Scariest thzing you’ve experienced?

[jmez]

Went bowhunting while in HS with my brother and a buddy. Were hunting a farm we'd been on quite a bit but decided to go into the back end of the place we hadn't been. None of us had a light we generally knew where we were going and walked in the dark. This was before treestands were popular so we just walked in and sat on 5 gallon buckets off a trail. Forecast was for rain, no biggie. We got out there and it was dark, clouds blocked any light that may have been present. So dark if the guy in front of you stopped you ran into him.

We took off walking and it started to thunder. Then came the lightning. This was actually good because it lit up the woods and we'd move a ways and wait for the next flash. Then it started to rain, and not just a little bit, just poured. We wanted out of the rain. In a flash of lightning we saw a huge old oak tree so we ran over and stood next to the trunk to get out of the rain a bit. They say you can feel it coming and you can! Standing under the tree and every hair on my body stood on end and I got goosebumps all over. Next thing I know there is an explosion and blinding flash of light right above us. Lightning hit the tree we were standing under! None of us were hurt, I don't know how but was a good lesson.

8 years ago was bowhunting and I shot a decent buck. Didn't hit him the best so I called my wife and told her I was going to look for the deer and I would likely be gone for a while. Decided after I talked to her that I would just go home and come back that evening to look for it. Jumped on the ATV and headed out. Have to go down a pretty steep hill that has a 90 degree turn, have done it 100's of times. Came down the hill a little fast and grabbed the brakes to kind of skid it around the corner. When I grabbed them it stood up on the front tires. I felt it hit the point of no return and tried to climb off. I got halfway off and the back rack caught me and took me over with it. I landed crossways to it and it hit me right across the pelvis and broke my femur. Trapping me underneath the seat.

I heard the bone break and felt like someone had lit my leg on fire. I knew from the sound that it was bad. As long as I didn't move it actually didn't really hurt. I was of course ,in a panic and wanted out from under the ATV. It wasn't putting pressure on me but I couldn't get out because my feet would get caught. I somehow was able to lift it up and scoot out from underneath it, not sure how. Soon as I was out I stood up, still in a panic and immediately collapsed when I put weight on the leg. I laid there and just screamed for a while after that.

Finally settled down and took stock of the situation. Could move my foot and bend my knee so knew it was my femur or pelvis, I wasn't sure. Then reached in my shirt pocket to call my wife for help. Pocket wasn't buttoned and phone flew out in the wreck. I saw it laying about 20 yards down the hill so I had to drag myself down to get it. Called my wife and she didn't answer. Callled my brother, he didn't answer. Called pretty much everyone I knew and no one answered. I laid there for about 10 minutes and my wife finally called back. In the mean time i was laying down and my head was downhill, That wasn't working so I again had to drag myself around to get my head uphill. It really didn't hurt as long as I didn't move.

She called 911 and got me help. I was in the Hiils and search and rescue had to walk in and carry me out on a backboard. From when it happened to when I got help was about an hour. Bad day. I never found the deer but did learn a lot that day.

 

[hooker]

27 years ago I ate some mushrooms... Long story short, The koolaide man chased me through Spokane for about 3-4 hours...

Oh yea.....

 

[archer wapiti]

Nothing too dramatic compared to being shot, run over by your ATV, ghosts, lightning, castaway on the Great Lakes, or flushing a grouse...

I was in about 4th grade walking to the bus stop alone in the dark and heard my first whitetail snort. I then understood the expression 'blood runs cold.'

2016 solo elk hunt 4 miles in the Gila Wilderness I fell, twisted my ankle and heard a pop. Fortunately it was a fairly mild sprain, but the sound was sickening given my situation. I was able to hobble about a mile into another party's camp (thanks Ryan, Butch & Justin (at least one of whom is on here)) and recover enough to walk out the next day and drive in to town and get a brace. I still hunt solo, but I take my time, carry lighter loads, and use trekking poles whenever I can.

 

[Shraggs]

this is an amazing thread, for me anyway. so many stories left me shaking my head in wonder!

