What’s the gnarliest situation you’ve been in while hunting?

I am a newer hunter and took my first deer in 2017. On that November day in 2017, we were 2 miles away from the car, away from roads or other hunters. During the early morning hunt, first it rained and it followed with some freezing rain; I was soaked and cold in 25 degree weather. After managing to get back to the car and dry/warm up, I went back in for the evening hunt. I was lucky to harvest my first deer below; despite some back luck initially, I was hooked with hunting after that (even though it takes about 5-6 hours to move the meat from the hunting spot to the car through bluff country).


first_deer.jpg
 
My gnarliest situation was technically on the way to a hunting trip. I was following someone on the freeway on a narrow two-lane overpass spot when they slammed on the brakes and whipped their car nearly into the cement barrier. The next thing I see are headlights coming at me. It happened so fast, I'm not sure if I braked or whipped the wheel like the car in front of me. We hit passenger sides and my car literally crumbles. I was wearing a seat belt but there was no air bag in my car. I walked away from the accident with just a couple chipped teeth, nicks and bruises. I did about 8 weeks of PT and OT from the affects of the accident, but everyone told me you'll feel it later in life, which I've been able to stave off for now. The guilty party was drunk and walked away with a slap on the wrist.

IMG_0619.JPG
 
Beendare said:
i used to run dogs for hogs...all of the guys that did that have a bunch of hairy stories as those bayed up hogs just seem to know that YOU are a bigger threat than the dogs and they almost always charge. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been charged by hogs, 30+ anyway.

We had one long memorable chase up near Healdsburg California in that thick steep redwood and fern country. It was pouring rain and the rivers were raging. We chased that hog over Hill and dale for miles. The dogs could not stop him. He was about 240 pounds, 3” exposed cutters and with both ears chewed off so that boar had experience with hog dogs many times before and escaped.

I got glimpses of the chase, one of my pit bulls Montana was latched on to him as he jumped into a river and drowned my dog. ( We later found him dead about 300 yards down stream)

The exhausted dogs finally stopped him in a super thick cut
with my buddies somewhere behind me. I come around a 5’ diameter redwood and there he is 10’ away with the dogs all backed off. He charges and right before he hits me my dog Tass comes out of nowhere at full speed and SMACK! Latching on to his snout.
( I loved that dog!)

All of the other dogs pile on and there’s a horrible twisting fight that drops off a little ledge. I pull out my pig sticker, an old buck general, and as the pig does a 360 with his hind end towards me I jumped down to the next level to grab his back leg and then stick him. Unfortunately I burried to the waist in rotten logs face to rear of the hog- not good.

I pushed the hog as hard as I could with both hands and lucky for me they went over the next flat in the creek bottom. After extricating myself- ( screw the knife!) I pulled out my 357, jumped on that hog and similtaneously shot him between the shoulder blades dropping him instantly.

I’ve killed hundreds of hogs both with dogs and my bow but that one I will never forget. When I rolled that hog on his back, his shield was about 1 1/2 inches thick, like a turtle shell under his skin over 2/3 of his body. We rolled him on his side and I stabbed at him as hard as I could with my razor sharp skinning knife and it went in about 1 inch and stopped dead. That hog was an armored warrior.
Click to expand...

Until you’ve felt them it’s hard to believe how sharp their lower teeth our.


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Beendare said:
Hog head, So true. The hog dog guys could fill up this thread don’t you think? Grin

I wish I had more photos from those hunts but the old instamatics didnt do a good job of capturing the action, whole rolls of blurry pictures. Heres Tass with me in the cutting edge camo at the time.
View attachment 292997
Another; clockwise from the black dog: Porky, whitey, Tass and Speck- all studs.

