Strangest/Coolest Sightings You Have Had While Outdooors

[larryschwartz]

The pic of Aron pre-weigth loss

Robby,

It's on page three of the manscaping thread.

 

[desertstalker]

I took my 7 and 10 year old daughters on their first hunting trip this past fall. They have both been scouting and shed hunting numerous times but this was their first actual hunting trip. As we hiked in the dark up a small knob to glass, they were both scared and clinging to my legs. I got down on my knees and asked them what they were scared of. "Cougars and Rattlesnakes" my 7 year old said as she started to wimper. I gave them big hugs and promised, "We WILL NOT SEE A COUGAR!"

Shortly after sunrise we found the group of 3 bucks that we were after and bedded them in a pocket of sage. I was going to be the spotter with the girls while one of my partners would make the stalk. As we planned the stalk, we spotted a cougar walking in the open in the general vicinity of the bucks. The cat disappeared into it's own patch of sage and didn't come out. You can imagine the looks I received from my girls! Of course we all had cat tags but with nothing but our archery equipment, we weren't going to go after the cat. We decided that the bucks were far enough from the cat that we could go ahead with the stalk and probably never see the cat again?
My partner makes a great stalk and gets a quartering away shot at 35 yards and buries the arrow. The bucks scatter but all retreat to the same patch of sage 200 yards south. We continue to watch through our scopes while Doug determines that his shot was a little far back and we should give the buck some time. At that point, we spot the cat walking across a wide open flat and realize that we are about to witness a once in a lifetime event. Sure enough, the bucks explode out of the brush, 2 go to the south and the 3rd comes out to the north with the cat on his back! We witness the entire battle until the buck and cat go down in a patch of sage.
Over an hour later, my partners go to retrieve the buck while my daughters and I hang back. They jump the cat off the buck and we end up joining them. After discussing the whole thing, looking at the buck and shaking our heads, we realize something interesting. The cat had gone into a group of three deer, one of which had an arrow buried in it, and had taken down the healthy one! During the entire event, we all assumed the cat took down the wounded buck.
A very odd experience that none of us were prepared for. We never watched the other bucks through the chaos. That experience with my daughters is one that we will all remember forever. Surprisingly, they are excited to go again and are less scared than before because they witnessed the cat being "More afraid of us than we are of them" In my 10 year old's words, "THAT MUST BE ONE SCARED COUGAR !!!"

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[desertstalker]

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[Matt Cashell]

Great story desertstalker. Must have been something to see.

 

[BuckSnort]

Very cool story desertstalker, makes it even better that you're girls were with you to witness it as well...

 

[J-Daddy]

My son saw bigfoot. He's five though.

My 6 year old daughter saw Bigfoot here in Iowa a couple weeks ago when we were shed hunting...She walked up in a small patch of cedars and came blowing back out of there..Told me she saw his feet then his hand reach around the tree towards her. That little patch of cedars is full of cottontails so I knew she had bounced one up in there...We went back in there and sure enough, bounced a bunny rabbit out. I said "there's your big foot, a bunny rabbit", her response "Huh, he looked a lot bigger the first time!"

 

[Yukondog]

Something I found weird and will never forget..... last year scouting in thick timber somewhere north of 10k ft we jumped a bunch of mallards of a small pond. Being that I love to hunt waterfowl I thought it was super strange to see ducks in such a place. The last thing I would ever expect on the side of a mountain in dense timber. I will never forget that.

 

[justin davis]

"Five grown mountain lions in one group. They were walking down a ridge and my hunting partner and I watched them bed down in some cliffs. Pretty cool seeing this many grown lions together. My hunting partner did some research on it and it was determined that what we witnessed was a very rare sighting."

David,
You probably saw a mom with 4 cubs (full grown). My buddy who is a houndsmen filmed a mother with four kittens on a kill a couple years ago. I also saw (tracks) of 5 lions together. Cubs will stay with their mothers for awhile.


1.) Wolverine at timberline in Colorado. (Wolverines are supposed to be extinct from Colorado)
2.) Baby grebe out in the woods on a turkey hunt
3.) Coming out of the hills on a scouting trip. Saw a guy dressed in furs leading a donkey with a deer (not hunting season yet) draped over the donkey.

My buddy saw a Oryx in Southern Colorado. (Must have escaped from a texan ranch or came from New Mexico


1.) Wo

 

[Hoyts n Mulies]

There was a trail camera picture that circulated around some washington sites that had like 8 cats in it. It even made it in the local papers.