Flyguy's story has been on my mind since posted - a remarkable story for me, i was shot at once too.

i was 12, first season ever and left my blind back to the farm house, half mile walk across the hay field to grandfathers farm. it was still dusk, as i was afraid to walk in the dark. i heard a wizzing, then another. i looked around, and noticed 3 men about 1/4 mile away on our fence line near a small hunting camp and thought i heard laughing. then a puff of smoke and another wiz by. it was difficult to get me mind around this. i was not talkative at dinner. this was a big camp with a lot of paying hunters to my grandfathers farm, my dad kinda ran things. before bed, when all were winding down and gearing up for morning he asked what was wrong, i told him and somehow was ashamed like i did something wrong. the mood changed, and i knew the adults were chatting...

the next morning was an organized drive and a 400 acre hardwoods plot a few miles away. about 40 hunters (usually about half do the drives), in 15 trucks pulled out, then stopped in front of the small camp boarding our property. dad told me to stay in the truck...

everyone else got out of the their vehicles in a line facing that camp, and my dad went to the door and had a chat.

most of those men are no longer with us, those that are wouldn't tell me what he said. I've lived some now and i have a pretty good idea. was scary and bewildering to me at the time, but my father was a tough responsible outdoorsman so i guess its about how he responded in what must have been a scary situation for a parent.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Wow, some really scary stories hear and I don’t know if mine even begins to compare but I’ll go ahead and take a stab. The absolute scariest experience I’ve ever had took place on my first big game hunt. I was 4 years old and it had been determined that I was old enough to not only go hunting, but to do a solo hunt in the middle of the night, sometime around 9:00 pm, on my grandparents sprawling ranch, about 5 acres in Northern California where they raised chickens. I was to target the Great Northern Snipe. Now you may not be familiar with the Great Northern Snipe but let me assure you, this is not some docile little game bird. This is a fury mini monster about the size of a rat, but at least 10 times as ferocious as a wolverine! So anyway, there I was, squatting out there, in the middle of the wilderness, in the pitch black darkness, with only a brown paper sack and a flashlight. Needless to say, there were Snipe EVERYWHERE!!! I could hear them calling all around me and taunting me. Now you’re probably wondering why in the world I would be hunting such a hideous beast, armed only with a paper trash bag and a flashlight? Well apparently when you shine a flashlight into the opening of a paper bag, the Great Northern Snipe can’t resist running into it (the flashlight is so they can see their way into the bag), and once inside, the brown paper bag has the same effect as kryptonite has on Superman. Well, if memory serves me right, I was out there until the wee morning hours with the temperatures dropping to about 30 below zero (this was probably the coldest October night that Northern California has experienced since the last ice age), and I’ll be damned that I wasn’t able to catch one of those little bastards, but the whole experience haunts me to this very day. I still have never caught the elusive Great Northern Snipe, but every October you can find me, brown paper bag in one hand and a flashlight in the other, squatting out in some field, waiting for my ship, I mean Snipe, to come in.


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[Jauwater]

Experienced sleep paralysis once in my life. What ended up as a 10 day outing for me started as a group hunt with 3 of my brothers, my dad, and a close friend. They all left on the 5th day. That night, I wake up at some point in the night feeling very restricted in my sleeping bag. It didn’t occur to me at that instance I wasn’t able to open my eyes yet. It was realizing I couldn’t move, and then I realized I couldn’t open my eyes. The first two seconds were like this. Wake up feeling restricted, assuming the bag is twisted up I go to shimmy to loosen the bag. Couldn’t move, a gram of panic started to set in (kind of claustrophobic) which alerted me to my eyes not opening. Within the next 10 seconds complete panic set in. Sometime within the next few minutes I had a overwhelming calmness come over me, and I was passed out in no time. Woke up sometime after. It was 6 years before I got back into a sleeping bag. At that time I knew nothing of sleep paralysis. So I blamed it on the mummy style bag, or thought maybe it was a dream. It was far to real though. One of the few times in my life that I experienced that level of fear. That feeling sticks to that memory still today.


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[Netherman]

I realized why your finger doesn't go into the trigger guard until your ready to pull the trigger.


Just my 2 cents and worth the price charged.

Probably worth more than the price charged on this one...

 

[KJH]

I've had some scary experiences... been shot twice in the field with a rifle, fell into a icy river and filled my waders, spent 34 months in combat zones as an infantryman, etc. I've noticed that bad situations are usually not that scary until its all over and then it sets in and I get terrified for no reason cause its already over.

