Strangest hunting moment?

Drove into a area with only one fresh road in and out and a skidder track. My old Dad stayed in the truck checking out the roadways, partner did a big circle on a big old slash, i went maybe 2k in on the skidder trail and sat on a stump on a high spot were i could see 4-500 yards each way. Late big buck season, saw a few bambi bucks and does. Walking out following my tracks in maybe 1 foot of snow, i got close to the truck. See a little 2X3 cross the main road maybe 60 yards in front of the P/U cut the corner and head up the skidder track towards me. I sit still behind a blowdown with a bunch of little branches. Maybe 10-15 below, dressed in winter camo top and white sweats.

Keep watching the buck out of the corner of my eye, stock still....gets 8 ft...something is wrong.....another few feet...he is twitchy.....closer.....takes a step and has a sniff out the end of the barrel of my M77 7mag. Looks right at me .....snorts and gone. Think that guy needed counselling after. Pretty cool. Get to the truck and Dad is checking his eyelids for leaks.
 
shot a nice buck,just to have it run right off a cliff. buddies dad shot a moose 3 times before he realized it was straddling a log and was dead after the first shot.
 
Father-in-law is in the happy hunting grounds now but many years ago he was out for moose near Smithers. One presented nicely and he shot it. It walked in the bush and right out again. So he shot it again and this time the bull dropped. Pretty excited about things he went up to begin the hard part. Well you guessed it, there were two of them laying there. The first bull had taken a few steps and dropped dead in the bush and his buddy had walked out to see what all the commotion was about. Father-in-law zips into town and finds his brother-in-law who punches his tag. This all occurred many years ago and also happened to be the last time my Father-in-law went after moose. His trusty 303 now resides with my son.
 
Years ago while deer hunting with our group of guys we set out to do a run. In our area we use "doggers and the rest of the guys take stands at strategic spots. Five of us were heading in to take our stands , three guys peeled off while another guy and me headed to a further spot. A few minutes later as we rounded a small clump of willows we saw 8 or 10 does and fawns exiting the willows and heading directly at our just departed buddies. As this was exactly the opposite direction the doggers would be coming it was also the last direction they would be expecting deer. This was before 2 way radios were in common use so we commenced to holler at them to get their attention.
Now to get the full effect you have to imagine one of these guys was an old timer who loved to tell this story after a few drinks in a low soft voice. As Bill would say "We heard the guys behind us yelling and I said to Jim what are they saying? Jim says they're saying look behind you. We turned around and there was a deer behind every f*****g tree. "

The deer ran right through the middle of them too close to each other to shoot at first, one guy said he could have hit a fawn with the barrel, then each of them managed to down one as the deer went on through . Looking back you have to admire that none o them lost their composure under such circumstances
 
Colder day hunting and one of the guys forgot his long johns. One of the older fellows offers him his one piece long johns. A few hours later, I'm walking down the road and I see this naked man squatted down taking a dump pretty well naked. I started laughing and waited for him to finish and asked him what he was doing. He said he didn't realize that the long johns had a trap door, so he had to pretty well strip down to his ankles to take one. We laughed for hours!
 
A few years back, I was hunting up near Kearney. I got to my watch just before first light and crawled up into my stand and grabbed a little eyes closed ears open nap. About an hour later I hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of an approaching animal through the frozen bush. My eyes pop open just in time to spot a nice big doe jump over some brush and come out to within 25 yards of me. Bang!!! Down goes the doe. Well, not more than a few seconds behind comes another doe. Bang!!! Down goes doe #2. Coffee time. I open up my thermos, pour a cup of joe and light up a smoke. Well I'll be damned. Out comes the buck and I am tagged out.


Sometimes being forgetful can be beneficial...

Moose hunting with the gang down south west of Thunder Bay third week. At the time I was youngest in the gang so I got last watch on the line. Every body drops off onto their watches and I finally get to mine. Sit in and go to load my rifle. No bullets. I forgot them in my truck which is about a mile and a half away. So I slug it back to my truck, grab my ammo and start heading back. By now there is a full on blizzard blowing up and visibility is nearly zero. About halfway back I see two dark figures silhouetted against the snowy white bush line. A cow with a bull!!! Talk about the luck of the draw. Took the bull. My first moose.
 