View attachment 292998
Click to expand...
Love me some catahoulas

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A few years ago... maybe longer. I was in my early 20's and got the bright idea of doing the Washington high buck hunt in the Glacier Peaks wilderness and was going to cut some miles out by going up Lake Chelan and climbing up to the ridges from the lake. By this time in my hunting career, I had done the Sept. high buck hunt several times, but was wanting to get away from the crowds, even though this was the early 90s and the crowds are nothing compared to now. This lake is 55 miles long and in the middle of Washington in some fairly tough terrain, surrounded by wilderness area and National Forest. It is a beautiful and scenic part of the state with incredible terrain which actually rivals anything in the country (not so much the hunting). The boat launch is 25 miles up the lake, hence it's name, 25 mile Crk. Everything above is wilderness area to the end of the lake. To shorten up a long story, my access to a vessel was a 12' aluminum boat (which leaked) and a 9.9 Merc. I loaded up my pack with a week of supplies and my rifle and headed out.

A few things I didn't take into account... in the afternoon the thermals blow from North to South.... really hard. Creates waves like the coast of Australia, during the worlds surfing competition. After about 10 miles the waves rivaled November in the Bearing Sea.... 100% sure I was going to be in the local newspaper "Idiot Hunter Dies During Average Day On Lake Chelan". The good news was that there wasn't a place to beach the boat for miles, cliffs the entire way. It seriously reminded me of the Columbia River Bar on a bad day... seriously rough water and all I could do was keep the boat steered into the constant whitecaps while I bailed water before sinking. I had 2 life jackets, one on me and one on my pack and rifle. After forever I came across a small cove with one of the few campsites on the lake with an older gentleman and his wife waving their arms and calling me in. They were in a 25' Bayliner and were hiding from the rough water, his exact words were "WTF are you doing out there," and "are you F*****g crazy?" I decide it would be a pretty good idea to maybe camp there for the night with my new friends.

This was the high point of the trip, sitting around the campfire that night talking to a couple who were in their 60s who lived through the glory days of mule deer hunting in Washington and I listened to the stories of true trophy mule deer hunting of years past. That was truly a highlight... In the morning during the calm water I set sail. I eventually made it to my intended location, don't really the remember the specifics, didn't get my buck on this trip and it was a great solo adventure, There are a lot of specifics that don't really matter but I still remember talking to the old timer.
 
BazookaJoe said:
When I was about 12yo, I was out on a dove hunt with my father, brother, and uncle. We would camp in the same area, every weekend, every season. So, we were familiar with the area and picked camp sites that didn't bother the local's, while keeping us close enough to town for supplies.

One morning, we decided to drag our feet to get ready for the morning hunt. While eating breakfast, my father was outside the trailer, glassing over the nearby river (scouting ahead for duck season honey holes). He just happened to catch a glint out of the corner of his eye and realized there was a vehicle about 1/4 mile from our campsite. It was uncommon to have anyone come out towards us, since we camped outside of town. When he turned his binoculars toward the vehicle, he saw a man standing with his door open and a rifle wedged between the door and pillar...pointing it at him/us. Needless to say, my father yelled to us, ran to the truck, and grabbed his .45 . My uncle grabbed his Judge and sat by the door, while my father raced his truck toward the vehicle.

As he closed the distance, he saw the man jump in his truck and tear off. Unfortunately, he didn't catch up to the guy, but he got close enough to get a license plate number and reported everything to the local sheriff. About an hour later, the sheriff came out and said he tracked the guy down, but couldn't do anything. Apparently, the guy told the sheriff he was "using the scope to see who was camped" and that he "didn't know anyone was at the campsite."

We never saw that guy or his truck again and continued to hunt that area for years. We did, however, end up buying a house in the nearby town to have a safer place to stay during our hunts.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of idiots use their rifle scope as binos to check out other hunters in the area. First thing I thought of as I was reading your story.
 
here in California it is a 2 fold problem. One the cats are over populated and 2 they have moved down into the populated areas do to lack of game and become use to us.
they are no longer afraid on us or our guns.
seems they know that it is illegal for us to shot them, they are use to the warning shots and will stay postured to attack which leaves you with only one way to go if they push the attack. This is what happens when Bleeding heats idiots that know nothing about wildlife management pass policy's.
Up in D14 these cats have become brazen, we have had one stock one of the wives in a camp full of hunters.
 
