funniest,strangest things seen in the woods

[Flesner]

I watched two squirrels one afternoon that were apperently in a domectic dispute.
One was gathering dry oak leaves and packing them to a knot hole as fast as he could. The other was in the hole and throwing them back out just as fast.
It cost me a shot at a deer later because I was ignoring the noise and a doe came past me at just a few yards. There I sat with my bow laying against a log.

Another time a friend and I were driving along on a Missori gravel road when we spot what appeared to be an Ostrich in a wheat field. Our comments at the time are not suitable to print here, but we drove on aways and spotted a whole pen full of them. We drove to the owners house and reported to him and his wife that we saw one of their birds wandering around loose.
It turned out that the bird was called a "Rea" and we drove them back to where we saw it. Of course it had wandered off by then. The man went looking for tracks, (he asked us to stay by the vehicle so as not to spook it).
My buddy, who had a twisted sense of humor, looks at the lady and say's "Lady, looks like you got gone-a-Rea now"!

Thankfully she also had a good sense of humor.  :D

[Gaff]

herk, thats a great story!!  

[Doug in MI]

I was setting on the ground deer hunting one afternoon. I took my quiver and laid it on the ground beside me. A little while later a small hawk comes flying down and starts thrashing my arrows. After a few seconds he jumps up on a fallen limb next to me and just sets there looking at my arrows for a while. He had a puzzled look on his face.

[hoebow]

while hunting for ground hogs one day my buddy and I stopped on a ridge line and ate lunch and glassed the other rim where some ground hogs had a burrow. About that time I noticed movement in the bottom and glassed to get a better look. I sure did it was two young beautys sunbathing in everything that the good lord gave them. After a while we whistled and they jumped up and reached for clothes they never knew that we where there. I was a kid then and thought wow!

[doctorbrady]

I was hunting hogs in Texas many years ago.  Early one morning I climbed a stand where I had sprinkled some piggy food.  Not long after daylight I heard something moving through the thick stuff toward my position.  To my surprise it wasn't a hog, but a......camel.  That dude was wired.  He caught a little of my scent as he walked beneath my tree and flew out of there.  Later that day the landowner told me that one of the locals had released it to stomp on coyotes.

[Doc Nock]

This has to be one of the best, funny threads ever!  

Can I share an amazing tale of wildlife but it's not really "funny" in the ha-ha sense?

I'm in a tree stand' as many stories go. Below me and behind were several downed trees lyin on the ground... Chipmunks ran up and down them scurryin in the leaves and givin me fits all morning till I just stopped noticing.

About 10:30...I get this "sense" rather than hearing anything... so I very cautiously turn to find a redtail hawk perched on the fallen log closest behind my tree. He must've been watching the chipmunk antics.

He peers all around under the log, walking side step up and down the tree trunk... then, get this...he jumps down in the leaves and takes his big ole wing and stretches it all the way over the top of the log...and uses it to thrash the other side all the while peering intently under the log from his side...he moved up that entire log...with his wing over one side...tappin to run out a chipmunk!

He had no luck..and finally he got that queer look about him and turned his head up and saw me in full camo and face cover...and just flapped away.

One of those wonderous moments where "if only I had a camera" things... I don't know how that bird ever figured out that manuever, but I remain in amazement of that to this day.  

[Eric in FLA]

I took a friend on his first ever bowhunt two years ago. We had spent the summer practicing and preparing his gear.

Opening weekend in Nebraska we are on a treeline that runs along a beanfield and then to a small pond. Our stands are about 50 yards apart. About 4:30 in the afternoon I see antlers above the tall grass and they are getting closer. It is the biggest bodied deer I have ever seen. He reaches the treeline and stops. The deer stays in the trees and checks out the area before proceeding. I have no shot but my friend does. The deer steps out and turns to walk away from me
I keep waiting for the arrow but one never shows. After the deer is gone I sneak over to my friend's spot and ask him why he did not shoot.
"Shoot what" he says. I went back to my stand in disbelief.

About 30 minutes before dark I see a big fat raccoon on a collision course with my buddy's spot. I kept quiet and watched. When the raccoon reached his hidey spot in the cedar tree they were both scared witless. I saw both run into trees trying to escape the other. My friend pays much better attention to his surroundings these days.

