Ever had a scare in the woods?

[Loggerhead Mike]

i hit the woods after work behind the house yesterday since its the only place i can get too after work and still have time to hunt alittle before dark.

the last 3 of 4 times ive been out there ive heard several yotes hollering on the mtn. i took the stand down last week figurin i was wasting my time but i just had the urge to get in the woods..

well i go about a mile up the mtn to a spring the deer drink from. sit untill dark with nothing. i did hear 1 yote howl between me and the truck alittle before dark, no biggy

so when it gets about pitch black i start heading down the mtn. about half way i stop because i heard a distant wooorrr noise, eahh probably some bird. started heading down again, and about 40 yards i stop again and hear this dang gurgling type wooorrrrrrr noise again. its hard to describe but i figured it was a coyote. could be wrong since ive never heard one up close and ive only heard them howl before. anyhoo it was dark and very foggy, visibility was about 5 feet with my headlight. the noise came about 20yrds away on the edge of a pine thicket next to the trial i was on. all in all i high tailed it outta there skidmarks and all. i didnt know weather to keep the bow in my hand or trade for my knife. never been so scared in the woods by myself before. i have seen mountain loins up here before but they make more of a high pitched type noise from what ive heard

so im debating on bringing my pistol with me next time i go back there bowhunting even though i almost got a ticket last week for having it in my truck on gamelands, or just not stay after dark.... to be a pansy or not to be... hah

anybody else got any storys or idears? im on the edge of probably a 1000 acres of gamelands in the mountains. never been more than 5-10 miles back becasuse the terrain just gets too tuff

 

[Captain Ahab]

 

[cyberflexx]

Wow.. interesting stuff.. I think it was Sasquatch, the wild man of the woods. Nahh I dont beleive in that thing, but very interesting story.

I was fishing once at a lake in Kentucky and I was using a the trolling motor and slowly fishing the bank. Everytime I would move down the bank 10 yards or so, I kept hearing footsteps in the leaves on the bank. I couldnt tell if it was 4 feet or 2. When I would stop, it would stop. I could never see anything in the brush though. At one point I thought I heard a baby crying but wasnt sure it was a bird or not in the background. When you are by yourself and things like that happen, one tends to get spooked. I finished fishing the rest of the bank and I powered out of that creek with my outboard. I had always wondered what that was..

 

[Quackrstackr]

At one point I thought I heard a baby crying......I had always wondered what that was..

Bobcat :wink:

I've been uncomfortable in the woods 4 times.

Once, I got turned around and lost right at dark. Even though I knew that there were enough roads around that I wasn't in any danger of being lost for any real length of time, there is a certain amount of panic that sets in when you don't have a flashlight to find your way out.

Twice I have had to fight horned owls off with an arrow that were intent on tasting my eyeballs after watching them move from afar for some time (full camo otherwise). One of them, I thought I was going to have to actually kill to get it to stop it's repeated advances. I'm talking swoops at the head well within arm's reach.

Finally, I was once blindsided from behind and hit in the shoulder by a red tailed hawk. I had been watching it chase squirrels around me for almost half an hour and I had thought that it finally just left. Something hit me in the shoulder from behind like a Mack truck and sprayed bark all over my face and neck. It was that darned hawk. I guess it saw my camo fleece jacketed shoulder moving from behind the tree and thought that it was a squirrel. I just about soiled myself. The first thing that entered my mind in that first millisecond was that I had been shot.

For some reason, coyotes have never bothered me.

 

[cyberflexx]

At one point I thought I heard a baby crying......I had always wondered what that was..

Bobcat :wink:

So was that thing stalking me or something? If I hear it again, should I be alarmed?

 

[Quackrstackr]

Nah.

Most likely whatever it was, it was just watching you. Bobcats are one of the most wary animals out there. The slightest bit of unidentified movement usually sends them heading for the hills.

It could have been two different animals. The bobcat may have been stalking whatever it was that was following you down the bank. I've had several different animals just kind of follow along as I made my way down the bank. Turkeys, skunks, deer, the odd coyote. They just follow you to figure out what your intentions are.

But, the bobcat is what makes the sound of a baby crying. It's somewhat unnerving when one does that about 2 am right outside your tent. :lol:

 

[FishinsMyLife]

I get a scare every time I'm walking to a stand or leaving and I have a deer blow right beside me :lol:

A fella that hunted the same property as me along the Edisto River last year swears he saw a black panther. He was very shaken up even though black panthers aren't supposed to exist anywhere near around here.

 

[russ010]

I get a scare every time I'm walking to a stand or leaving and I have a deer blow right beside me :lol:

A fella that hunted the same property as me along the Edisto River last year swears he saw a black panther. He was very shaken up even though black panthers aren't supposed to exist anywhere near around here.

there out there.. we have one that I know of up in Lancaster county that was caught a few months ago... but a lot of people mistaken black coyotes for panthers as well, I've seen them while I've been out hunting

 

[Jim]

Once I was attacked by a hwak as I sat up in my broken treestand

And another time I was shot in the face with pellets from a couple of other hunters in the filed next to us who flushed pheasants.