I've had many over the years, but here's one of my best memories.
I have land north of Valleyview, Alberta. Every year I hunt deer there. There's a 20 acre alfalfa field surrounded by bush. So one morning I walk up on the field and there's one doe, standing in the middle of it. She would feed, then look over her shoulder. This went on for a bit, her always looking at the same spot. Suddenly she takes off, running as fast as she can and is gone. By her reaction I expected a wolf or pack of coyotes, so I'm ready. Out comes a MASSIVE Whitetail buck. Not just rack, but huge body. So old that he had grey, not brown hair. He has his nose on the ground and is tracking her just like a bloodhound. It was cool to see. But he's walking briskly across the field, head down, nose on the ground about 200 yards away. I whistle, or try to, but its too cold. Dang! He's about 5 feet from the bush, and I fire. Whack! The sound of a good hit. I walk up and find his track in the field, and follow it to the bush. There's his track in the snow, a big blood spatter and hair, and nothing. No tracks, no blood, no deer. It's as if Scotty beamed him to the Enterprise. While I'm standing there mulling this over I hear a noise and look to my left. At my shot he had leaped, had to be 15 feet or more in one bound, fallen, and had caught his huge rack on a tree and couldn't get up. So I finished him off. Now 15 feet may not seem like much, but in thick Willow bush it was far enough that he was effectively gone.
Anyway, I tagged and gutted him, got him in my truck, and left my field. Not 10 minutes later I come accross a beautiful Muley buck, and fill that tag. One of my best days of hunting ever. Much to my surprise the old White tail was delicious. Not tough or gamey. My only regret was that I didn't save the cape. A younger, brown cape wouldn't look right and grey capes are rare. Both racks and many others now grace my wall but I'll never forget that magical morning. The picture to the left are the heads.
 
When I was about 15, I stayed overnight at my buddy's and his Dad took us out to a slough they had scouted the day before. We had a great shoot of mallards. When we got back to the car, there was his Dad leaning on the side of the car with a big grin on his face. Beside him, sitting on the fender, was a young adult hawk. It didn't seem to be afraid of him. They would look at each other. It flew away when we got closer. :)
 
hoytcanon said:
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.
Click to expand...

I've read and enjoyed every single story in this thread but this has to be my favourite.
 
when I was a kid, I was walking along an old horse logging trail, looking for grouse. I saw one up ahead, maybe 20 yards away. I took aim with the 28 gauge shotgun and fired. Three birds took off, but one landed on a low branch. Figuring I had missed, I reloaded and dropped the one from the branch. I was happy to have bagged one, but annoyed that I missed the first shot. I continued down the trail, and had probably gone nearly a hundred yards when I heard a distinct 'thump' in the woods off to my left. Then the unmistakeable 'whirrr' of a grouse doing it's final death flutter. I ran into the bush and traced the sound just as the bird gave its last flaps. It was well camouflaged and if I hadn't hurried in, I wouldn't have found it. Seems I DID hit the first one I shot at, but just put a pellet through the lungs. The bird flew quite a distance and perched in a tree, only to finally keel over several minutes later, just as I walked by.
 
Years ago when I had ole Willy we were up in a new area running down old roads.
Grouse were open and way yonder there was a sitting feather.
Crept up a bit further and my buddy jumped out......... (1942 Willy's) and put
a round in his 22.
He took aim and click. Cussed a bit and tried it again. Click.
The feather was onto us and turkey'd along the road.
I chortled. Buddy cussed at me fer chortling.
I pull the hand brake and got Mr Cooey out.
Fed a round in, different ammo than his.
Found a lean'in spot, pulled the cocky thang back and took aim.
Click.......wtf.......pulled again............click.
Tossed in another round and the grouse was in the bushes.
Blessed cuss'in featherer.
As I aproach nearer, just over the bank I seen the top of an old building.
Dint know whether anyone lived there or not as I couldn't get the whole picture.
Told my buddy we better not shoot and let this one go.
Up the road a mile or so I stopped and gave thought to what had just transpired.
I looked at my buddy, he stared back.
Weird huh?
Yup.
You have yer ammo and I have mine .......right?
Yup.
You ever have a double clicker?
No.
Wow.

