Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I've had an owl swoop right in on me repeatedly once when calling for coyotes at first light, they truly ARE silent in flight, scared the you know what out of me. Big bird to have very close to your head.
Strangest hunting moment?
- Thread starter Ardent
- Start date
I've had an owl swoop right in on me repeatedly once when calling for coyotes at first light, they truly ARE silent in flight, scared the you know what out of me. Big bird to have very close to your head.
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Had lots of critter experiences while out in the field but I generally go to the hassle of bringing my camera with me on every outing..
I was out walking an apple orchard for deer on a pest control permit a few years back, It was spring time and was carrying my mossy slug gun, a full hydration bladder, a bunch of other hunting gear and my camera gear. So after walking about half the orchard I decided to take a break so I sat down near a dried up irrigation pond. About two minutes later I heard a weird little yip sound right behind me.. and when I mean right behind me I mean within a foot of my head. Made all the hair on my neck stand right up and probably doubled my heart rate instantly... I turned around real slow and found what made the sound as it was staring me right in the face. I sat just infront of an old grown over drain that was about 18" diameter and apparently was an excellent spot for fox den. Four kits were sitting there, three just poking there heads out of pipe and one that had come right out and was sniffing right behind me.. They played in the grass around me for about half an hour, including hunting some mice in the pushed down grass doing the whole head first dive. One of coolest moments I've had with foxes.. The fox population around me is very low and this was a very rare sight.
Another story up north in the Kawarthas I was duck hunting out of a kayak on some small creeks/rivers and kept seeing something in the water up a head.. Didn't think much of it as it wasn't a duck but since the hunting was slow figured I'd check it out. Paddled over to where I last saw the water being disturbed and nothing was there so figured it was just a fish breaking the surface, maybe a carp that hadn't moved out to deeper water yet. I was just about to start heading further downstream and not 10 feet in front of me a head appeared in the water and was staring straight at me.. Turned out to be a very curious and playful otter. I had never seen one around the kawarthas and have not seen one since. It kept going under and popping up at the same distance for about ten minutes and after a few minutes I figured it was worth the risk of getting the camera out and got a few good shots of the little guy.
Next one is not really hunting, but fishing.. I was fishing with my kids at a small conservation area close to where I live.. Just for panfish off a very old dock that is hot used much. Kept hearing a russle on the shore in the brush and figured I'd go check it out with the camera. Got to the shore and found a young mink trying to make a meal of a young muskrat and not really knowing what to do.. The muskrat took to the water and never saw it again, the Mink on the other hand stuck around for about an hour or so and even came out onto the dock we were fishing on for a few minutes, but mostly it was just messing around on the shore.. At one point it was almost sitting on my foot and too close for my camera to even focus on.. I took probably 50 shots of him that day and saw him at the same spot a few more times during that summer. I haven't seen another one out there for three years now.
Found one shot I took before the muskrat took off...
Beautiful photos! You should add those to the "Best Photos From Hunting Without the Kill" thread, it's stickied at the top.
the spank
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Out duck hunting one day and shot a Drake Bufflehead. Went to get in the boat to pick it up and as I am pushing the boat off the rocky shore I see a seagull drop down and sit beside the duck. I give a yell and the seagull jumps up but instead of flying away hovers in the wind over the duck and looks like he is trying to line up on it for an easy meal. I took aim about 25 feet to the right and a good 4 feet low of the gull and let loose a round to scare it off and wouldn't you know it, the white s@"?t hawk folds up dead and lands beside the duck. Only thing I can figure is I had one heck of a stray BB or that bird had a heart attack at the report of the shot??
Ardent
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Probably shot skipping off the water, it goes all kinds of directions when it hits water at a shallow angle.
Pretty funny moment to be sure, wasn't the gull's lucky day!moosehunt89
New member
- Location
- Vancouver B.C , Canada
While hunting whitetail i was sitting in a blind. Only noise i could hear was wind and a few trees dancing in the wind. While glassing i had that "im being watched" feeling. So very slowly dropped my binos an did a 180 turn an low an behold a grizz no less then 15 metres. Realizing what he was i let out a loud "holy s**t" scaringthe bear off.. Leaving me to walk back to camp shorts a little heavier
hunter7mmRM
CGN Regular
- Location
- Northern Alberta
HAHA!! sorry for laughing at your expense, it sounds like it could have happened just like in a cartoon!
None taken. I don't usually tell them or take photos either as I don't expect anyone to believe me. I have uncanny abilities to end up close to animals I have no intent of harming. I wonder if they sense it?
