Three stories come to mind for me:

When one of my friends was growing up in the Texas Hill Country, he and his dad heard lots of noise and ruckus outside. His dad went out to investigate and high fences were down, regular fences were down, and there were big swaths thru the brush. Of course, his dad ran back inside because whatever caused that wouldn't be stopped with the small caliber rifle he had. Turns out, someone had a hippo and it escaped.

Several years ago some of my friends were hunting in Edwards Country (Texas) and heard some noise along the tree line one night while sitting around the campfire. They shined a light over and saw a zebra. And there were no high fences around. Anyway, they couldn't get a shot and it hauled ass.

Last year, same local again, different ranch, my friends were outside at night cooking some steaks over the grill. They both came running in white as ghosts asking if we "heard that"? We asked them what? They said it was near the cabin. Now mind you, both these have spent their lives outdoors hunting and were familiar with all animals in the area.

I asked them what it was. One of them said it sounded like a gorilla. The other guy said it was bigfoot and kept repeating that. Neither of them would go back outside that night. My other friend and I finished cooking the steaks - with my 45 on me.

Well, after about 50 years of hunting in one form or another there is more than one "stange thing"...but if I have to pull just a few out of the hat..

We were driving to the farm to deer hunt. Around 4 a.m. We're in an IH Scout II. Foggy, still morning and you could barely see. Just two of us. We were going on almost no sleep after late night partying and real bleary eyed. You know, when your eyes are just dead feeling. We make the turn from the blacktop in Miss. unto the lonely deserted gravel back road up into Tenn. Straining to see and thinking only of which stand to try and wondering if this'll be the day.

We had no warning or idea where it came from. It was something just not possible. And it happened so fast and was downright supernatural looking.

A white horse. No rider, saddle or bridle. And it was galloping as in running straight at us right down the middle of the road out of the fog.

It wasn't changing direction and no time to brake. We pulled hard right to avoid the collision and off the road, into and over a ditch and thru a hedgerow into a field and into a farm pond. If we weren't awake before, we were now. And I noticed later we had wild flowers all over the truck grill..

Here's another little "strange" one or at least it seemed that at the time -

Turkey hunting along the Miss. River down between the levees. You wouldn't believe the amounts of turkeys and other stuff there. Actually, it was so close to the river, you could hear big diesels pounding away on a towboat as it shoved a string of barges. Anyway, we were just exploring or scouting the place this trip and were trying to figure where to start looking for turkeys. We were discussing the situation while standing in a wooded spot with a view across a huge, long field.

While we're standing there talking we see in the far distance hundreds of yards away a big flock of blackbirds in the sky. As we continue discussing things, the flock is moving in our direction and now they're closer..and we see they are bigger than blackbirds. Crows apparently.

They keep coming. Several hundred of them. And straight for us. As they get even closer, we see they're too big for crows. They have to be vultures or buzzards. They have to be for they are now obviously very large birds. Next thing we know they are coming right over head and now we look at each other and both say "them's turkeys!!"

They now light in the trees over us and all around. One's in a tree next to me. I'm just sucking in a breath of air to say "I don't know about you, but I think I'm going to hunt right here" when I'm interrupted by the roar of my partner's 12 ga..

Two of us were out on the Innoko hunting about a dozen years back. I had shot a bull across a narrow lake, walked around lake, started taking the skin off. Saw another bigger bull on the opposite side of lake, right where we had just come from. So I called this bull entire way around the lake and we shot it 50 yards from the bull we were cutting up. I really think the smell of the first dead moose helped. So we gutted the second one and went back to the first moose. Looked over, and there was a wolverine feeding on the guts of second moose. He kept looking at us and showing his teeth. I should have took a picture or shot him, but didn't. By the time we went to second moose, the wolverine was gone.

Sometime, I'll have to post a pict of my daughter's pet wolverine.

I saw a kudu at a feeder in Texas. I was shocked.

Probably 10 years ago, I saw some of the walking catfish we have in this state. That was strange.

I always thought that that this was the strangest thing encountered:

http://bigfootsightings.org/20...velts-bigfoot-story/

It still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up everytime I read it.

