Laying in my bag, while cowboy camping, on a ridge one spring night, while turkey hunting and I hear something coming down the ridge towards me. Certain that the only thing that could turn over the logs and boulders that I’m hearing move is a bear.
After the sun goes down every night, I replace my turkey loads with buckshot just incase, so I am now contemplating getting my shotgun that is leaning against the tree next to my head, but I figure I’ll wait a little longer since the thermals are going down and I’m sure it can’t smell me yet.
As the bear gets closer, I grab my green light because I don’t want my night vision to be disturbed for any shotgun work that might be needed. I ease my shotgun off the tree and point it in the general direction of the bear, that I now estimate to be about 10 yards away.
I hit my light, ready for what’s about to come next as I sit up in my bag, but I freeze as still as can be when I see that I have severely underestimated the distance between me and the ridge ransacker. Less than five feet away a skunk blinks at my green light, as confused as I am, but for many different reasons, I am sure.
For a tense six or seven seconds he debates what the green light that has so suddenly appeared just in front of him is, while I dread the certain aroma that is sure to befall me and my new WM bag. Luckily he shuffles off the ridge to my right and out of my life without leaving me with more story than I already had.
Skunks are predators too.
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