Strangest thing you came across while hunting

[rayatphonix]

I found the bumper/front end of a 2003 GMC Sierra last year. Mentioned it to another hunter. Loaded it up about an hour later. He had no idea how long ago he'd lost it as he didn't even know it was missing.

 

[Bush Pilot]

A few years ago while hunting in Alaska a friend and I stumbled on a sealed pallet of MREs and a pallet with new chainsaws and water pumps. We made note of where they were and when we got back to civilization reported it. The game warden said a helicopter pilot was dropping supplies for a fire crew the year before and dropped them in the wrong drainage, worse yet, he couldn't remember where they were. The warden said to help ourselves as the DNR had written them off and wouldn't pay for another helicopter to pick them up.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

The warden said to help ourselves as the DNR had written them off and wouldn't pay for another helicopter to pick them up.

I wish I had your luck! If you are looking for old tires and beer cans, I can point you in the right direction...

 

[Lennyjoe]

Groups of illegals on multiple occasions.

Illegal alien in the middle of nowhere, alone on the side of the road, holding a money satchel. We abruptly left and called BP.

Couple of weeks ago I had a drug running scout walk up on me while hunting ~2 miles off the border. Was sitting on the side of a ridge and had the access road behind me where the BP patrol..

 

[Andrew Leigh]

Not nice, also would be something I would want to forget.

 

[Skyshot]

While squirrel hunting years ago I came up on a moonshine still and it was cooking mash. There was no one to be seen anywhere, but I felt like I had a set of crosshairs on my head.

 

[Grayrock]

A friend and I were out hunting chi-chi birds when we were kids. We were in the woods behind his house. Came to a clearing and there were metal milk crates all over the place. There were enough of them that we made a pyramid with them. The base was 12 crates by 12 crates and we made it up to 1 crate at the top (11 X 11, 10 X 10, 9 X 9, etc. We always wondered how and why they were there.

 

[kyhuntsman94]

While in college, my younger brother, a friend of ours, and I stopped by a farmers to ask for permission to hunt small game (rabbit, squirrel, pheasant, etc.). He gladly gave it and told us to feel free to hunt anytime except deer season which his sons hunted. No problem. So we decide to go home and grab our gear for an exploratory hunt to get the lay of the land. We walked all over that farm and did not see any signs of any game at all. After 45 minutes we got this eerie feeling like we were being watched the entire time. Here we are three young men with loaded shotguns and we were as skittish as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. After traipsing around for a few hours we decided to call it a day and never went back. To this day my younger brother and I bring it up every now and then and still wonder at the feeling we all got that day.

 

[Erik M]

Story 1: I was hickory chicken (as we call them, morel mushroom is another term I know for them) hunting. We were walking an old logging road that had a large ditch on one side that was very grown up with cattails and scrub grass. A fully grown bobcat jumped clear across the ditch, landing between my dad and myself as he was walking about 10 feet ahead of me. It didn't even look at us and booked it out of there.

Story 2: There was another time that I was up on the local 4x4 trails with my female acquantince at the time. It was after midnight, clear with a bright moon. we were leaning up against the front of her truck when we heard the most god-awful scream/piercing roar I've ever heard. It was like it was 10 feet away from us. Easily the most scared I've ever been in the woods, as it was before I carried a weapon with me everytime I went in the woods (fish and wildlife have been releasing black bears throughout the last decade here so Its a good idea to be armed with something big bore nowdays IMO). Mountain Lions have been extinct from this region for the better part of a century according to what ive read, but after listening to sound clips online I don't think a bobcat could have made that sound, but I could be wrong. we never saw what it was.

Edit: I would like to thank everyone for sharing, I frequent another more lax, more boisterous forum and we exchange hunting/creepy experiences from being out in the woods. Excellent reading chaps, stay safe out there.

 

[Speedgoat]

Few years ago I was 're-pioneering' a road that's not on maps anymore, but I know where it is, on my old 300 Honda 4x4 and came acrossed a chest cooler with a hand (later determined to be a Halloween decoration) about 1.5 miles in, no tracks in aside from a game trail, but all the tall grass had been squished as if about 50 people had camped out there, no trash or remains of a campfire though.

Still kinda curious about what happened there, but I didn't go out looking for any elk around there the rest of the year.

 

[Edventures]

ok , this was a while back but ,true story. A buddy and I were hunting deer in the driftless area, callled that because the glaciers never flattened the area.
There is bluffs and coulees and creeks and rivers all dumping into the mississppi.
We were walking up a dug road to the apple orchard on top for a afternoon stand hunt . This road was dug back in the day to get equipment to the top of a 600 foot bluff . Almost to the top of this 1/2 mile road we saw a tree stump.
Now this stump was in a stand of new undergrowth aspen and buckthorn,thick wait a minute bushes. it standouts in my mind because it was fresh white wood.
saw it from a long ways off. what you have to understand was it wasnt cut it was sheared off clean. there was no saw dust or shavings there was no broken limbs on surrounding bushes ,no distrubance to the forest floor no drag marks and no tree . it was fourteen or fifteen inches round . this is a big tree. Gone.
I asked around to the land owner ,locals noone was logging noone was up there.
I had been hunting there all week every morning and afternoon up that trail ,the deer always in the orchard at those twillite hours.I still have no idea what happened to that tree,you could see where it was ,but where did it go?