BUT the scariest situation I've encountered was 3 summers ago and it wasn't me. We were spending the weekend at our cabin and it was a Saturday morning about 6:45am. My wife had a triathlon coming up in 2 weeks and decided that she should go for a bike ride even though her bike a helmet was at home. So she took my mountain bike and was going for a ride... No big deal. Unusual she would ride my bike, but she was determined to get in an unplanned workout in some amazing wonderful weather.

Kids were still sleeping off a dozen smores from a late night around the fire pit and were inside. I decided it was a great time to hang a small section of new rain gutter that I brought along. So, I'm outside and my phone is inside. The kids are sleeping. Wife is riding her bike out on some remote county roads.

She is coming down a very long steep hill on a old blacktop road. She went to adjust her phone which playing music and started to lose control so she squeezed the front brakes as hard as she could and lock up the front wheel. She went head over handlebars and hit the blacktop. Knocked out cold road and rash everywhere. Tons of blood and a head injury. When she finally regained consciousness, she was totally blind. She vaguely knew where she was but didn't know much more than that. She didn't have her phone any longer because it wasn't in its pouch on her arm because she was adjusting it when she crashed. The screen was completely disintegrated anyway and couldn't have been used if she wanted to.

She isn't sure how long it was but she decided that if she used the hands free mode and said "OK Google, call KJ" it would make a call on speaker/hands free mode. She tried over and over to call me but I was outside on a ladder. Finally one of the kiddos answered my phone and found me outside. I told them that I had my hands busy and I'd call them back so they just hung up the phone like a sleepy kid would do without saying anything to her. They set the phone down by my ladder and went back inside. I still didn't know it was my wife calling.

The phone rang and rang so I finally got down and answered it. I was pissed. What could be so important that you need to call 15 times in 2 minutes? When I finally realized it was her, it was really hard to understand and I finally figured out the problem and raced to get her. 10 minutes later I found her and she was in bad, bad shape. I wasn't worried about her dying, but her being blind scared me in a way that I couldn't explain. I raced her to the hospital which is about a half hour away when you're driving 100+ mph. Right as we started to get to the hospital she started to see a little out of one eye but was throwing up profusely. It was almost like a miracle that she could see anything

After a an hour or so she got most of her vision back. After a week it was all back. She took several months to fully recover but is fine without any permanent problems except scarring. Although it didn't happen to me I was so scared I didn't know what to do. The thought of her being blind and how that would change our life was scary to me.

 

[Violent Hippie]

It was around the year 1989. I was in the parking lot of a General Store getting supplies for a backpacking trip on the A.T. around Standing Indian Mountain area of the Southern Appalachians and witnessed something truly frightening. I first heard the vocalizations " Ber. Der. Der. Dert . dert.." in a muffled volume. I asked my buddy if he was hearing this and we both looked around. We noticed a creature sitting in the drivers side of an old rusted Gremlin speaking on a CB radio in some odd dialect. The creature was actually a man with some sort of unfortunate skin condition . He had red clumped up boils / cysts all over ( yes. all over) his face. The man also was very obese appearing and very sweaty. To this day my buddy and I chuckle about this sighting.

 

[Halfslam]

Great thread keep em coming! Being an ol fart I've had a few scary experiences...
In my younger years I was a wildland firefighter and was dispatched to a lighting caused fire with two other crew members and a 500 gallon pumper truck. We found the fire, small in size, and proceeded to line it. Two smoke jumpers showed up as nightfall set in along with more lighting, thunder and torrents of rain that eventually drowned out the fire. We were several miles from pavement and instead of riding in the cramped truck with 4 other wet bodies I decided to jog out to the highway with them soon to follow. It was pitch black with the storm conditions and I took off with a headlamp on my forehead, the beam bouncing directing in front of me down the one track FS road. About a half mile into my jog a mountain lion pounced in front of me no more than 6 to 8 feet in front of me crossing the headlight beam. Scared does not come close! I stopped, back up to a big pine tree shinning my beam all around while yelling at the disappeared cat. The sound of that pumper truck never sounded sweeter. I was scared, wet, muddy and was in need of a new pair of shorts. I can only assume the lion saw me as running table fare and was scared off at the last second from the light beam.