[Landshark160]

The funniest thing that has ever happened to me was just this past Saturday.  Since it was just after the full moon, I decided to sleep in and head to the stand during midday.

I get to my tree just before 11:00 AM.  I climb up and get settled in.  The wind is blowing pretty hard, so I have to keep a steady lookout cause I sure ain't gonna hear em. At about 12:00, for some reason, I look over my left shoulder and see a guy about 35 yards away from me holding a compound at full draw.  The first thing I'm thinking is "What the ....?"  He's aiming in at what seems like the base of my tree.  He eases the bow down and slowly takes cover behind a large oak tree.

I glance down to see what he might be trying to shoot.  Then the light bulb comes on.......I had totally forgotten that I had set up my feeding doe decoy at the bottom of my tree.  I just about fell out of the tree!  I glance back up and the guy is still hiding behind the tree.  I can tell that from where he is standing, he doesn't have a shot at anything but the hind quarters of the decoy.  He stands behind the tree for a good 30-45 seconds.  I realize that he is probably waiting for the deer to feed around a little bit and give him a shot at the chest.  Slowly, he eases out from behind the tree with his bow up ready to draw.  I wave my hand to get his attention.  He finally sees me, waves back, puts his arrow back in his quiver, turns hit hat back around (he had it backwards so it wouldn't interfere with his bowstring), and continues down the dim road through the woods.  He had spotted the decoy on his way to his stand and had pulled a beautiful stalk.  Don't you know that had to be embarassing?!

I wish now that I had just watched the drama unfold.  I would love to have seen the look on his face when his arrow zipped through that doe, and she never stopped feeding......

[hunt it]

Tamure,

That picture brings back fond memories. A number of years back I was at the gun club, stump shooting one afternoon and I just happen to look over the corn field beside the club. Out in the field I see's this big head a bobbin up and down above the corn which was maybe 4ft high. I turned into hunter mode and started the stalk. At under 20yrds and between the corn rows I am confronted head on by this rather large EMU. Which I know for sure is tresspassing in that corn field. One arrow later and there is a good blood trail. Just then I hear one of my buddies drive up the lane and I go out to see him. I told him I had just made a great shot on the biggest gobbler I've ever seen. After him giving me $hit and telling me turkey season is closed I told him to go find it and I'll get the BBQ going and we'll have all the evidence cooked up for the rest of the guys in no time. Well he goes off on the blood trail and I hear him screamin when he comes upon that 60# gobbler. We carved it up and thew it on the BBQ it was great.

[Shawn Leonard]

I have another. Do not know if it is real funny but we all got a laugh out of it. As a lot of you know I put on an annual bunny hunt and the proceeds go to the St. Judes Kids. We had about 30 Tradgangers pushing a piece for bunnies when we here someone yell a rabbit fell down an old well. well guys went over an started to try and fish it out, I forget who but they were lying on the ground reaching down in the well when another bunny comes running along and over their back and down the well. One more also met their demise there as well. We ended up using Little Joe's(Stoneknifes son) bow to fish them out. We actually killed 16 rabbits and everyone lauged when I said plus 3 committed suicide rather than face tghe wrath of the Tradgangs arrows.(over 150 shots taken) in two days. Shawn

[BobW]

Don't use a feather on your bow string for wind direction, or if you do, be careful.  Hawks find them interesting enough to take a dive at.  I got hit in the face with a wing as I opened up my eyes real wide at the bird as it dove at the feather.  The heel of the bow was sitting on my toe so the tip was right in front of my face.

P.S. - same stand and weekend that BBassi was attacked by flying squirrels at.  Thinking we have to move that stand.....  Something smells like human... you know.

BobW

[cahaba]

I was turkey huntin one spring and there was a longbeard a jake and a hen on a knoll in a clearing. Well this hawk started flying down out of a tree and would hit the jake and fly back up. He did it three times and on the fourth time I guess the longbeard had enough of it and he spurred the hawk and killed him. It was faster than a blink. I wish Id had a video.

[GingivitisKahn]

Earlier this season, my son and I were putting our gear back in the car and getting ready to head home.  We were talking and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this freaked out kamikaze pigeon zipping in straight towards his head.