Kudu at a feeder in Texas isn't strange on a high fence ranch! But you were probably referring to a low fence ranch where you saw it. We have a large free range elk herd on our place. SW of where we are, free range gemsbuck, scimitar oryx, and eland are seen sometimes. A few miles down from where we hunt, a guy has a ranch where he raises some real exotics - kangaroos, giraffes, impalas, kudus, sitatungas, tapirs, gazelles, ibex, impalas, and some monster sables (actually a LOT of sables). I think someone said he raises them for zoos. Damn, he has a lot of cool animals that can been seen from both side of the road.

How about a fellow coming home from a party that hits a horse on the road. He needs to be transported to a regional medical care facility and the ambulance hits a moose on the way?

My 2 brothers and I were fishing from shore at a remote lake in northern MN. We had not seen another person or car all day. We look back and see a man walking his dog down the dirt trail towards us. It seemed odd to be walking so far away from any road or cabins. He has the dog on a big motorcycle chain and we start to see that the dog is walking kind of funny. I remember saying to my brothers that dog is really limping he must be injured or something. Just as I said that the "dog" stops looks up at his master and jumps straight up 6 feet into the air and lands on his masters shoulder. We all about fell out of our chairs until the guy gets closer and we see he has a baboon on a chain sitting on his shoulder.

While in Australia doing a combo hunt for hogs, scrub bulls, water buffalo, and culling donkeys, we experienced a fly-over of fruit bats at sunset that went on over a half hour. As far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon a flight of the crow-sized bats were migrating over us. I don't know how many millions of them there were, but even after it got dark we could hear them squeeking and could smell them (strong ammonia smell of their urine?) and see them blotting out stars.

Sorry, not in North America

In February of this year, I went out to the ranch in Pecos county where I do my Guided javelina hunts, on Feb. 2.

My first clients were due in on Feb. 4.

On the 3rd., I had to make a run into Fort Stockton for supplies, and as I was headed toward Interstate 10 from the south on the Farm To Market road, I saw a really big bird fly out on to the highway from the pasture.

It landed in the road, and when I got up to it, I saw that it was a Brown Pelican.

Now I have not checked, but to the best of my knowledge, it is a LONG way from the Gulf of Mexico to Pecos county.

Anyway, I drive past the bird, see what it is, stop, and run the bird off the road, but the bird does appear to be weak.

I go on into Fort Stockton, and about half way back to the ranch on I-10, I go past evidently the same pelican and he had been run over on I-10.

I know that the bird hadf to be starving to death, becuase there is little or no open water in that part of the country that has a population of fish, large enough to support a pelican, especially at that time of the year.

I'll just add a few more quickies because there are many others here with stories too, but -

I once saw an antlerless deer trying repeatedly to mate with another antlerless deer. I was hoping maybe it was some sort of button buck but could see no signs of same thru the scope.

And I once saw a mallard cup its wings, put its legs out and try to land on a river it apparently didn't know was frozen. The result was cartoon material. It hit the ice and slid a long way with feet going in reverse until it hit, pretty hard, a tree trunk and bounced off.

It then staggered around in circles for a few seconds like it was drunk and tried to shake it off. We were laughing too hard to shoot.

Then there was last deer season. There's this high fence place next to us. It has a gate like Jurassic Park or something. Makes you wonder what they have in there. One thing they do have is a monster buck. I think it's 14 pt. We had a trail cam pic of it standing next to the fence. In fact it does that a lot. Several of our hunters have said they noticed it in about the same place looking thru the fence to our side. One said he easily could have shot it thru the fence, but no way to retrieve it (of course not that anybody I know would do that).

It was though that deer wanted out of there and was looking for a way to escape. Little did he know, he was probably better off if anything where he was, as far as that went. He wouldn't last long on our side, for sure.

You know, sometime we'll have to do a "best hunting stories" thread. It'd be something. Only thing is, much of the really good stuff there's no way on the internet.

I like the story about the baboon.

One last story. We had an uberhog on our place a few years ago. One night, my friends are driving thru the ranch and this big brown hog runs in front of them - it was level with the hood of their F-250 - that's a big pig.

