Creepy experiences in the backcountry

[Valumpessa]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

You're roasting the guy for shooting a young cat at 70 yds? What does it need to be 175+lbs at 5 yds to be respectable to you? Serious question.

 

[Pharmseller]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

Huh.

Interesting comment.

Anyway, I’m betting he couldn’t tell it was a juvenile until he got up to it.



P

 

[ztc92]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

This seems a bit harsh. I didn’t read the story as self defense but rather just getting a hunting opportunity on a cat that also happened to be following them.

 

[loganwayne]

This seems a bit harsh. I didn’t read the story as self defense but rather just getting a hunting opportunity on a cat that also happened to be following them.

same. If i had a tag and turned around and saw a cat id shoot it with out thinking twice

 

[longrangelead]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

I'd have shot it if it was 50lb or 500. I didnt know or care its size or age. my tag fits all sizes and they all taste about the same. I was surprised to see it following us but not scared, come on man!
how bout a 90lb 10 year old female? would that make a more intimidating story? personally I wouldn't want to tangle with a bobcat let alone something 5x bigger regardless of age.
you do understand yearlings kill and eat full grown deer right?

 

[3forks]

This is one of the more popular and long running discussions on this forum.

If the guy had a tag and was legal, let’s move on before this gets shut down or moderated.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

Figures there is at least one clown on here that will bitch about somebody tipping a cat over

Would love to hear your thoughts on wolves when you get a chance.

 

[7mm-08]

Wow. So scary. 70 yards? And following you. Man I'm surprised you didn't pee your pants that a curious juvenile cat was following you. 70 yards. You're so brave. Guys, this dude's a hero.

Or, you could just scroll on by and not make a derogatory comment to a fellow hunter to make yourself feel good. Maybe you just had a bad day (and I try to treat everyone with grace), but what are you hoping to accomplish with this kind of response - vitriol from others?

 

[rayporter]

an apology should be made..

 

[longspeak74]

Not back country, but took the dog for a run on some public land close to the house.
Still a bit of snow on the ground, but not much. Came across a set of boot prints that after about 20 yards, just stopped.
Got me thinking some...

 

[Turkeytider]

Not back country, but took the dog for a run on some public land close to the house.
Still a bit of snow on the ground, but not much. Came across a set of boot prints that after about 20 yards, just stopped.
Got me thinking some...

I think that would indeed bring one to an abrupt halt.

 

[longspeak74]

I think that would indeed bring one to an abrupt halt.

I am hoping that they had walked through an area of prairie then picked up the trail. But yeah, gave me pause.

 

[jaredg]

@2ski Tell ya what, you go f#@* with a 90lb tom and tell us how it was. I've done it. 90 lbs or 180lbs those animal are ferocious. A juvenile tom is about twice the size of a badger with as many teeth and claws. Think about that...

Anything stalks my wife and I is probably getting shot.

Just curious tough guy, how many cougars have you killed? Or do you just hunt baby seals for the meat?

 

[NRA4LIFE]

If I have a cat tag (which I always do here in WA as they are OTC and cheap) and I see one, following me or not, regardless of size, it's getting shot. Saves a lot of other wildlife. Plain and simple. Same with bear and coyotes.

 

[elkliver]

Not back country, but took the dog for a run on some public land close to the house.
Still a bit of snow on the ground, but not much. Came across a set of boot prints that after about 20 yards, just stopped.
Got me thinking some...

I was out elk hunting opening day a few years ago and took a hike up the draw behind camp. 3 or 4 inches of Fresh snow on the ground, so good tracking. looped up the ridge on on the one side of the draw and circled around the head of it to come down the opposite ridge . I dropped down into the bottom and there was fresh looking boot prints headed down the trail all of a sudden when it had just been my morning tracks a minute ago. I was surprised because i hadn't seen any sign of anyone else, not another human track and they just appeared.... Pretty sure someone would have had a tough time hunting that draw without me seeing sign or seeing them ...

Took me a minute to figure out what had happened. Someone had walked down that trail after a previous snow and the snow was perfect temperature to save a perfect crisp track and then it had frozen, and then the fresh snow had come down on top of it. With the day warming up the fresh snow melted some and the old tracks started showing through but still appeared nice and crisp. So in some spots my track showed crisp and clear and other spots the strange tracks did.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

If I have a cat tag (which I always do here in WA as they are OTC and cheap) and I see one, following me or not, regardless of size, it's getting shot. Saves a lot of other wildlife. Plain and simple. Same with bear and coyotes.

This is why I never go out without some sort of firearm. Because you never know when your'e going to come across something that is better off dead.

 

[BigK421]

@2ski Tell ya what, you go f#@* with a 90lb tom and tell us how it was. I've done it. 90 lbs or 180lbs those animal are ferocious. A juvenile tom is about twice the size of a badger with as many teeth and claws. Think about that...

