What the closest face-to-face encounters you've had with animals while hunting?

[eddielasvegas]

Good stories in this thread.


Eddie

 

[MulemanMT]

I had a grizzly bear snap his jaws and not leave while bow hunting elk in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. He was about 40 yards away.

 

[Panhandler80]

walked into a horse one time. Literally. About crapped my pants. Actually…..

 

[ccthomasjr]

Charged by hippo in Tanzania. Hit it in the right eye from 20yds, went up on back to legs with jaws wide open and came down full charge again.

The bottom metal of my .375 came open from the recoil somehow and my bullets lay scattered on the ground. PH saw my problem and opened up point blank (maybe 4ft from the tip of his 500 nitro) with both barrels in the side of the head. All it did was knock it off course from the percussion as it blew by him barreling down on me. The force of his shots turned its head and body just enough for to blow by me at 2ft jaws wide open trying to split me in half.

Even wilder part is it took 4 more shots and over a mile of tracking to finally bring him down, despite having 3 in the head.

My first shot missed his brain by maybe 1”. I had a scope on my gun but didn’t use it, it charged so fast and was so close I just pulled up and reaction shot.

I’ve had close encounters but that one was 2ft from ending in my death.

Even crazier part was when I got back home to Texas. Had a full on scene out of Ol Yeller. Survived Africa and came home to ranch in south Texas and my cousin shot a 227lb boar. Crawled into the brush and thought he’d killed it. Went to check the feeder later that day and that SOB burst out of the brush at us and we had a full on war. Lasted 30min. I jumped out of the path, landing on my back, flipped over to see the boar being held by the ears wihh th my cousin on his ass chomping at him with his tusk missing dick by about .5” (literally was biting his pants but not him.

Jumped up and kicked it as hard as I could to knock it off him. No weapon and it lunged at me. Same scenario played out…and again and again. For 30min. We literally beat it to death with rocks bashing its head in (not a soft head). Every time we would release it hoping it would scamper off it would full charge again. Never gone cave man beating a rabid animal to death before but wow. We eventually killed that boar with rocks and sat down both absolutely exhausted unable to lift our arms and covered in blood like a scene out of Band of Brothers.

Escaped Africa from the charging Hippo, a charging Cape Buffalo that almost killed my wife, to almost be killed by a ******* wounded boar on my own ranch.

Been hit by a rattlesnake bending down to pick up a quail and several close mock bear charges but that month God was trying to tell me something.

 

[6mm Remington]

Black bear about 8 feet off the end of my muzzle! I shot at this bear at about 250 yards. I missed but was not sure if I had hit her or not. I shot she took a couple steps and just disappeard on a steep clearcut hillside here in Montana. I was shooting my Ruger 1B in 30-06. My hunting partner had left his rifle in the pickup as we had just walked out on this clearcut to just kind of scope it out while we were waiting for evening to come. He ran back to my Jeep and grabbed his rifle and came back. I sat there waiting form him to arrive before we went to investigate. Walked up a two track on the clearcut. He set up on the hillside looking down to where the bear had been standing when I shot. He was about 20 yards away. I went down below the road and walked towards what I thought might be the bears den. It was November and getting cold. As I approached to about 10 feet from the den hole in the side of the mountain, I could just make out a side profile on the bear as it was facing out. I was watching and the bear was alive as she blinked. Holy crap.
I had to drop down below the den and cross the 50 degree slope (roughly) below it and come in from the other side as the hole came into the mountain at an angle. I had one round in the chamber and one round in my left hand as I approached from below and to the side. When I was about 8-10 feet away I could see the bear looking out. I hollered for my partner to be ready as I was going to shoot. At this time I still did not know if I had hit the bear or not. Turns out I did not, but I was faced with the possibility of facing this possibly wounded or completely healthy bear at spitting distance. I pulled up my rifle and looked down the barrel to aim as I was too close to use the scope. I squeezed off the shot and spun on my hills and tried to put some space between me and the bear while I was loading the round I had held in my hand into the chamber. I got about 20 feet or so away and turned back to face the den and could see the bears head was down. I hit her just above her right eye killing her instantly. My adrenaline dumped big time and I was pretty pumped up. I don't know which was worse, going in after a wounded bear, or one that was completely healthy and full of fight. My partner was worse off than me, and he hadn't even been the one on the possible receiving end of pissed off bear.

One thing that was surprising to me is that the bear never snapped her teeth or growled at me the whole time. She ended up being 5' nose to tail, was very fat, and weighed about 200 pounds. The picture is back at camp as we had no means to take pictures where this adventure took place.

 

[dr.mooseknuckles]

I was 21-22 yrs old, spearfishing off the coast of Mexico Beach, Florida. Not free-diving but SCUBA. 80 feet of water with 30 foot visibility. I shot a big sheepshead just between eye and top of head and it wiggled off and swam away. My dad saw it happen and I motioned to him that I was going after it. He gave the Ok and sat against some debris waiting to ambush a gag grouper that was playing hide-n-seek.

Hit the fish again in the same spot the 2nd time. Swam toward a different bit of the wreck separate from the main barge. Hit the fish a 3rd time in the same spot and said to hell with it. The problem was I couldn't see my dad due to visibility. Knew that I had passed another smallish section of the wreck in my path after the fish and picked an angle off the current outcropping and swam that way.

As I got closer to what I though was the initially passed outcropping, I saw "it" begin to move as I got closer. And then it swam off. It was the biggest goliath grouper I've ever seen and looked like a VW Bug. Scared the shit out of me and I was getting low on air.

Went back the way I came, tried a different angle off the wreck, and found my dad. He was pointing at his air gauge, as he was also low on air, and clearly pissed off at me.

Shot a big trigger fish on the way to our anchor and subsequent decompression stop, with juuusssssst enough air to decompress.

One of the biggest ass-chewings I received by my father. The next dive after lunch I was put in timeout for an hour. KO'd a big gag grouper once I got out of time out, and my Dad was annoyed.

 

[elkbowhuntr]

Called in a Grizzly to 8 yards while bowhunting elk, felt a little vulnerable at that moment. LOL.