Wow Moments

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Acolyte2

Joined
Oct 30, 2005
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Share with us some of your "wow" moments about wildlife, outdoor adventures, etc. Heres one of mine.

While fishing off a wharf in South Australia one day I noticed a seal surface about 20 metres away. At first I was just irritated about my chances of catching a fish with a seal that close to the wharf. My irritation changed to concern when I saw the poor little feller had what appeared to be a plastic bag in his mouth and was smacking it from side to side to try to get it out of his mouth. Then he began to eat it. He was tucking in with great relish, and I swear I could see the satisfaction written all over his furry little face. Thats when it dawned on me that he had caught himself a squid. The smacking from side side was just to knock the squid out before eating it. One of the coolest wildlife moments I have ever had.

Now its your turn! Cheers, Acolyte.
 
Hey Guys....

A WoW moment that Always gets me, and all you hunters will appreciate this. (Non hunters or people against hunting, well,,,, not so much)

Is when I take aim on a black bear, let High Speed Aluminum fly, and know you got a nice high pass through shot...

Knowing you got an excellent kill shot on an animal is Always a WoW moment for me...

The next "WoW" moment is when you are down from the stand, standing over the animal and you say "Wow, is this going to be alot of work to get out of here! "

ttyle

Eric
O/ST
 
Hunting squirrels in PA as a kid. I was in very tall hardwood oak/poplar forest with my back to a big tree. I could hear a squirrel back behind me in the trees so I slowly stood up and leaned around the tree. A huge Great Horned Owl came in fast and silent and attacked my squirrel. He swooped in and missed on his first pass, turned and hovered, dropped in and ripped the squirrel off the underside of the branch. Silently he swept down through the trees with that squirrel flapping in the breeze. It was an awesome thing to watch.

Playing hooky, skipping school to hunt. I came out of the forest into a fallow field. Down below a beautiful six point buck walked out into the cut corn and was feeding. I positioned myself behind a large bush to watch as he was about 60 yards away and I was loaded with #4 shot. He kept feeding closer, and closer, and closer, 20 yards, 10 yards, turning, walking, other side of the big bush, breeze moving from him to me, heart pounding, six point buck five feet away to the left, muzzle pointed right at him...

Moral dilema time, even though I wasn't loaded for deer a charge of #4 at five feet would have dropped him like a load of bricks. I would have had to admit to my dad that I was skipping school to hunt, rabbit you can throw in the freezer, deer really make a mess. "JUST GO ON!" I yelled at him. I swear he peed himself, his tail practically flew off it went up so fast. Mac
 
I was in Florida in 1989, standing at the edge of a marshy area taking in the scenery. A group of people passed by on a trail behind me, making entirely too much noise.

As they continued on, their voices fading away, I returned to the view in front of me. And then noticed about three feet in front of me was an alligator, sitting very very still. He had one eye focused on me, wondering what I was going to do to him. It looked for all the world like a damp log when I walked up to him, but now I saw his ribs puffing in and out.

I watched him for a second more, and then backed away. It looked like he was a million years old....
 
Some years ago I was a local park here in suburban MD. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was just beginning to set. As is typical here, we have a lot of migratory birds such as geese in the area.

I happened to see one such goose sitting on the grass near a small tree. I'd never seen one close up before, so I quietly sat a few feet (no more than six or seven) away to just to get a closer look. About a minute later, the goose got up and revealed a nest of eggs that appeared to glow in the light of the setting sun.

It didn't act alarmed or threatened by my presence, nor did it come towards me. It just caught me off guard in the sense that it would do that in front of a potential predator.

I guess it felt pretty safe. In any case, that was a "wow" moment for me.
 
Good thread. When I first saw it I couldn't think of what I had to offer that was particularly special...even though I have seen many animals and marine mammals as I've wandered about.

But it happened for me yesterday.

I went out setting traps. I got caught in some rain that I wasn't prepared for, so I pulled a big plastic sack from my pack that I keep for emergencies, and I cut it open to make a rain cape.

I kept on setting my traps with my sack on my head, and I heard the sounds of some young feral pigs in the scrub.

After a few minutes I became aware that they were moving in my direction. I was standing on a very narrow track in the scrub... and I stood completely still. Four small piglets trotted down the track. I think three were black and one was black and white. I didn't move my head to look down, but they would have had to have walked around my boots or climbed over them to get past. I stayed still, thinking that their mommy or daddy may have come along the trail too.... but they didn't.

In a short time they came back along the trail and repeated the performance. I would have probably had no trouble diving on to them and maybe grabbing one or two.

Although the farmer would have wanted to get rid of any pig on his land, I did not feel inclined to harm one of these babies.
 
I am a youth worker and I have found that one of the activities the kids from the group home I work at seem to love is fishing so I always make sure to keep several poles and tackle in my trunk. My wow moment in nature occured on one such fishing trip when I taught the kids how to properly remove a fish from the hook. It really impressed me to see one of the more hardened street kids who talked about nothing but gangs and violence gently remove a hook from a large mouth bass and place it in the water careful not to harm it. It really showed the benefits to teaching kids outdoor skills.

-Lindey
 
This summer , I took my kids fishing one evening at camp. My daughter had noticed a muskrat swimming past the weedbed we were at, the 3 of us were watching the muskrat when all of a sudden a musky jumped out of the water and took him.... my daughter started crying ,my son and myself sat there in awe...
 