Here are some more recent encounters, only a few, when I did take photos:
40 years of hunting adds up to many weird experiences, but here is one;
I was glassing a berry cut for bears, leaning against a large log up on a ridge. Nothing was moving, it was mid-morning I was very comfortable in the sun, and had been up early, so I kind of dozed off. Something woke me up and for a minute, I just lay there listening to an odd sound on the other side of the log, it gradually dawned on me what the sound was and I slowly snuck a peek over my shoulder. There sat a 400 pound bear chomping on berries with his back to me, so close I could have reached out and touched it. I was cramped up, and my bow was not in a position where I could feasibly get it into action without alarming the bear, so I just lay there and sweated it out, for 20 frigging minutes. Finally the bear started walking off, as he moved away, I reached for my bow. When the bear reached the end of the log, it moved around the end and was perfectly broadside at 10 yards. When the arrow hit him, he was confused and ran straight down my side of the log toward me. Without thinking I jumped over the log and the bear flared off to my right when he saw me leap. It piled up 30 yards away, but that didn't help with the trembling, I sat on the log and it took 20 minutes to regain my composure, I remember that I kept repeating "Holy Crap!" every minute or so.
I was glassing a berry cut for bears, leaning against a large log up on a ridge. Nothing was moving, it was mid-morning I was very comfortable in the sun, and had been up early, so I kind of dozed off. Something woke me up and for a minute, I just lay there listening to an odd sound on the other side of the log, it gradually dawned on me what the sound was and I slowly snuck a peek over my shoulder. There sat a 400 pound bear chomping on berries with his back to me, so close I could have reached out and touched it. I was cramped up, and my bow was not in a position where I could feasibly get it into action without alarming the bear, so I just lay there and sweated it out, for 20 frigging minutes. Finally the bear started walking off, as he moved away, I reached for my bow. When the bear reached the end of the log, it moved around the end and was perfectly broadside at 10 yards. When the arrow hit him, he was confused and ran straight down my side of the log toward me. Without thinking I jumped over the log and the bear flared off to my right when he saw me leap. It piled up 30 yards away, but that didn't help with the trembling, I sat on the log and it took 20 minutes to regain my composure, I remember that I kept repeating "Holy Crap!" every minute or so.
the spank
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Was sitting on a long sloped back hillside with tall oaks at the edge of a creek channel one morning hunting wood ducks. A few feet behind(above) me a pair of chipmunks are doing battle. Chasing each other, wrestling around, more chasing. One runs down and stands under my boot. I have my heels dug into the sloped bank and toes pointed upward as I am seated on the slope. The chipmunk stays there a few seconds I am thinking he figures he is hidden well from his buddy trying to get him. His buddy appears to my right and sits there staring at me. He lets out some kind of chattering sound and the one under my boot looks up and around at me from under my boot and I swear the look on its face was WTH? Where did you come from and why am I hiding under you, you big scary thing! He takes off instantly and the chase is on again as his buddy tears after him. Lol
the spank
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Had that same experience years ago with a buddy. We were sitting shoulder to shoulder a few feet into some alder on a field edge calling. Suddenly there was movement out of nowhere and there only a few feet away was a great horned owl legs and talons outstretched barely three feet away coming in on us. It flared off within inches of our faces as it realized we were not a dying rabbit and we were reacting instinctively to get the hell out of the way at the talon loaded missile headed at us. I do not ever want to see a set of outstretched talons that close up again.
Shot a nice little doe last year, but hit it a bit too high, so the shot went right through both lungs. Doe runs into the bush and lays down. I go in after about twenty minutes or so and find it pretty quick, and as I go in to give it a poke with the muzzle to make sure it's dead, it starts to struggle to get up, so I reach over and cut its throat, being rewarded with a gout of fresh blood. It sits there bleeding heavily for a minute, and then it jumps up and runs thirty meters further into the brush before laying down again, gushing blood from its neck the entire time. I follow it in and jump on it, and then I cut its throat again (I did a good job of it, since I could feel the neck bones with my knife by the end of it). It struggles and kicks, and then it jumps up again and runs further in. I follow it and cut it's neck AGAIN, this time nearly cutting its damned head off. It still kicks and struggles for a good ten minutes before it dies. Once I opened it up, I found the lungs were completely pulverized, and the head was just held on by the spine and the rear muscles. I've been hunting for over a decade, but I've never seen a deer that was this difficult to kill; most have simply dropped within twenty meters and never moved again. This one felt like it was built by Skynet.