Being somewhat of a city slicker, I'm always a little uncomfortable in the woods.

 

[poolie]

What scares the heck out of me is when it's getting dark and I hear the faint sound of banjo playing off in the distance ;-)

Great stories guys!

 

[Loggerhead Mike]

even though black panthers aren't supposed to exist anywhere near around here

one of the top dogs in the wildlife dept. for this area told us they were all extinct, but later in the convo said there was a $5,000 fine for shooting a panther.... :? fine for shooting an extinct animal?

Ive seen 2 in my life that im 100% sure were panthers. one time i saw one late at nite driving jump across the road. it touched the yeller line and was gone. im sure because bobcats dont have 3 foot long tails and it was too dang big to be a coyote

another time we were camping and heard somthing in the garbage. unzip the door to take a look and theres a friggin cat twice my size out yonder. we were half drunk and didnt have anything but knifes. talk about scary. it left when it heard us thank god


can ya squeel like a pig poolie :mrgreen:

 

[grizzly]

a few years back i was backpacking alone for a few days in arkansas, i was fixing dinner at dusk when i noticed the reflection of eyes (you know, that glowing in the light look) off in the trees. if i barely moved it would go away. within a few minutes i started noticing more and more, but just shifting your head could make them disappear. ten minutes later it was completely dark and there's practically a solid ring of that eye glow around me, extending out into the woods on all sides. i walk out to look and it was about 1000 bigfoots, no really it was wolf spiders on the tree trunks, thousands of them. wasn't scary but certainly creepy.

 

[russ010]

can ya squeel like a pig poolie :mrgreen:

you sure do have a pretty mouth... :lol:

 

[grizzly]

oh yeah; walking out to your deer stand before dawn, and a turkey flying off the roost 20 feet above your head, the way it breaks the silence gets my heart racing every time.

 

[russ010]

a few years back i was backpacking alone for a few days in arkansas, i was fixing dinner at dusk when i noticed the reflection of eyes (you know, that glowing in the light look) off in the trees. if i barely moved it would go away. within a few minutes i started noticing more and more, but just shifting your head could make them disappear. ten minutes later it was completely dark and there's practically a solid ring of that eye glow around me, extending out into the woods on all sides. i walk out to look and it was about 1000 bigfoots, no really it was wolf spiders on the tree trunks, thousands of them. wasn't scary but certainly creepy.

haha - out on the water the other night I saw something reflecting light on top of the water.. i hit it with my spotlight and it got even brighter.. i trolled up to it and it was some wierd looking spider - first time i ever saw anything like that

 

[Quackrstackr]

I have never seen them around here but saw a lot of those glowing spiders down in Arkansas while duck hunting with some locals a few years back.

We had hiked back into the green timber and turned off our lights at the water's edge waiting for it to get light. There looked to be several thousand dim glow sticks scattered around as far as you could see. I thought that they had taken me to some radioactive waste sight. They laughed and assumed that everyone had those glowing spiders.

 

[poolie]

a few years back i was backpacking alone for a few days in arkansas, i was fixing dinner at dusk when i noticed the reflection of eyes (you know, that glowing in the light look) off in the trees. if i barely moved it would go away. within a few minutes i started noticing more and more, but just shifting your head could make them disappear. ten minutes later it was completely dark and there's practically a solid ring of that eye glow around me, extending out into the woods on all sides. i walk out to look and it was about 1000 bigfoots, no really it was wolf spiders on the tree trunks, thousands of them. wasn't scary but certainly creepy.

My backyard is running over with those things. Very spooky to take the dogs out in the morning and see all those glowing eyes looking at you.

 

[FishinsMyLife]

oh yeah; walking out to your deer stand before dawn, and a turkey flying off the roost 20 feet above your head, the way it breaks the silence gets my heart racing every time.

Yep, that's another that gets me :lol:

I believe that the panthers are around. Someone got fined in GA not long ago for killing a cougar (tan) and they weren't sup[posed to be around either.

 

[Jim]

What scares the heck out of me is when it's getting dark and I hear the faint sound of banjo playing off in the distance ;-)

Great stories guys!

:LOL2:

 

[switchback]

The only time I have ever been really freaked out in the woods was when I was walking back to the truck. I was over a mile back and walking down an old train trussell they made into a gravel road for the corp guys to use. Trees and thick brush lined the road and leaves all over the ground. As I was walking I started hearing foot steps. Everytime I would stop it would stop. Start and it would start. After a few times I started walking a lot faster till I got out by the lake. I have a buddy that saw a mountain lion/cougar out there before. I know it was a cat. Probably a bobcat but it don't matter when you fell like your being stalked :lol: