Almost not make it out?

[josef2424]

Well this is the section of tradgang.com where we all get around a virtual campfire and chat about stuff. But it seems that whenever I'm ever around a real campfire with friends, our conversations usually lead to sharing our scarriest moments in the woods. So have you ever been caught in a blizzard, attacked by a bear, bit by a snake, fell out of a tree, or led by a guide that was just plum crazy?...Basically anything requiring an extra pair of britches will qualify    . I know most people here are quite experienced hunters and have spent a lot of time in the woods, and with enough time spent in the woods somthing bad is inevitably going to go wrong. So go have fun with this. What is your scarriest moment    ?!

[bohuntr]

Good idea for a thread! I plan on watching this one it should be interesting.
      There was this one time I came back after hunting a long weekend (after several in a row) and when I saw the look on my wifes face I thought it was doubtful that I was going to get out alive!    Does that count?  

[Izzy]

It didnt happen to me but I was watching one of Bill Langers tapes and saw the nude dude gallavanting through his foodplot.Bout as scary a sight as Ive ever seen.  

[A.S.]

OK I'm in.....I'm the guy you always hear about. I fell out of a tree in '05. Everyone always says that getting in/out of the stand is the most dangerous part. I can testify to that!

I had just shot a nice buck, let my bow down, unclipped my safety belt, and took the first step off my stand to the screw in step. Next thing I knew I had fallen 22 feet.

Long story short, I'm still here for my wife and kids. Be careful out there!!!!

[reddogge]

In the 60s three of us hunted a property next to a state park owned by an old man who lived in a two room log cabin.  None of us was familiar with the woods either.

We hunted in the evening in strange territory from portable tree stands we strapped to out backs but when time to quit came we had one flashlight between us.  It got pitch dark, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.  As luck may have it that light failed and we had to make a daisy chain where each held onto the treestand on the back of the man in front.

The first man fell into a ditch and the other two fell on top of him.  Luckily no one was seriously injured.  We made it out and the old man was cooking up deer liver and onions in the cabin and it smelled great.  He didn't offer us any but I'll never forget that trip nor will I ever forget the delicious smell of the liver and onions cooking on a wood burning range either.

[Jerry Wald]

Lets call this one - BE PREPARED

Well on one of extended hunt back off the road quite aways we ran into a fellow bow hunter in BIG TROUBLE.

He packed in by himself and he wasn't very experienced at all.

Here's a pic of the country

 

We had come in with the horses..2 saddle 2 pack horses.

We were looking for a good camp...water shelter - wood and grass lots of grass. Sometimes you luck out and get a place that has all of 'em and sometimes you don't, but grass was the most important.

We hunted there for a few days in late august and in the Yukon anything can happen and it did. We woke up to minus 10 and freezing rain and snow..lots of it.

We were ok cause the first thing we always do is make a GOOD camp. Spend the first day with a temporary camp and go scouting with the saddle horses to get the lay of the land.

We were sheep hunting so we were hunting up above treeline. So when we found our eventual spot the only thing we had to do was walk the horses about two hundred yards everyday for feed and fill their bellies good and full...no biggy and we had enough grass around camp to keep them happy for the nights.

So our normal routine is to set the camp..find places to picket the horses and get WOOD..lots of WOOD for the woodstove. Nothing worse than being cold. So we did that and had the horses to haul it and we cut it up and stacked it and tarped it all in. We set camp right at treeline so we had a great view of the hills etc.

Well the third day it snowed I waited until the afternoon before we decided to go looking for some sheep. I jumped on my horse and off I went. My buddy was a bit under the weather so he stayed there.

I was gone for about 3 hours..glassing the hillsides and I noticed a blue bubble down in the valley. My binocs and the fog didn't help much, but I though I saw activity so I wandered over there. Took about 45 minutes to wind our way around the mountain and here was this fella...what a mess.

His tent was flattened from the snow and no sign of a fly on it. He was shivering and throwing matches at a wet pile of wood. He had run out of camp fuel (the only thing he had to cook with) and was attempting to start a fire. There was no sign of a fire pit either. So I'm thinking...what is going on here. So I yelled at him..he didn't know we were there and he turned and he was close to hypothermic. He was just staring at us. So I rode up and asked him his name and where he was and he was pretty much incoherent.

So I jumped off the horse and grabbed my coke bottle out of my saddle bag (always carry diesel in it for emergencies). I got a fire going and pulled out my space and wool blanket from behind the cantle and wrapped him up and faced it open to the fire so he could trap some heat.

I went and got some extra wood so we could get a good hot fire going.

His sleeping bag (down) was soaked. It had been a great evening before and I he had taken off the fly and when he woke up he was soaked, cold and his tent was on top of him (got this out of him later).

I put on some tea and soup (always carry that in my saddle bags) and got some in him. He had been there for 5 days and this was the sixth. He was living on dried packages of food and every type imaginable which is fine, but he had it all in a bag stuffed under the tent for god sake.