I looked up and said thanks.
Not sure why, but evidently something was stopping us from shooting
in that area.
 
Moose hunting, (calf tags) I had a calf run in front of me, while the cow ran behind me. Neither was further than 10 feet from me. I shot the calf, and spun quick looking for the cow, lest she tromp me to red mush. She had stopped about ten yards off, and was watching me. I waved and yelled as loud as I could, and she left. Then I got a WTF? call on the radio from my cousin, wondering why I was screaming my ass off.
I had a similar incident a few years before, and momma moose decided to stand her ground and defend the dead calf. That was not funny!
 
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The last night of our moose camp (a successful trip) and some of the guys decided to get a glow on. The one fella was a bit of a loud mouthed know it all when booze was added. Some of the other guys got a bit fed up with him, so they went over to the outhouse and lifted it back a bit so that the hole was in front of the door. Being dark and when loud mouth had to go for a bathroom break things got real loud and rather $hitty. Never laughed so hard in my entire life.
Loud mouth never came hunting with us again.
 
Was sitting 16 feet up in a ladder stand watching various trails and a feeding station waiting for Mr. Big to show up when a partridge landed on the fold-down table in front of me . After awhile it hopped onto my scope (got a picture of that someplace) .When it flew/hopped onto my shoulder I was OK with that until he started to peck at my eye-glasses (his reflection?) .When I brushed him off onto the ground he strutted around for awhile then flew back up and sat on my gloved hand where he stayed for quite a bit .Then he discovered his reflection in my scope lens and I had to shoo him off again .
We had quite a few contacts with this bird in the following weeks, but didn't see him next year .
 
One of the first years I hunted I sat on the edge of a thick cedar swamp along the road into our camp. The neighbors beagle showed up and started running in circles in the swamp tonguing like crazy for 5 or 10 minutes then would come out for a visit then go back in and start tonguing again. I thought that crazy SOB is chasing a rabbit around in circles drivin me nuts. I sat down and started digging in my packsack for a rope so I could take the hound home when out jumps a massive buck stands in the middle of the camp road looks me in the eye then disappears to the other side. A minute later out comes the beagle on his track and keeps on trucking after him. A life lesson I think that's called.................
 
We had seen nothing pretty much all week while deer hunting a couple of years ago. I was driving down the dirt track heading back to main road when I saw a deer about 20yds to the right (I was still about 200yds from the main road). It kinda did one of those bound away but I'm not really concerned routines. I stopped my car figuring it would probably come back to see what scared it which it did. I turned the motor off and slowly opened my car door so that I could get to the rear door to grab a rifle (everything was packed away in the back). BZZZZZZ BEEP BEEP BEEP....keys were still in the ignition. I yanked the keys out expecting the deer to vamanos. Surprisingly it was still stood there. I slowly opened the back door climbed on the back seat. The rifles were buried under all the weeks gear and laundry. I reached between the seats to get at a rifle and got stuck. I am now jammed between the seats. I squirmed and wriggled and eventually got free. I'm sure the deer must have been thinking "what in the hell is this guy doing this is hilarious" I'm sure if it had buddies they would come and watch this performance. I realized I didn't have any bullets so down I went hunting for cartridges. I reached down a picked up a couple of rounds....damn it..dropped them. Managed to retrieve them. All this fun took about 1 minute. I was figuring this deer is either gone or died laughing. Believe it or not it was still standing there...about 20yds away. I loaded the rifle and squeezed the trigger (actually more like yanked it). Nothing happened...yanked again...uh safety was on. Pushed the safety off and fired (unfortunately hit him amid ships). Turned out to be a spike buck and ran about about 70yds and dropped. I marked the site with my orange hat. I drove down the gravel/dirt track at about 80 miles and hour back to camp. Slammed on the brakes (almost drove into the side of the camp...a bit too excited as this was the first deer I had shot with a rifle...Hit 5 with cars so starting to get even) and jumped up and down yelling...I got one! There's a bit more to it but would take too long to explain. Kinda funny though.

Last fall I had a doe running full out almost knock me over. If I was stuck out any further from behind the tree from whence I as sitting she would have hit me.
 
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