actionshooter said:
A few years ago... maybe longer. I was in my early 20's and got the bright idea of doing the Washington high buck hunt in the Glacier Peaks wilderness and was going to cut some miles out by going up Lake Chelan and climbing up to the ridges from the lake. By this time in my hunting career, I had done the Sept. high buck hunt several times, but was wanting to get away from the crowds, even though this was the early 90s and the crowds are nothing compared to now. This lake is 55 miles long and in the middle of Washington in some fairly tough terrain, surrounded by wilderness area and National Forest. It is a beautiful and scenic part of the state with incredible terrain which actually rivals anything in the country (not so much the hunting). The boat launch is 25 miles up the lake, hence it's name, 25 mile Crk. Everything above is wilderness area to the end of the lake. To shorten up a long story, my access to a vessel was a 12' aluminum boat (which leaked) and a 9.9 Merc. I loaded up my pack with a week of supplies and my rifle and headed out.

A few things I didn't take into account... in the afternoon the thermals blow from North to South.... really hard. Creates waves like the coast of Australia, during the worlds surfing competition. After about 10 miles the waves rivaled November in the Bearing Sea.... 100% sure I was going to be in the local newspaper "Idiot Hunter Dies During Average Day On Lake Chelan". The good news was that there wasn't a place to beach the boat for miles, cliffs the entire way. It seriously reminded me of the Columbia River Bar on a bad day... seriously rough water and all I could do was keep the boat steered into the constant whitecaps while I bailed water before sinking. I had 2 life jackets, one on me and one on my pack and rifle. After forever I came across a small cove with one of the few campsites on the lake with an older gentleman and his wife waving their arms and calling me in. They were in a 25' Bayliner and were hiding from the rough water, his exact words were "WTF are you doing out there," and "are you F*****g crazy?" I decide it would be a pretty good idea to maybe camp there for the night with my new friends.

This was the high point of the trip, sitting around the campfire that night talking to a couple who were in their 60s who lived through the glory days of mule deer hunting in Washington and I listened to the stories of true trophy mule deer hunting of years past. That was truly a highlight... In the morning during the calm water I set sail. I eventually made it to my intended location, don't really the remember the specifics, didn't get my buck on this trip and it was a great solo adventure, There are a lot of specifics that don't really matter but I still remember talking to the old timer.
Click to expand...
That is a great story! I'm in that "old timer" category now and often wonder, "what the heck are those guys doing?!!" which was honestly the same stuff I did before I knew what I didn't know!
 
def90 said:
Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of idiots use their rifle scope as binos to check out other hunters in the area. First thing I thought of as I was reading your story.
Click to expand...
Its definitely a careless means of scouting. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in that area that use "meth logic," but I can only speculate what that guy's logic (or lack thereof) was...
 
Hunting Washington state a few years ago I was sitting for a evening hunt when the wind started blowing hard all at once
I sat there listening to all the trees moving around when I hear what for me is a unmistakable sound of a tornado and being from Alabama I know what that sounds like
I take off running down the mountain and can hear trees cracking and falling behind me
I hit the trail I came up on and trees are falling around me and I’m hauling ass as fast as I possibly can when I see the cabin and I start to take the right fork to come right in behind the cabin....a huge tree falls maybe 30’ in front of me so I detoured to the left trail and a tree falls paralleling the trail right beside me
I get to the yard of the cabin that is surrounded by a 5 strand barbwire fence
I still don’t know if I went through or over it
About 10 years ago I had to learn how to walk again and hadn’t moved fast for a long time until the storm incident
Amazing what adrenaline will do for a broken body.....I hurt for days afterwards
BTW it was straight line winds
 
A friend, his wife and I had flown into an area they had hunted the year before for dall sheep, they had killed a nice ram and saw plenty more so wanted to go back. We flew into a very remote lake and had t hike 5 hours to get to the area where we were to hunt, a remote dried up river in between some mountains. 3rd day of the hunt my buddy kills a ram and brings into camp, washes his pack out in the creek and after fleshing the cape stashes it in the rocks away from camp. The next day is uneventful and overcast so we meet back at camp around noon for lunch and to make plans for the afternoon. We got a fire going and his wife heats up some water for a Mtn House (lasagna), we're shooting the bull about this and that when I heard what I thought was a raven flying overhead.