I asked him if was friendly with the bears cause if he wasn't that wasn't a great thing to be doing.

To make a long story short we packed up (well really just rolled everything up and I put him on my horse and we walked back to our camp.

Never seen somebody so excited about a wall tent before. He stayed with us for two days. We dried his bag out for him and fed him. The nice thing about horseback hunting is that you can take food...lots of food.

He decided to walk back out after the two days, but I told him he could stay. We let him use the satelite phone we had so he could get a pick up for when he got down to the road.

Well that's one of my stories and I have a few..some worse...some better.

Jer Bear

[Gray Buffalo]

We hunted public land in our early years and as some dumb beginners every morning we would top off a little medicine bottle with peppermint snoops and put it in our pocket. On one really cold morning my cuss toped his off put in his pocket and headed for the tree. It was cold so while in his stand he lit his hand warmer and placed it in the same pocket. About 15 min. later we heard a scream and tree limbs braking. It seems the hot hand warmer cause the alcohol to expand and blew the bottle up dumping alcohol down his crouch. He was standing naked when we got there. It took me 20min to control myself

[LKH]

This fall I took a young man up after sheep.  I was traversing a slope when I accidentally stepped on  a hard rock covered with shale.  Was on my back and sliding fast for the cliff.  Saw a rock coming as I flipped onto my gut.  It held and I was able to crawl back up.  

Adak I went thru 80 mph winds in rip tides w/34 foot twin engine boat.  Buried with green water over the top many times. Water would squirt in the side window and hit the inside of the window.  That side window is 8 feet above water in calm conditions.  Never challenged the Bering Sea again.

13 years old, went thru the ice three times trying to make it to shore.  Last time I went clean under.  If the skinny kid in front hadn't stuck the loaded gun barrel in my face to pull me out I never would have made it.  Clothes froze solid before we got a fire going.  2 miles to cabin. When dad found out we were done trapping for two weeks till the ice got better.

[sendero25]

Well this didn't happen to me but did happen to one of my hunting buddies.
About 3 years ago he was out a couple of weeks before the archery season opened setting up some stands.
He found a spot and strapped on his climbing sticks. His father is a custom knife maker (Al Pendray of Pendray knives) who made him a machete/bush ax about 36" long. He used it to chop some shooting lanes and clear limbs for his climbing sticks.
When he got done he stuck the machete in the ground point first.
He then climbed his sticks and set his hang on stand, (I don't remember what make or model but it had a ratchet strap to attach it to the tree).
He climbed into it to see if he needed to cut any more and the strap let loose dropping him as if he was on a trap door.
You guessed it, he landed on the machete sticking out of the ground point first.
The blade cut his left leg above the knee from seam to inseam all the way to the bone.
Luckily he didn't cut his femoral artery and another friend was with him.
The fall knocked him out for a few minutes. The other guy saw all of this happen and was able to get him out of the woods and to the hospital.
After going through surgery twice they were able to re-attach the tendons and he recoverd well except for a slight limp after a long day at work.
He never uses hang on stands anymore and always uses a safety harness...lessons learned.
John

[No-sage]

We lost a guy in the Adirondaks one day..... but only for one day.

Myself and a friend brought him up on the mountain. My friend was heading up to the top, I was going to push the west side, through a nice notch, and then cruise west across the top of the ridge and watch 1/2 way to where this guy would be watching.  I set him off on his way towards to last hill on the ridge.

At around noon, my friend and I met about half way across the ridge. We ate a small lunch and stillhunted side by side, 100 yds apart, towards our last stander.  We would hook up with him just before dark with enough time to get out of the woods and back to camp.

We arrive at our destination and our stander was no-where to be found.  We looked around a bit, still hunting, but looking too, until about 1/2 hr before dark with about and hour walk back to camp yet.  

Now we figure he got goofed up and got a bit lost, so we started to call for him, but no answers.  1/2 hr after dark, we headed back to camp figuring he must have went back early.

After we got to camp, he wasn't there and no-one had seen him all day.  It was a black, black night with an almost constant drizzle of rain... you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

At our camp, we have a rule that 2 hrs after dark, if someone is still out, we go to this one high clearing and fire 3 shots.  If the guy still out needs help, he shoots 3 back.  If he's on his way, he shoots one.  We didn't hear anything.

About 10pm, he's still not back.  We know we can't find him, but my friend, myself, and one other guy head back up to the side of the Mt. to where I last saw the guy, thinking maybe he was able to back track himself or he was hurt and didn't get far.  We have trouble getting there because of how dark of a night it was, but we got near enough and fired 3 shots off again.  No sound.  Now we're at a loss, so we find our way back to camp.