On a DIY Caribou drop hunt in Alaska my buddy and I were on our last night of a 10 day hunt. We had 3 caribou hanging in meat bags, 100 yards from our camp, in the willows next to a small lake. It was the only place around to hang meat and hadn't been a problem up to that point. During the night we both heard our lean-to fly, which was within feet of our tent, rustling and some coffee cups ratting around and brushed it off as the ever persistent wind. I had a Caribou rack close by that i had capped earlier that day. At daylight I unzipped the tent and stuck my head out, looked around, and told my buddy that the sounds we heard during the night was not the wind. A grizzly had packed off the Caribou rack a short distance then left it for the meat at the lake. We had a strobe light with the hanging meat being told that it would discourage bears from bothering the meat. The bear had straddled the light scattering the game bags into the lake eating his fill then packing off a hind quarter. The bear had been within three feet of my head! We ended up packing up camp with one of us standing armed guard. Out of 3 caribou we ended up flying home splitting one bou.

 

[Rthur]

About 20 years ago I took the family "camping" in southern MO.
I gave the obligatory speech about dangerous critters in our new environs.
Made it through several days of fishing and 4 wheeling unscathed.
One afternoon my #2 daughter comes running into camp saying she has done something really stupid.
I figure this amounts to driving the 4 wheeler into the side of our pickup.
After a bit of confusion the story finally comes out.
She had decided that she should catch a snake that her and the other hooligans found.
One of the local kids actually encouraged her. I would've liked to busted this kids ass.
She thinks that the step on grab approach is the way to go.
She didn't account for leaving to much neck out wearing flip flops.
Snake turns and drills her on the foot.
As it turns out it is a copperhead.
Being somewhat in BFE we are looking at an hour drive to the hospital.
Needless to say I made it in considerably less time.
We were lucky as the snake didn't really get a good bite with both fangs.
Never felt so helpless and scared in all my life.

R

 

[Beendare]

I don't like telling the story of how an 80# deer kicked the shit out of me...pretty embarrassing.....but nice to know I'm in good company with Larrys sheep story- grin

When I was young, I used to have a .22 rifle in a rack behind my seat [this is Ca....so you know that was a looooong time ago. I was driving from work on back roads with a buddy and we spot this Small fork horn blacktail bedded up above the road near a big water tank. We have a long A zone deer season...but its not cool to shoot from the road of course. Is 40+ years past the statute of limitations- grin

So we drive past, load the rifle and switch places so now i'm the passenger. We pull out below the buck about 50 yds away and I head shoot him- plop, down he goes. Never even got up from his bed. So we put the rifle away, and walk up the short access rd to the water tank. There he is, dead as a doornail. So i pull out my little 3" lockback knife and walk up to him grabbing his antlers with one hand and quick as a wink the buck comes to life. Surprised doesn't begin to describe my thoughts.

I have to drop the knife and quickly grab his other horn so he doesn't impale me as the little bugger is trying to ram me with those pointy forks of his. I'm wrestling with this buck trying to twist his head far enough to break his neck...all while yelling at my buddy to find the knife in the oak leaves and stab this bugger. My buddy gets a rear kick to the chest and he goes down....out of the fight. i'm ripping up my hands by trying to pin this buck up against a live oak tree. He keeps springing really high in the air...and with his feet off the ground I can twist and slam him down pretty good but this sucker can take a licking and keep on ticking. I literally can't let go or I would get an 8" antler in the gut...or worse.

Finally on one of jumps the deer somehow kicks my hand holding his main beam and it was like getting hit by a hammer- bing, my one hand springs open, the deer lands and twists around the tree -gone. About that time I realized he had kicked me multiple times in other parts of my body- decision goes to the 80# weakling over the 210# ex waterpolo player.

so if you ever wondered why the smarter hunters reach out and touch any eyeball before grabbing them by the antlers....now you know!