Several weeks later, a friend of mine is sitting in a bow blind with two of kids his, just hanging out and watching wildlife. He started before sunrise. It was pitch black. As it started getting light - barely enough to see - he sees some deer at the feeder - again barely able to see. Then he sees a cow walk up. He starts thinking, I didn't know there were cows out here. Then it gets a bit lighter and he realizes it's a pig!!!! A BIG pig. In fact, as he said, "the biggest thing I have ever seen in the wild, ever." Of course, he only had his 10/22 Ruger with him and didn't even want to take a chance and shoot it in the ear or eye. It ran off soon after that.

I thought, damn, I'm going to get that hog. That night I go hang out where my friends saw it a few weeks earlier. I was sitting in a box blind with my son. It was still light. We soon picked up the sound of two Sika fighting about 150 yards away, nothing serious, just playing around. My son could make out the tops of their antlers as they were in a streambed below our elevation. Anyway, we thought about trying to work our way around and see if one of them was a shooter. Then we heard a sound that only could be described as the worlds biggest hog - the sound was so loud and deep that it shook our chests and box blind - like someone was pounding out a rap song a 12 foot subwoofer. I think the pig had run up near the Sika and startled them (and itself). The deer hauled ass. My son, 12 at the time was terrified. We got out of the blind, at which time it was getting very dark, to look for the hog. We heard it pounding the ground a 150-200 yards out (it was below our elevation) but we couldn't see it. Well, we didn't find it. Found some huge tracks.

Never saw or found sign of the hog ever again. Heard some mighty big nasty growls within the last 2 years up on some of the nearby ridges near sunset - again could never find anything. Suspect it might have been the uberhog.

quote:

my daughter's pet wolverine.

Now there's a phrase rarely heard. I'll bet the boys treat her with great respect!

Lighten it up a little, just for you Tumbleweed.

Old Wally the wolverine got mean as heck as it got older, Kinda like a pet coon; only my daughter could handle it and then it would grin & show it's teeth. I'd never keep another one around the house.

I thought of a couple more:

1- I was driving to my deer stand and looked out the window. I saw a rattlesnake. I stopped and got out to whack it. It had a full grown rabbit half way into its mouth. Believe me, it was mad as hell and couldn't do a thing about it.

2-Opening morning of deer season one year, it was raining. I looked back over my left shoulder and saw something weird maybe 240 yards away. I looked through my binos. I was sure it was a coyote but that head, something was wrong. I cranked the scope and popped it. Down it went. I walked up it. Indeed it was a coyote. It had a small hog in its mouth, dead as well.

3- While turkey hunting one day, I noticed some movement. F'ing coyote. I then noticed this coyote had spotted my decoys and was stalking them. I didn't move. It attacked one of the decoys and clearly seemed puzzled. A load of 2 1/2 oz #6"s ended his dilemma.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Zhurh:
Lighten it up a little, just for you Tumbleweed.

Old Wally the wolverine got mean as heck as it got older, Kinda like a pet coon; only my daughter could handle it and then it would grin & show it's teeth. I'd never keep another one around the house.



Fantastic! We've had 2 coyotes, a weasel, a mink, a cross fox and a moose at various times over the past 50 years...all were 'free range pets' so to speak, in that they were not penned up or tied; they just chose to stay because I guess they knew a good deal when they saw one - but having dealt with wolverines on 'hostile' terms, I would never have thought one could be tamed! Was it a female? I've always found them easier to tame than males (human ones being the exception!).

The only one that got cantankerous was the moose when it matured. She started putting the run on visitors and we figured it was only a matter of time until she hurt somebody. It wouldn't go away so when fall rolled around we got a neighbor to 'take' it. We couldn't handle the idea of eating our own moose.

Strangest things encountered in the wild - just to keep the thread on track - in the late '30s my Dad was trapping in the N.W. corner of Alberta and came across what appeared to be a meteorite strike. There were a few tall Spruce trees freshly whacked off at a shallow angle, with a good sized crater at the end of it all. He showed it to me in about 1960; I'd say the crater (which by then had started to grow over) was about 30' or 40' wide and about 8' or 10' deep. I tried to take my own son back there in the late '80s when I heard that meteorites were supposed to be worth a quite a bit of money, but I wasn't able to find it. There had been so much logging and oil activity in there by then that the old pack trails had been wiped out and the country didn't look the same any more.