It wasn't maybe 5 seconds after that my buddies wife starts freaking out and screams bears and as I turn to see what she's talking about, a sow grizz has her head stuck down inside my buddies pack, which is about 10 feet from me and she has 2 cubs with her. We had no guns out as it was drizzling rain and they were stashed inside our tents so we slowly started backing out towards the riverbed, the sow finally poked her head out of the pack and saw us backing up so she followed us until we got off the bank and into the riverbed. She then turns around and wanders back into our camp so we beat feet away from camp to about 300-400 yards and my buddy and I stop while his wife runs downriver to another camp to get help.

To make a long story short, after about 15 minutes the bears finally leave camp and get far enough away that we make a break back to camp and get our rifles. The bears would not leave the area and the sow kept a watchful eye on us. She finally growls at the cubs and they take off out of sight and she decides we need to get out of the area but we have our rifles ready and draw an imaginary line in the sand and we decide if she crosses it it's game on. Well she did and it was over in about 5-20 seconds, we put a total of 9 rounds downrange and hit her with 8 of them, one of my rounds creased her nose and traveled through her skull and came out the back of her head. She was 5 feet from us by the time we put her down. When we got back to town we turned in the hide and filed our reports and it was deemed a legal DLP kill.

Funny side story, later that night after we retired to our tents I hear my buddy get up and he's running around the drainage chasing a lame wolf in his underwear trying to get a shot off, which he didn't but we did get a chuckle out of it.

Edited: As an aside, my buddy had caped his sheep and never noticed that one of the bears had eaten the nose off the cape, basically ruining it. I thought it was a bit funny that he never noticed it while fleshing the hide.
 
Last edited:
HorseCreek said:
Last season in Idaho I went out for a quick evening hunt a couple miles behind the house. I sat down and waited out a snow storm. As the storm let up I felt something to my right. I looked over and less than 5 yards was a young female cougar. She was crawling thru the grass towards me. When our eyes met she bared her teeth and started a low growl. I jumped up, (left my bear spray and pistol at the house)
I started yelling at her all while trying to load a round in the chamber. She lunges at me and I knocked her back with the barrel of my rifle. She then circled me growling the whole time. She made it back to her original spot and went to her belly again and lunged again. I hit her with my barrel a second time. She started to circle again. That’s when I finally got a round loaded. I’d had enough..input the cross hairs on her and let her have it.
she rolled down the hill and died a few feet from me. I collapsed where I stood and just sat there for about 30 minutes until I could get my emotions under control. I skinned her out and tagged her with my deer tag. I had her checked by IDFG and told them the story. She was a healthy young cat so no one really had a good reason as to why she acted so aggressive. I usually take one of my young kids with me to this spot. I didn’t that night and I’m super glad I didn’t.View attachment 162036View attachment 162037View attachment 162040P
Click to expand...
No one is taking up the ante on that.

Mine was in MT. I was out hunting deer and was running a miss through my head on the hike home and wasn’t paying enough attention until I had my boot 12 inches from a rattlesnake. It hadn’t given me any indication prior to that. Was thankful it let me back off slowly.
 
To all the story tellers in this thread:

4b2a758670f022d63d804b9a65d45ea3.jpg
 
Hey Everyone, I’m new to the forum.
Between the Kimber 84M info and this great thread, I had to join.

I thought I would share this one.
My buddy and I were archery elk hunting in our honey hole just below timberline.
We’re walking out to the truck late evening as we hit a creek with potholes of water and plenty of track.
I decide to make a crazy high pitched estrus call.
I am immediately answered with the most bizarre call I have ever heard.
It is still hard for me to describe or imitate the sound, but I immediately think…that’s a musical monkey sound!
It was so loud and clear, no man but Sinatra could have pulled that off.
I got right back on my call because I was curios ( and probably stupid as we lost light ).
It again called me back with the same beautiful melody and it’s now about at 100 yards.
All of a sudden, someone touches me on my back. I jumped!
My partner whispers in my ear, let’s get the F out of here!
We walked the rest of the way to the truck silent. We threw our gear in , looked at each other as said “WTF was that!”
We’ve hunted that area together nearly 30 years. We know that elk make all kinds of weird noises.
Still don’t think it was an elk!
 
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