattlers. We never saw them, it was hot and they were under outcrops. By the end of the week we had the location of every one of them on the map. The closest I came to being bitten was in Florida. I stepped over one on a mowed lawn at a state park visitor center. One half step less and I would have stepped on a 30 inch Diamondback. My son yelled after I had stepped over it and stopped my wife from going farther.
 
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