It was one of those things that is so weird and unexpected, it's hard to know how to react.  Anyway, the bird veered off at the last second, landed and started bebopping around all over the place.  He lit on a pickup there and growled at us.  I've never heard a bird do that before but it was cool.  Anyway, here he is (note the tags on his legs)...

 

[Bruce Martin]

About 3 years ago I was set up in a likely place for deer, walked in in the dark.  About 10 am, things are going kind of slow when I hear something coming; wind is right. Eventually I see that it's a flock of turkeys (they can make a racket). But something is weird about the first turkey in the flock. Some kind of snakey neck? They all get closer and I put the binocs on them, and the snakey necked leader has a blue head and neck! Finally realize all these hens are being led by a female peacock.

[gjw77]

My buddy and I went hunting together several years ago when PA had a separate doe season.It was really foggy,so foggy visibility was limited to about 10 yards.We went in on a trail at a field edge and split up.I went a little piece and sat down on this log because I couldn't find my stand in the fog.About 9a.m. the fog started to lift and I could just make out something sitting on the other end of the log.It turned out to be my buddy.He said he couldn't find his spot either.

[kctreeman]

I was hunting deer in KS a couple years ago.  I climb a tree and set up my Loc-On  windwalker in a good looking spot.  Sitting there waiting for deer a whole herd of cows happen by the stand.  I'm sitting there, disgusted, with about 20 cows walking around the base of my tree.  Then one of the cows steps on my pull rope, that I have tied to my stand hanging down and laying on the ground.  This may be interesting I'm thinking when another cow walks by and gets tangled in the rope walking away from the tree.  That cow ends up stretching the rope and pulls the stand away from the tree.  There I am with my safety on hugging the tree until the rope goes slack and the stand settles back.  Just had to stand there and laugh to myself.  Did,'t see any deer there either.

[kctreeman]

Seen Irish one day in TX with shirt and shoes off soaking in a water trough.  Not sure if that was funny or scary.

[Gaff]

WOW!!!! that was a good one 77!!
i bet alot of us have a funny story about when nature calls when were in the woods! my buddy was bear huntin one day in vermont and he just couldnt hold it any more, so he whipped down his bibs and went! the problem was he was so concerned about what was behind him that he forgot to pay attention to what was in front of him, and peed all over his bibs!!    
so there he goes runnin down through the woods sheddin cloths like a swimsuit model was down there waitin for him!    

in his haste to find a suitable spot to go, he neglected to look around for anyone hunting! there was a guy sitting 15 yds away! can you imagine what that gut wittnessed that day! that must have been  horrible!
BUT FUNNY AS HELL!!!

[Aeronut]

My cousin and I had finished quail hunting and were walking back across my grandparents pasture when his Brittany comes running up to him and spit out a live squirrel.  The tree rat takes off climbing the nearest 'tree' available which was my cousin's leg.  I was really wishing I'd brought my video camera that day.

Dennis

[John Scifres]

A couple years after I started bowhunting, my brother and I are on this ridgetop just kind of relaxing mid day.  I have a little fold up stool but was lounging in the leaves.  All of a sudden, we hear a deer coming.  I look at the buck as he tops the ridge and passes 20 yards away.  I reached to grab my bow and would have shot him too if I hadn't grabbed the folding stool instead.  He laughed as he walked away  

Hunting one time in KY I had a doe bed about 40 yards away.  As I watched her, she started sneezing.  She must have sneezed 200 times.  I felt so bad for her I wanted to jump down and give her a Claritin or something.

Again in KY, hunting on the ground, I hear a couple deer running right to me.  They were being chased by a dog.  The little 4 pointer passes me at 1000 MPH follwed by the doe.  The buck jumps a fence and the doe tries it too but smacks her head on an overhanging osage branch, knocking her cold.  The dog runs by me and just kinda stares at this doe until she regains consciousnees, stands up, shakes her head like she was sayin' "Dang, that hurt" and commenced to running.  The dog was courteous enough to wait on her before resuming the fun.  I think they were buddies.  Can you imagine them laughing later over a beer as they recall that one