 

[Muledeerfanatic]

Ran out of beer half way into an antelope hunt! Very scary

 

[Northernpiker]

Beendare...that was funny, don't mean to laugh at ya

 

[ceng]

Man some truly scary stuff has happened to you guys. My scariest story which is mostly due to stupidity was by far one rainy night in Montana. I was hunting with my friend who had hunted there for like 30 years. We set up camp in a grove of lodgepoles which he preferred to camp in because of privacy etc. As we were setting up camp I was looking around at all the bug kill, I said that this probably wasn't a good Idea, but he said it should be fine. Well it was fine until it started raining one night. Apparently bug kill trees rot at ground level and as soon as they start getting wet they weaken extremely fast. I laid there on my cot in a tent hearing trees falling down around us all night. I probably heard about 50 trees in all. I knew there were several in range of the tent. It was terrifying. I thought I should have spoken up this was just stupid. Come to think of it I should have gotten in the truck and moved it out into the open and spent the night in it. I think there have been other spooky things, grouse, walking out at night alone when I was younger etc, but I think this night was probably the most perilous night as far as danger goes.

Lesson Learned and I lived through it. I told my friend if we camp there again I'm gonna spend the first hour to two falling trees before we set up camp.

 

[S.Clancy]

Two instances:

1) Running out of food in the high country with over 14 inches of snow on the ground and 2 mature bull elk on the ground. We made it out with all the elk meat (left some antlers) but this fundamentally changed the way I prepare and execute nutrition for the backcountry.

2) Working in the Absaroka/Beartooth Wilderness in MT and hiding from a lightning storm in a cave. The rocks were buzzing and my hair was starting to stand. Only time I thought I or one of my crew may not make it out.

 

[WhiteOak]

Not as hairy as a lot of other on here... glad y'all made it.

Let me preface this by saying that NJ does not have any sustainable wild pheasants, they do however have a pheasant season in which NJF&W stock a select few WMA's. They even put out which locations are being stocked on specific dates with the amount of birds. This leads to a complete shit show in the woods. I never hunted pheasants in my home state due to the horror stories or dogs or people being shot, shot right over, and even fist fights over downded birds. Anyway pheasant season opens up at 830 am...

My fault for not staying on top of the calendar... one Saturday as most Saturdays from mid September till January I head towards my treestand with my bow. When I parked at the wma, one of the few that gets stocked, it was empty as usual during bow season. Climb into my stand with a hr of darkness left. Let the woods settle down and then wait for my chance. My stand was in a patch of woods in between clear cut for power lines and a old closed down dirt rd. Both spots these pheasant like to hang out. At just about 830 on the dot I hear shot ringing out in all directions close enough to feel the percussion of the shots. I was literally surrounded. Pellets raining Down and constant blasts it was futile to yell hey I'm in the tree ****ers! It took about 10 mins of hoping I don't get shot to climb down and take off back for the truck. I played very close attention to stocking dates after that and even so after pheasant season started I would only hunt evenings.

Glad I left that state

 

[wymtnpounder]

Two instances:

1) Running out of food in the high country with over 14 inches of snow on the ground and 2 mature bull elk on the ground.

Huh?

 

[jlaner0408]

Two instances:

1) Running out of food in the high country with over 14 inches of snow on the ground and 2 mature bull elk on the ground.

Huh?

Haha was thinking the same as I read that...

 

[ndbuck09]

in Sept 2016, I was out elk hunting solo and went to the top of a ridge for the middle of the day and was napping with my head on my pack. All of the sudden I am hearing foot steps coming closer and closer at a good speed (I'm talking in seconds here). As I began to hear them, I thought, of course I'm laying here flat on my back and an elk is going to come within yards of me and i can't do anything to get it..So I move my head over to realize its no elk! It was a mountain lion in full crouch stalking mode!! I immediately jumped to my feet and yelled and raised my arms. The lion was at a run and locked up its front legs startled and dove off the ridge. But right as it was digging in its front paws to turn, we locked eyes for a very brief moment! I went over and took pics of the depressions of its paws when it pivoted and it was 9 yards from where I was laying.

If it had been not been a dry day to where I heard the footfalls, I don't know what would have happened. I estimate I heard it and jumped up within 1-2 seconds and it had gotten to 9 yards in that time before I jumped up.

I think it thought I was some weird deer laying there and it was going to pounce. The wind was a cross wind from the direction of the lions approach.