A moose in south central Nebraska, near Guide Rock. a few miles north of the Republican River. It stayed there for almost a week.

Have shot 2 bobcats while they were busy stalking my turkey decoys..

My weirdest "hunting" experience happened while we were chasing aoudads in west TX.. I peeked over the edge of a cliff and saw 1 shooter ram and 3 smaller guys just a hundred or so yards below us.. I eased over the rim and let the bigger ram have it.. The others lit down the mountain like their asses were on fire. The slope they were running down was more than 45 degrees, steep and loose.. A second or 2 after the shot, it sounded almost like another shot just down where those other sheep went out of our line of sight. We made our way down to my ram and checked him out and then made our way down the steep slope to see what could have made that noise.. We found one of the rams dead as he could get.. He had run headlong smack into the trunk of a big alligator juniper and broke his neck. He was right at the base of the tree and you could see right where he hit the trunk with his forehead. I never woulda believed that had I not seen it with my own two eyes.

I just remembered another spooky story.

I was sitting on the ground in some brush one Spring hunting hogs on the Sabinal river in Texas. I was on the edge of a jeep trail looking onto a bank of the river. There was moderately think brush behind me, but not impassable.

I'm sitting there and I get this funny feeling, like something is watching me. I haven't heard anything. Anyway, I think what could be watching me? I blow it off and think nothing of it. But I keep feeling something watching me. Again, I don't hear anything.

Finally, I hear something breathe behind me. Thinking it's a hog heading to the river, I turn slowly around. Standing behind me, about 6 feet is a demon from hell - or at least that's what my first impression was because I had never seen one of these things before or even knew they existed.

It was a solid black, 4 horned goat with red eyes, just staring at me. I about pooped my pants and thought the devil had come to get me. It stood there for several minutes and then walked slowly off.

Austin, I'm not sure where the Sabinal River is but if the place is anything like the Sulphur River bottoms of southwest Arkansas, then you just might catch a glimpse of this too -

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm764189696/tt0068837.

Locals say the "Faulk Monster" is real...it always sticks to the lonely Boggy Creek...just ask old Smokey Crabtree...

Anyway, I got a creepy feeling once too and the hair stood up on my neck and a chill went up the spine. I looked around and two big long legged coyotes were silently following me. It was at sundown and I was alone and miles from the nearest anybody.

Ghost stories around the campfire anyone?

I was deer hunting in Nev. and there was a hot springs below my look out a jeep pulled up with four nice looking young ladys they stripped down to nothing and started bouncing around and swimming in the spring then they got out and laid on some huge rocks to dry off who says ziess binos don't fog up

I was ocean fishing and we were catching sm yellow fins for bait I bounced one over the rail and right behind it was a 77lb Wahoo mouth opened snapping the SOB got pissed and was trying to bite anything on deck we climbed up on the bridge and watched this SOB flop around for at least 10-15min I had heard of this BUT.

years ago I was in SE. Oregon deer hunting when I came across a older pair of guys spreading out some clear plastic and setting duck decoys on top of the plastic I just knew these two old gents had lost it, 3-4 hours later I came back and they had a 1/2 or more ducks.

About 5 years ago I was on a huge lease West Texas. Me and my friend took the whole week off work and were the only ones in camp. On a Wednesday evening hunt we crested a hill in my truck headed to an elevated box blind only to see a large man with a rifle quickly climb out of my blind and head off into the scrub. We drove up to the blind and climbed up to just see him move off over a hill about 400 yards off. Looked like that famous Bigfoot footage as he looked over his shoulder at us as he walked away! No sign of any vehicle around and its at least 10 miles to the next known deer camp/ranch house. Finished the week off without seeing anything again, but we kept our pistols on us.