 

[swampcrawler]

I love this thread. Only thing I've ever found was a whole bunch of old glass bottles and a '50s Ford pickup rusted out with trees growing through it but only a few hundred yards from the road.

I love this thread.

 

[samort457]

When I was younger my sister, cousins, and I were walking through the creek on family's property. There was a 20 foot bluff on one side and at the top there was a stonewall about 30 feet long, it looked like a group of had taken some of the river stones and stacked on top of each other until it created a 4 foot with with and little dip in the top about every 5 feet. So of course we climbed up to the top and saw little pieces of really old rusted metal but it was really kind of cool.

 

[The_Armed_Therapist]

I saw a chimpanzee in a patch of woods in Oldsmar, Florida when I was a kid. I was not hunting, but a friend and I were walking on a path not far from Tampa Bay, and found it standing on a tree stump about 10 feet in front of us. It took off running, and we took off running in the opposite direction. To that point, I had never been so startled. Does anyone have any logical explanation for this? LOL... I have always wondered. I mean, I've heard of keeping them as pets... maybe it escaped?

 

[BigBore44]

Armedtherapist,
Odds are that's exactly what happened. Had two hunters last week about 10 miles from where I live (NE Oklahoma) that were deer hunting and a kangaroo came hopping by. It made the local news. Same thing. Escaped pet.

 

[H&Hhunter]

One time when I was hunting in Colorado I went to answer the call of the wild. I leaned my M-94 Winchester .30-30 up against a tree. When I came back it was gone. I never have found that rifle.

 

[TennJed]

Good thread

 

[frankenstein406]

I saw a chimpanzee in a patch of woods in Oldsmar, Florida when I was a kid. I was not hunting, but a friend and I were walking on a path not far from Tampa Bay, and found it standing on a tree stump about 10 feet in front of us. It took off running, and we took off running in the opposite direction. To that point, I had never been so startled. Does anyone have any logical explanation for this? LOL... I have always wondered. I mean, I've heard of keeping them as pets... maybe it escaped?

Pretty sure animals get loose from the airport all the time. I think they have a team that comes in and try to shoot them tho.

 

[AKElroy]

Last year my son asked me to come see the cottontail sitting at the bottom step of our hunting trailer, unfazed by us standing over him. I looked down, and three feet in front of the rabbit was one of her bunnies, wrapped up by a 5" rat snake. The bunny was already dead, and with us standing over them, the snake looked up at us, down at the bunny, back at us, then uncoiled and slithered off. It was like a nature show.

 

[AKElroy]

My first year on my current lease I camped in the woods my first night. I slept in the bed of my truck, a lifted tundra. I had a large boar wake me up at 3 am, grunting and grumbling under my open tailgate, just feet from my head. My rifle was in the cab of the truck, so there was nothing I could do but watch him trot off in the moonlight, grumbling and snorting with every step. I was high enough off the ground as to be in no danger. I am sure he was more interested in the scraps of dinner leftovers I tossed out. One would think that would only be a concern in bear country.

Creepy. I now cannot imagine camping on the ground with these things rooting around.

 

[BudgetBucks1]

While hunting on National Forest in Virginia last year I thought I heard a weed eater running in the distance. A few moments later a midget on a 50cc dirt bike came out of a logging road at full speed. He had matching riding suit, helmet and dirt bike. He went by me at 10 feet without so much as acknowledging I was there. When he was riding off I thought I saw a mullet sticking out from beneath the back of the helmet.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

While hunting on National Forest in Virginia last year I thought I heard a weed eater running in the distance. A few moments later a midget on a 50cc dirt bike came out of a logging road at full speed. He had matching riding suit, helmet and dirt bike. He went by me at 10 feet without so much as acknowledging I was there. When he was riding off I thought I saw a mullet sticking out from beneath the back of the helmet.

Hahaha! You just made my Sunday!

 

[Legionnaire]

Just this season hunting in SW Pennsylvania, I saw a critter I didn't recognize. After frolicking around a bit, it zeroed in on a squirrel, chased it down, killed it, and carried it off. Subsequent research leads me to conclude it was a fisher. I'd never seen one in the wild before, and didn't know they ranged this far south.

 

[JRH6856]

A midget with a mullet in the middle of the wood.
Matching bike and leathers and I bet a matching hood.
It gave him such a start that he froze right where he stood,
And watched the midget with the mullet in the middle of the wood.

 

[Art Eatman]

He's a poet.
Didn't know it.
But his feet show it.
Longfellows.