Rounded a 100 degree bend on a trail and came face to face with a 1200lb bull moose 10 feet away.

A starring contest insued.

I didnt think it possible to deficate your shorts and fumble for a camera at the same time LMAO.:eek:

After 20 secs it lazyly walked off through a wall of dense bush by crashing through it like it wasnt even there and dissappeared 10 feet into the brush.

Could have been messy I had only one escape route.

Never even got the camera out of the case.

True story as my bud was a witness.

SKam
 
Middle of woods ? Call of nature . Only thing I have is business cards . You guess the rest . L:O:L
Oops my mistake . The Title reads : Wow moment . I thought it said : OW moment . L:O:L
 
While doing a timber appraisal several years ago, I got caught in a heavy, wet snow storm. The flakes were as big as nickels and heavy enough that I could hear them hit the ground. I was following a small stream out of the area when I came on a pair of otters enjoying the snow storm. I stood, un-noticed by the otters, for at least half an hour as they chased each other up the stream bank and slid back down again on the fresh snow. Just like a couple of kids.
 
Up in Maine about 35 years ago in the Allagash Wilderness area, my wife and I are tooling down a logging trail in our first and only 4wd. Come around a turn and there are three fox kits playing in the middle of the road. They were not afraid so I slowly pulled up alongside and got out my 35mm and started snapping pictures out the window. They posed for me, they were cute as hell, I don't know where the mother was. She was probably having a white-knuckle experience somewhere off the side of the road watching all this.
 
Driving to the lower 48 from Alaska last year, my first night in Canada I slept in my truck at a rest area for a few hours. I woke up at daylight and started driving and not a mile down the road as I came around a corner there was a huge blond grizzly, long dirty dreadlock-like hair, standing up on the opposite side of the road. I slammed on my breaks and tried to snap a picture but between the vibration of the truck and him high-tailing it away it didn't come out:grumpy:
 
its been a few years back but i remember snooping around the mountains with my brother here in east tennessee and north georgia. night after night armed with a night scope and a four wheel drive we would scour around in search of "critters" . all the park rangers said that their wasnt any panthers in this particular region but one night we heard one scream and after a few nights of looking we found one . it crossed the trail and then came out, walked from in between two trees , walked in a circle and sat in front of us . we sat and watched this beutiful "critter" for about five minutes . beautiful!
 
Rifle hunting . Me with my Marlin 30-30 my buddy with an old Savage levergun and others with 3:08s right up to 30-06s .

Buddies old Savage had a brass wheel insert that counted and displayed cartridges cycled through the chamber . It also had a magazine cut off switch where you could eject one from the chamber without the second half of the cycle injecting one into the chamber . A very handy device that I wish I had on my simpler Marlin .

Good old buddy decides to unload said Savage . Levers out all the rounds by counting them on the wheel indicator . When he is satisfied the gun is dry , safe and empty Mr. Bright guy aims it at the ground in the middle of a tight circle of huntin buddies .

I never knew a rifle to be so loud when it went off at his feet . About five pairs of boots proved you don,t need to be a magician to levitate .

Oops sorry he says . It coulda happened to anybody but I don,t find it necessary to hunt out that way anymore .
 
I was bear hunting in PA over a cornfield. I had a bruin come within 4 yards of me while I was behind a hay bail. I shot him looking right at me and he went in a pile. I heard him roar and howl as I reloaded. He got up and ran down the cornfield and into a thick swamp that I as near. I let him sit about 20 mins and went in after him. following the bloodtrail I came up on a nasty looking thicket, just as I was going to push into it he came out RIGHT AT ME, with a big ugly face full of teeth. I didnt even have my rifle up when i fired the first shot, just kind of a relfex. The bullet caught him just underneath his jaw and he dropped. I shot him again in the spine. He was old and had an almost bald spot between the ears, My first shot caught him in the right shoulder and the bullet only nicked a lung leaving him in not too bad a shape. Probably the scariest moment I've had hunting.
 
barrabas, I never shot a bear but a friend told me they are the worst things to try to get out of the woods. He said "if you want to practice, throw your waterbed out on the lawn and practice dragging it around." lol. Hope you had good luck ;)
 
He was a BIOTCH gettin out of the woods, he was VERY heavy, I have his weight written down somewhere and I will try to find out. 2nd biggest one I have taken though. he was tough, not really good eats if you know what I mean.
 
My biggest wow is after my father killed a wild boar down near our cabin on the border of North Carolina. The mountains were atrocious and dragging a 200 pound Wilg hog out of a ravine or should I say, CLIFF, made me appreciate ATVs on a whole new level.
 
Pulling this one out...my Wow moment was at a flashlight afficianados gathering at a nice park. I'd visited the outhouse by myself and, while heading back to the party, heard something moving off the path and, being at a flashlight gathering, used two of my brightest flashlights to light up a raccoon who was completely ignoring me. He was stalking something like you see cats do all the time...moments later he dove and a toad or frog led him on a wild chase that ended up in a stream where, after a few moments, the raccoon came up chewing happily.

I've never seen a raccoon move that fast, and doubt I'll ever see a stalk/kill like that again.
 
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