I was up to the familys cabin for a litle fishing when a canoe with two very nice looking women came by both naked as jay birds.

out fishin bluegills one day
walking down a well worn trail in the woods next to the lake rite next to the city look ahead and see something run across the trail in front of me .....a couple of naked people bust out running ...
had ta laugh

During berry and mushroom season you can come across some wild and woolly characters commercially picking. I've had a couple of run ins with some of these unsavory folks and was glad that I was properly armed. They get protective of their berry patches. It reminded me of the movie Deliverance.

In the 1970s my best friend and I were hunting in the Cleveland National Forest just north of Highway 74 and between Lake Elsinore and Capistrano in California. We followed a path far off a dirt road just to see where it would take us. After a couple of miles, we came to a sign that read, "CAUTION KEEP OUT GUARD DOGS ON DUTY". We hadn't crossed any fences or entered any gates and we were young, curious, and well armed with a couple of Model 94s we bought for $79 from J.C. Penney. So, of course we kept on. After another mile or so my friend stopped and said, "Listen". We heard the strangest sound coming out of the woods. It was a strange repetitious hollow thud that sounded vaguely familiar but neither of us could place it. There was a huge bolder on the side of the trail and my friend scurried up it to have a look-see. He started laughing hysterically. He was laughing so hard he couldn't speak but he motioned for me to come up. I topped the boulder and what I saw was very funny. About a hundred yards away was a tennis court and two women were playing tennis totally nude. The bouncing ball was making the familiar thud but a closer look with binoculars revealed the ball wasn't the only thing bouncing. From our perch we looked around and we could see an entire town. There were naked people everywhere, men, women, young, and old, engaging in everyday activities. We had accidentally stumbled upon a nudist colony. I looked it up later and found that it was the secretive McConville, later renamed Mystic Oaks.

I don't know about you guys but I am awed by the picture posted by Zhurh. I never saw a wolverine but always read they were absolutely fearsome. (The early French Canadian explorers called them " Diable du bois" - woods devil) Oh, well, I always knew it took courage to live in Alaska.

We were deer hunting on our ranch in the hills overlooking the Pacific ocean. It was opening day so we had a big crowd and were moving from one spot to another to set up another drive. As we crested a knoll with the pickup with about 8 guys in the back all with their rifles, we came upon a couple "au natural" on a sleeping bag enjoying the sun. Grandpa pulled right up on the sleeping bag and proceeded to give them a lecture on private property rights. Should have seen them scrambling for their clothes!

Here is a thread of my strangest 'encounter' in the hunting woods Ghost in the Swamp....second strangest was very interesting to me as well;

Several of us had already come in to camp, when a guest of one of our members came in, visably shaking and crying. This fellow was a 'grunt' in the Marines, which I have been told is the baddest ass of the already badass Marines. He was a stout fellow for sure, around 6'2" and 220 lbs without a spec of fat on him--tough fellow. It took him about 15 minutes to settle down and tell us WTF, but in short, he claimed--SWORE--to have seen a bigfoot. This is in Central Georgia. He proceeded to tell us he would never go in the woods again--the guy was actually still terrified. We all wanted to know why he didn't smoke it with his rifle, but here's the quick version of his response.

'I heard something a couple of times out to my left, a few hundred yards out--not like a deer, but a shuffling sound, not stepping--you know?--I finally looked a little to the left and behind the tree my stand is in, and it was looking at me! It took a couple of steps towards me--it was f***ing huge! It was staring right at me! I flinched a little, and it took a couple more steps toward me, and then it turned, walked of quickly in the direction it was originally headed, and was gone in seconds. Way to fast for a man...it was a damn bigfoot--I;m telling you--at least 8 feet tall!'

He was clearly shaken the whole time he was recapping the story, and deadly serious.

This guy never went hunting aqain, and won't talk about it at all. Kinda spooked everybody at camp I'll tell ya. We speculated that it was a person trespassing wearing a Ghilly suit, but this guy knew exactly what a Ghilly suit is, and said 'hell no, that isn't what this was!'