My best friend was telling me of a time he was deer hunting with a party near the French River. He was using a 300 win mag, and sure as sh*t a partridge pretty much walked right up to him. He didn't want to scare off the deer, so he figures wtf, and grabs the biggest rock he could get his hands on and lobs it at the bird. He nailed it square on and both the bird and rock are rolling off away from him, and the bird was as dead as a door nail.
Years ago when our departed Molly was a young fur, I had her out with the quad doing a grouse run.
Up behind a local lake puttering around and her in front.
Sun was behind me and I heard a funny noise getting louder. Whoop whoop whooooop.
Then a shadow was growing in front of me.
I turn and look up. Dang owl was honing in on my dog.
Pound the brakes on, grab the 88 out off the quad rack, pound in the mag and click one in.
At about the time I shoulder the rifle, this dang feather was back feathering and claws
were out. I aim, holler at the fur and was about to let the lead fly.
Molly turned, saw the bird and ducked and darted.
I think that poor hound would of fore sure been gun shy if I let loose.
Kept her on the quad for a bit.
I'm sure glad I wasn't wearing a helmet that day.
Funny gal, made a bigg'un basket on the front with a sleeping bag in it for her........nope.
Made a pad on the rear rack for her to lay on............nope.
Ended up bringing a small piece of carpet and laid it on the space between the tank and seat.
There she liked to be. When she got tired, well she put her chin on my arm.
[URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/kamlooky/media/Molly/DSC06721_zpsdf650612.jpg.html]
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Up behind a local lake puttering around and her in front.
Sun was behind me and I heard a funny noise getting louder. Whoop whoop whooooop.
Then a shadow was growing in front of me.
I turn and look up. Dang owl was honing in on my dog.
Pound the brakes on, grab the 88 out off the quad rack, pound in the mag and click one in.
At about the time I shoulder the rifle, this dang feather was back feathering and claws
were out. I aim, holler at the fur and was about to let the lead fly.
Molly turned, saw the bird and ducked and darted.
I think that poor hound would of fore sure been gun shy if I let loose.
Kept her on the quad for a bit.
I'm sure glad I wasn't wearing a helmet that day.
Funny gal, made a bigg'un basket on the front with a sleeping bag in it for her........nope.
Made a pad on the rear rack for her to lay on............nope.
Ended up bringing a small piece of carpet and laid it on the space between the tank and seat.
There she liked to be. When she got tired, well she put her chin on my arm.
[URL=http://s614.photobucket.com/user/kamlooky/media/Molly/DSC06721_zpsdf650612.jpg.html]
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I was deer hunting with my dad as a teenager. The plan was to sit stands until 10 am and then I was going to quietly push a cedar swamp toward him. At 10 am I started zig-zagging and looping my way through the swamp. At one point I ducked under the outer branches of a cedar and stood up next to the trunk, when I looked up there was a little Saw-Whet owl perched on a branch two feet from my face. Without moving my head or body, I slowly lifted my arm until my open hand was directly behind the bird... I simply closed my hand around the owl and he didn't blink or struggle... just kind of nestled back into my hand and laid there. So I continued on through the woods to where my dad was waiting, as I approached him, I held the owl behind my back... when I got to my dad, I said; "I will give you a million dollars if you can tell me what I'm holding behind my back"... you could have floored me with a feather when the first words out of his mouth were; "An owl." WHAT THE HECK?!?!?!?
I said what in the world would make you say "an owl"... just about the most unlikely thing ever... that's when he told me that the little owl had flown in and sat on a post next to him and sat there for two hours... 15 minutes earlier it had flown back into the bush directly where I had come from. Even so, seems pretty unlikely that I would have the bird in my hand. So, I placed the owl back on the post... he sat there and watched us for a couple minutes and then swooped off back into the bush, completely unstressed, like this sort of thing happens everyday.
Never did pay my dad the million dollars... just added it to the list of all the other things I owe him, money being the least valuable.
I said what in the world would make you say "an owl"... just about the most unlikely thing ever... that's when he told me that the little owl had flown in and sat on a post next to him and sat there for two hours... 15 minutes earlier it had flown back into the bush directly where I had come from. Even so, seems pretty unlikely that I would have the bird in my hand. So, I placed the owl back on the post... he sat there and watched us for a couple minutes and then swooped off back into the bush, completely unstressed, like this sort of thing happens everyday.
Never did pay my dad the million dollars... just added it to the list of all the other things I owe him, money being the least valuable.