Here is a link.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2011/02/rare-real-8-mountain-lions-one-trail-cam-photo

 

[MattEastman]

Bobby(desertstalker). Such an awesome story, one you and your girls will never forget

 

[Jbirdhunter]

I saw a orange house cat two years ago. I first though it was a fox and threw up the glass and had to do a triple take and said out loud. "thats a F ing house cat"

 

[alecvg]

I saw a wolverine last year in the North Cascades, that was pretty awesome. I have seen a coyote chasing around a doe and its fawn, and the doe stopped and started chasing the coyote. I missed a bear a couple years ago, and as I dropped down to where I shot it (a high country basin) I jumped a big flock of Teal out of a tiny puddle, scared the crap outta me, kinda suprised me, makes me want to try high country duck hunting!

 

[cnelk]

Saw this during archery elk season...

 

[RosinBag]

cnelk, you filming squirrel porn???

 

[cnelk]

cnelk, you filming squirrel porn???

DISCLAIMER:
All participants are over 18

 

[dot 1]

speaking of cats, i was sitting in my stand last nov. for hours with no deer coming by,(i hate tree sitting) so i decided to go for a walk and saw something that looked like a yote coming twards me so i ducked by a tree and got my recurve ready to shoot it and a baby mtn lion jumped up on a log instead,it was playing with snow then mom appeared and they walked to within 15 feet of me then disappeared right in front of my eyes. fun walk out of there at dark. then i watched a mom training 3 little ones to sneek up on 6 mulie does on a steep hillside, they got within 10 feet and the deer never knew a thing, but the cats just hung out, never attacked. i love the woods.

 

[Ross]

Through my 30+ years there are 3 items that stand out that I was not expecting. 2 of them I have photos and 1 just words.

1. After filling my tag in 04 I was out with my buddy looking for his bull and heard ravens. I told him I bet there is a dead bull somebody lost over there. I proceeded to head over and did find a bull. First I chased a bear up a tree and then the stench hit me. I found a bull that had been on the ground for about 2 weeks from late September with a tree pinned over his neck. I envision he was cutting a cow in this north slope, went under this supported tree,it released and it pinned him to the ground. It was a gruesome find and shows] that mother nature is not kind.

2. Back in the mid 80's my budddy and I headed down a favored ridge one morning to do some bugling. I saw something taped to a tree and low and behold here was a polaroid photo of someones lady in her glory. It had a note on it, such as Hi Dave Good Luck on your hunt Sandy. We looked at each other, but first the photo and deliberated for more than few moments on what to do with the find. We decided against taking it and left it for whomever it was meant for. No evidence of this just a good story between friend years later

3. Was an up close and personal visit with a bobcat while shed hunting. I came around a tree and saw this bobcat stretched out no more than 10 yds from me in the wide open. I looked at my pistol but decided against it, put my pack down, grabbed my camera, took photos, put my camera back in my pack and this bobcat never moved an inch the entire time of about 4 minutes. Still one of my coolest photos.

 

[hodgeman]

My weirdest experience was my sheep partner and I getting charged by a wolverine in the DCUA....30 seconds of hissing and growling eyeball to eyeball at 20' and I swear I could see that critter considering if he could take us or not.

Wish I had it on camera but I wasn't putting down the rifle to dig it out!

 

[philw]

Two years ago I was bowhunting elk at about 10,500, standing at the edge of a small meadow. A grouse flushed about 20 yards in front of me, and I was just thinking "what the heck spooked him?" when a hawk dive-bombed down into the meadow and just barely missed the grouse, yards in front of me.

A few years before that I was hunting in the same spot right about daybreak, and found a mulie fawn curled up dead in its bed. It looked like it died in its sleep, and wasn't cold yet. There was a game trail, and I kept walking a few yards down the trail and sat on a stump to listen. After a couple minutes, I heard bleating, and saw a doe walking toward me on the trail. She kept getting closer and I realized she was looking for and calling to her fawn, curled up a few yards behind me. She kept coming, and kept bleating, and didn't spook until she was about five feet in front of me, I really felt sorry for the old girl.

 

[billy molls]

This is my kind of thread!!!! In my opinion, what we see and experience in nature is far more exciting than what do or shoot:

I commented on another wolf thread about a wolf that took down a caribou, and ate a bit out of it's ham, and then left it before the caribou was even dead, but probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen was a brown bear in Alaska fight a sow and kill her two cubs! I got much of it on video, but my tape ran out during the episode, and I only caught the beginning, and tail end of it. You realize quickly in the wilderness that "the strong survive."

A bit of poetic justice here: The boar killed the cubs late in the evening, 2 miles from our glassing knob. The next day we shot the boar as he was finishing off the second cub. I have the entire hunt on my Season 4, The Modern Day Mountain Man DVD, which is coming soon to the store on Rokslide.