The one thing that is certain, there was no vehicle anywhere near this stand location, except the hunters', and to walk to this spot is at least 3 hours walk from the nearest road without coming through one of our gates and driving the property dirt roads--no gates were opened all that day or night before, and there were no trails on the roads, which were slightly damp, and were showing tracks clearly.... our man had seen whatever it was just 30 minutes after daylight....

I shot a doe years ago that was being chased by a young buck she fell were she was shot and he wouldn't leave here for quite some time.

Also finding an old abandoned meath lab.

quote:

Originally posted by Fish30114:
Here is a thread of my strangest 'encounter' in the hunting woods Ghost in the Swamp....second strangest was very interesting to me as well;

Several of us had already come in to camp, when a guest of one of our members came in, visably shaking and crying. This fellow was a 'grunt' in the Marines, which I have been told is the baddest ass of the already badass Marines. He was a stout fellow for sure, around 6'2" and 220 lbs without a spec of fat on him--tough fellow. It took him about 15 minutes to settle down and tell us WTF, but in short, he claimed--SWORE--to have seen a bigfoot. This is in Central Georgia. He proceeded to tell us he would never go in the woods again--the guy was actually still terrified. We all wanted to know why he didn't smoke it with his rifle, but here's the quick version of his response.

'I heard something a couple of times out to my left, a few hundred yards out--not like a deer, but a shuffling sound, not stepping--you know?--I finally looked a little to the left and behind the tree my stand is in, and it was looking at me! It took a couple of steps towards me--it was f***ing huge! It was staring right at me! I flinched a little, and it took a couple more steps toward me, and then it turned, walked of quickly in the direction it was originally headed, and was gone in seconds. Way to fast for a man...it was a damn bigfoot--I;m telling you--at least 8 feet tall!'

He was clearly shaken the whole time he was recapping the story, and deadly serious.

This guy never went hunting aqain, and won't talk about it at all. Kinda spooked everybody at camp I'll tell ya. We speculated that it was a person trespassing wearing a Ghilly suit, but this guy knew exactly what a Ghilly suit is, and said 'hell no, that isn't what this was!'

The one thing that is certain, there was no vehicle anywhere near this stand location, except the hunters', and to walk to this spot is at least 3 hours walk from the nearest road without coming through one of our gates and driving the property dirt roads--no gates were opened all that day or night before, and there were no trails on the roads, which were slightly damp, and were showing tracks clearly.... our man had seen whatever it was just 30 minutes after daylight....

You all should have gone and tracked that sucker down. I've heard some strange stuff, but it's always been followed by a sound of a round chambering in my rifle or 1911.

Gerrypeters, I never see bigfoots, aliens, ghosts (any of the good stuff) or not even any nudists; dang I wish I'd see at least a few of them from time to time; bugs too bad in Alaska I figure.

I feel lucky enough to see bear & moose pretty regular and 7-8 wolverine out and about every year. That story about wolverine jumping up on moose gut pile was true; he kept growling at us too. We were like 40-50 yards away and he thought he'd chase us off; should have shot him but was busy with the first moose we got that day.

The pict with my daughter, was for a harr. Wolverine was nice size, but froze solid. One of my friends had caught it in a set and we took a pict. I had posted it a couple years back on this guitar site, and told a few lies about Wally;;; and people wanted to buy pups and such. Anyway, nobody was going to fall for that in here; so I confess; was a joke.

LOL! I sent my kids the pic and they wanted one!

Zhurh:

I'm glad to see that you have a sense of humor! Frankly, I really am impressed by your daughter holding a woverine. This old man envies where you live -and regrets that he couldn't start over again and come up there! Fact.

Zhurh:

I forgot to add that even if the wolverine was dead (and yes, tou fooled this down stater) , I should have noticed the stiffness - but I always assume when I see pics of Alakans that they are the real thing. You folks live in our last real frontier -and I love the frontier! I envy you, truly!

Not 'in the wild' but about 15 years ago there was a cow moose running around in Brighton (part of Boston)...

Last June was fishing off the tip of Long Island New York when I saw a flock of Pelicans flying south-----I guess they were confused and either got a late start of got turned around !

Hipshot

A couple years ago a couple yotes got in the pasture with my llamas.Big mistake,they got kicked to death!!!!