KMG Canada
CGN Regular
- Location
- Alfred, Ontario
Well, That pic of the pup on the quad brings back a memory of a double incident with my small munsterlander "Lady" when she was a pup in trg. We had headed out to the woods just for a walk really as she was no where near a finished dog at this point. We hardly headed down the trail when her nose hit the ground and she headed into a thicket and something large bolted out and into a clearing on my right. There was a huge pine in the clearing and as I looked over the thicket I see the first black bear cub followed by its sibling and last but not least mom headed up the pine, claws clacking away on the tree bark! Well the 20 gauge with birdshot felt pretty small right about then as I approached an energetic but misguided pup on point at the bottom of the tree looking for my approval. She must have wondered why I dragged her away by the collar from all her hard work! Later that day I let her out in the backyard and she gets on to a rabbit and I frantically try to call her off the chase (we haven't quite figured out the difference between fur and feather at this point) the chase is frantic as the rabbit seems partially corralled by the fence in the yard and then all of sudden the rabbit runs squarely into a large maple and stuns itself, lady slowly creeps up to it and goes on point. Now, you know I had to correct the dogs behavior but keeping a straight face was all but impossible!
Hunting on the edge of where my camp ends and the next camp begins, I hear a shot out their way...... 20 minutes or so go by and a buck pops out in front of me in a slow walk.... Raise my rifle and take my shot and hit it.... It runs back towards the other camp.... I let 20 minutes go by and go after it following the blood trail.....
I come up to a friend from the other camp as he is applying his tag to my deer..... As I know this guy personally and we frequent eachother's camps for beer, company and euchre I know he isn't "up to no good".... I explain to him that I shot the deer and show him the blood trail I followed.... He affirms that he also shot a deer and followed the blood trail and saw the one he was tagging....
We start to walk back to where he stopped tracking blood because he saw the deer down and sure enough, not even ten yards from where my deer went down, there is his laying there dead..... Not even ten yards from mine..... Same rack size and tine count and similar body proportions....
Funniest part... He had only hit one lung and his deer ran about 200 yards only end up within ten yards of mine....
I come up to a friend from the other camp as he is applying his tag to my deer..... As I know this guy personally and we frequent eachother's camps for beer, company and euchre I know he isn't "up to no good".... I explain to him that I shot the deer and show him the blood trail I followed.... He affirms that he also shot a deer and followed the blood trail and saw the one he was tagging....
We start to walk back to where he stopped tracking blood because he saw the deer down and sure enough, not even ten yards from where my deer went down, there is his laying there dead..... Not even ten yards from mine..... Same rack size and tine count and similar body proportions....
Funniest part... He had only hit one lung and his deer ran about 200 yards only end up within ten yards of mine....
Call
CGN frequent flyer
I had two squirrels running at me along the ground, one following the other. I only had a single-shot so I figured I'd hit the one in front (closer shot) and forgo the farther one since it would inevitably run off.
I hit the first one, no problems. The second one didn't run off; it just kept on going like nothing had happened, picked up the corn cob the first one had had in it's mouth, and kept on coming at me.
I reloaded and got the second one about three feet past the first one.
I use this as a reminder that nature doesn't always act like you think it will.
I hit the first one, no problems. The second one didn't run off; it just kept on going like nothing had happened, picked up the corn cob the first one had had in it's mouth, and kept on coming at me.
I reloaded and got the second one about three feet past the first one.
I use this as a reminder that nature doesn't always act like you think it will.
My brother and I were deer hunting up around Algonquin Park.
This one morning, pre-dawn, our plan was that we would paddle down a lake in the canoe, with me disembarking 3/4 of the way down where a drainage from a beaver pond entered the lake while he continued down to the end of the lake and snooped around. I have a few 2x4's nailed to a tree near the edge of the pond, only about 10 feet up for a "stand".
Quite a while after sun-up, I heard branches snapping and out pop two young bull Moose. They walk right under my "stand" on my left side and go down into the beaver pond behind me. A minute later, one of them comes back and stops right beside my tree on the right side. I could have jumped onto his back for a "8 second ride" (which of course would have been more like 1 second before he stomped me into the ground).
This one morning, pre-dawn, our plan was that we would paddle down a lake in the canoe, with me disembarking 3/4 of the way down where a drainage from a beaver pond entered the lake while he continued down to the end of the lake and snooped around. I have a few 2x4's nailed to a tree near the edge of the pond, only about 10 feet up for a "stand".
Quite a while after sun-up, I heard branches snapping and out pop two young bull Moose. They walk right under my "stand" on my left side and go down into the beaver pond behind me. A minute later, one of them comes back and stops right beside my tree on the right side. I could have jumped onto his back for a "8 second ride" (which of course would have been more like 1 second before he stomped me into the ground).
OccasionallyOnTarget
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Burnaby, BC
Same thing happened to me when I was in India hunting lions.