Anything stalks my wife and I is probably getting shot.

Just curious tough guy, how many cougars have you killed? Or do you just hunt baby seals for the meat?

I agree 100%. I remember about 10 years ago when there were a few pitbulls that got cut up by a bobcat. Cut down to the bone on their legs....Not something I want to experiment with.

 

[mi650]

Another 'not backcountry' story, but pretty weird anyway.

When I was 18, my GF and I had an apartment in Tucson. Sunrise I think was the name of the complex, pretty much right outside the Wilmot gate of DMAFB. 1 night, 2 friends of ours, Annie and Mary-Lee stopped by for a few minutes then walked across the road to Circle K. While crossing the road, they were hit by a Domino's delivery driver. This was when Domino's had their 30 minutes or free delivery.

Annie saw it coming and tried to jump back, got hit in the leg and messed her knee up pretty bad. Mary-Lee was killed. Now where it gets weird.

A day or 2 later, my GF and I got into an argument, she left and stayed with another friend for the night. I got drunk and went to bed. I got up for work the next morning and our apartment was trashed, couldn't believe she came back and trashed the place while I was sleeping! After I left, she came back to get ready for work herself, and was pissed at me for the mess! I got home 1st and didn't clean up her mess, WTH should I? A couple hours later, she got home and was still pissed at me.

We got to talking about things and looking around, something stuck out. My GF had a plaque that sat on the dresser that said, "Your life is Gods gift to you. What you do with your life is your gift to God." Mary-Lee loved that plaque. We found it behind the dresser, face up. We looked at it for a while, and couldn't figure out any way it could have been knocked over and landed face up between the wall and base of the dresser. It had to have been put there.

A few days before they were hit, my GF went grocery shopping with Mary-Lee. Being piss-poor broke like most 18 year old kids, we were pretty frugal. Mary-Lee twisted my GFs arm into buying a roll of paper towels. A couple days after the funeral, we were sitting on the couch watching TV and both looked over at the dining room table, just in time to see that roll of paper towels tumble off of it. It had been standing upright.

Only thing we could think of was that our apartment was the last familiar place that Mary-Lee was before she was killed, got lost and she came back.

Neither of us were the most religious, but my GF had previously asked me to read my bible to her, cover to cover. I found an appropriate passage, no idea what chapter and verse, read it aloud and then left the bible open to the page overnight. We never had anymore issues.

We broke up not too long after, I enlisted in the Army, and we went our separate ways. But for several years, I'd get a call out of the blue from her still freaked out about it.


ETA: Annie and Mary-Lees family sued Domino's, and not too long after they changed their policy to 30 minutes or $3 off instead of free.

 

[Snowwolfe]

My weird encounter was in a hotel. Exwife and I had a small apartment in a local hotel when we were first married. Someone was playing games with us by knocking at the door then no one would be there when I answered.
I sat inside beside the door waiting for someone to knock. Someone knocked loud and I immediately opened the door (within 2 seconds) and no one was there. And the hallway outside was maybe 40 yards long.
The knocks never happened again.

 

[bigunit]

This one was scary at the time but funny later.

I was moose hunting Oct 2023. After a long and unsuccessful day, I was on my way back to camp near dark on my atv. It was cold and quite rainy. I saw a dark shadow on my left in the intersection of a trail and realized it was a bear about 20 yards away. It looked like a decent boar and I had a tag so I quickly grabbed and loaded my rifle.

Right as I was loading my rifle, the bear started walking straight towards me. I found that quite strange especially since I was still at the atv and it was running with the lights on. I shot the bear head on and he quickly spun and ran away from me.

I wasn't too keen on looking for a bear after dark when I was still quite a ways from camp and getting pretty cold. My dad and father in law would also already be back at camp and I didn't want to worry them so I decided to leave the bear and head to camp and retrieve it in the am.

The next day I still wanted to moose hunt so I thought I'd find the bear well before first light, gut it and be on my way for the morning hunt. We'll that's exactly what happened. I found the bear a few yards of the trail about 50 yards from where I shot. It was about a 200lb boar. I prepped all my stuff to start gutting, but some nitrile gloves on and got to work.

Remember this is still well before daylight and I'm in thick bush and can't really see anything out of the beam of my headlamp, so I'm a bit on edge but not too bad. As soon as kneeled down and was about to start the first incision, I heard the loudest scariest thing I have to date.

There must have been an owl directly above me the whole time and as soon I was about to touch that bear he let a huge hoot out. I damn near shat and must have jumped back at least 4 feet. That was the creepiest thing to happen to me in the bush so far. I'm so glad it wasn't on film.