I get a little spooked hiking up to a stand I call Cemetary Ridge Stand in the dark. It's a 15 min. hike from a parking spot in the cemetary below. I use a well used deer trail to get to the top. Along the way I pass by some boulders and some very thick brush. A perfect ambush spot for a mountain lion! In the dark I could easily be mistaken for a deer.
The same happened to me in a CRP field overgrown taller than me, pitch black, and a 30 ft rope. Just before that, I had something roaring by me for a good half hour. Like nothing I have ever heard before. I actually recorded the sounds, and still have no idea what it was. Let me just say, if a Sasquatch does exist, this was it! Thought for sure I was a dead man.
I got spooked twice since I have been deer hunting. First time is funny now I look back. I was hunting with a friend at his hunt club. He told me where the stand was off the creek. Way before dark I headed down the road towards the stand with only moonlight guiding me. I decided to take a short cut when I saw the creek and as I was jumping over the creek, a turkey that was roosting in a tree about 3 feet above my head, started flapping his wings and trying to fly. Scared the S*&% out of me. It was about 15 degrees that morning and I was sweating like a pig when I got to the stand. Second time really scared me. I was hunting my favorite spot at a hunt club and I was in my stand for a while and it started to get dark. I could still see the leaves and pine needles on the ground. I heard someone walking coming from my right. I stared intently at the area. (I have great eye sight, I can see caterpillars crawling on the ground from 25 feet up).Whatever it was, was walking the path I always came in on. Whatever or whoever it was walked in and kept going. I never saw anything. Just heard the steps walk by within 15 yards of me. There was a guy that use to hunt there that was buried on the property and I thought it could have been him or my brother that had just recently died. That ended my hunt that day. I had my 7MM locked and loaded ALL THE WAY to the truck!
This one time, when I hunted next to band camp, I heard a funny sounding flute in the dark followed by a moan. Weird!
One time climbing my tree I get about 10 feet up and hear a growl above me!!!!! I then hear it running down the tree at me and bark falling all around me. I just hugged the tree and closed my eyes. Then right before it got to me it was gone and then it landed on the ground under me in the leaves and sounded big. It was a coon and a larg one. I had a turd in my pocket all morning.
Great stories guys, I thought I was a wuss for gettin spooked in the dark. Couple stories: Last year I was walking in to a stand along the edge of a hay field. I had made this walk several times, but I got about 50 yards into the walk when I saw something moving the weeds in front of me. I stopped dead in my tracks, got my light out, and shined it up toward what I had seen. It was a skunk and he was ready to fire, I gave him a wide berth and was very glad I had seen him. Another time, I was hunting with a friend who put me in a homemade stand. The seat kind of made a little compartment against the tree. When I climbed up I put my hand on the seat to pull up and when I did a squirrel came boiling out of the hole. Nearly fell outta the tree! To make things worse, when I got my harness on and got ready to pull my bow up, I sat down and another one came boiling out. I nearly climbed another ten feet up, the harness was the only thing stopping me. So I plugged the hole up with an extra jacket I had in my pack for the rest of the hunt, just in case.
one time when i was returning in the dark after a rifle hunt (which was over my shoulder and not accessible) i hear walking just inside the woodline next to me, everytime i stopped it stopped and when i shined my light all i could see was eyes about 1' off the ground immedietely followed by a super creepy noise..a grunt/growl type. Needless to say ive never rune faster or longer in my life with a ton of extra weight attached to me as well. when i came crashing into the camper everybody thought i was crazy but my dad agreed to go with me to the same spot the next morning in the day light, which is when we found out we were hunting with LOTS of feral hogs.......now i always carry a sidearm and i really dislike hogs....... oh i was probably about 14 or 15ish when this happened in southern MO
This is one of the better threads I've read in a while people are beginning to stare at me from laughing so loud. I'm at the beach!!!!
In the stand I freeze at first, then I ready the bow hoping the noise maker sticks around until light. I decided to ground hunt one day, got out there an hour before light. Sitting on my little turkey stool on the top of the hill, snap, rustle, what's that? Moving around the hill below me is something. I saw a coyote, I am afraid of dogs I don't know let alone a wild one, the day before. Other than eyes, I couldn't tell what it was. Scared the heck outta me!!! On a good note for that day. Had a doe come up the hill, darn safety on the cross bow is LOUD, she ran off before I got the shot. on a better note for that day. not even ten minutes latter, a deer came up the other side of the ridge. I put the rights where I thought the deer was going to go over the ridge. Soon as it stepped past the tree, ANTLERS, I had only gotten does up to this point. I got my first buck and first Archery deer that day.
A friend shot a buck in South Carolina that we had to track in the dark. We tracked it (with a mini-mag) to the edge of the lake and I could see it's eyes glowing out in the lake. So I stripped down to my Bday suit and began wading out to get his deer for him. About half way there, the deer seemed to start moving across the lake. As I got closer, I realized I had waded out into the lake with an 8 foot gator. Disconcerting at best. We found the deer the next morning... on dry land... and fully clothed.
that scares the crap out of me when i first started hunting 3years agao i was 16 and on my first day of hunting it was pitch black out(thick forest) and i had to find my stand and i literally had my bow drawn for 75 plus yards and i never made it to my stand i watched silver bullet the day before!!!!and my uncle jim was hunting last year and he said he heard sniffing noises so he climbed a tree outa fright and it turns out it was a mountain lion!
Yeah I knew that was coming after I re-read my post. It's a southern thing, we like to "field-dress" our deer before hauling them out.