At daybreak, he's still not back.  We send one guy to drive out to the nearest state police station for help while we break up into 2 man search parties.  We figure he got over the ridge and came down on the other side, so we drive out that way with one group to get to a trailhead to begin. Another group heads to where we were supposed to meet him yesterday afternoon.  One guy waits back at camp for the police.

The guys from the back side of the ridge come over the top and meet up with the group that went to the rondezvous point.  They don't find anything and all 4 get back to camp.  

Now the police are there and 2 forest rangers show up.  We all look at the maps and the rangers suggest that he would likely be in this drainage that headed to a lake over our ridge.  They would take one of our guys and head up the drainage searching.  The police officer is questioning everyone, especially me, as I was the last guy to see him alive and breathing..... lucky me.

As the rangers and my friend start going to the drainage, my buddy suggests they stop at another camp and see if anyone had seen him at all.  When they get there, our lost man is sitting at their table having breakfast.

He had just gotten to their camp about 15 min prior after walking his way out of the woods.  He did go over the ridge.  Once it got dark, he parked his butt under a spruce tree and waited out the night.  He had no light, and couldn't get a fire going in the drizzle.  He sat there all night in the pitch black and cold rain.

In the morning, he headed down the drainage and found the lake, where he got on a trail out to the road.  Eventually, he found a neighboring camp where he was shown typical Adirondak hospitality.

All's well that ends well.

[bill langer]

The naked guy in the food plot is by far the strangest and yes some what "scary" thing I have ever seen.

I have turned white three times in my life, really-no blood moving:

The first time I was hunting squirrels with 2 cousins while my uncle hunted deer nearby. I was 16 at the time. After hunting a few hours my 2 cousins and I met at an old tree stand that was about 10 ft. off the ground. Cousin Todd was in it and went to hand down his loaded .22,stock first to his brother. As the barrel was slipping from Todds hand into Robs it went off! The bullet entered the tip of Todds thumb, passed through his hand and stopped in the upper sleave of his shirt. We all started screaming     and uncle Jay came running, his color returning only after he saw we were all still standing. Todd was lucky the bullet did not hit an artery, although a nerve had to be taken from his foot to replace the one destoyed in his hand. Always unload your weapon!

The second time was the morning of my sister Jenny's wedding. My brother Tommy walked through the door of Mom and Dads house, blood and dirt in his hair and face, arm and wrist hanging. He had climbed into an old bow stand of mine and grabbed a cut off limb stub that snapped sending him 22' to the ground. He woke up 45mins. after light and drove to my parents with a broken wrist. He made the wedding in a cast and custom tux. Lucky not to be in a wheel chair or worse. These 2 hunting accidents still make me shutter to this day, we all learned valuable lessons.

The third (not hunting related) was this past fall when I got the call that my 3 year old son Garrett had fallen from 10 ft landed on his head and was being loaded on to life star (a medivac helicopter). Very long story short, he was fine. If anything took years off my life it was that call! Be safe out there.-Bill

[josef2424]

Really interesting stories everyone. Keep 'em comin'.    

[recurvericky]

A friend of mine, along with several other guys were back packing into there hunting camp in the adirondacks. They had gotten a late start and ended up having to stop and camp for the night due to heavy snow. My friend only had a emergency sleeping bag, the thin foil type. His regular sleeping bag was already in camp. Sometime during the night my friend woke up almost frozen to death. While sleeping in the emergency sleeping bad next to the fire he began to sweat which in turn caused him to get cold. By the time he woke up and was able to communicate to his friends he was almost dead due to hypothermia. His friends were able to strip his close off and wrap him in blankets until he was warm and his clothes had dried out. He was very lucky to have someone along with him on the hike.

[Autumnarcher]

The closest I've come to an unexpected overnight in the woods was several years ago in Ohio. I was huntin a big farm, my camper was at the north end of a 160 acre section. I hunted as  stand I hung about 1/2-3/4 mile south of camp, where the ends of 3 ridges coverged. I had rattled in and shot a 8 pt about an hour before dark. HE ran into a huge thicket of flora-rose, so tracking was slow and painful. I found him just before dark, and by the time I finished dressing him out, it was dark. Real Dark.

I started dragging,in the direction of my treestand. Or at least I thought. I dragged that buck for a while, and it just kept getting thicker.

Nothing looked familiar. I could here coyotes running the ridges, and did not want to leave my deer overnight.

I hit another trail, but it wa going the wrong way. Finally, I dug out my compass, and found it was me who was going the wrong way. But now I was a long way from the trail out to the hay field, I was sweating like a pig, and tired from draggin that deer around.

So, I tied a mag lite to a tree, hung my deer in the tree as best as I could, and wrapped my sweaty t-shirt around the deer, hoping the human scent would keep the 'yotes off it.
I worked my way back through the flora rose ( ouch)and found the trail to my treestand, and hiked out.

A long walk to camp, and got in 4 hrs after dark. The deer was fine in the morning.

I thought about building a fire and spending the night in the woods, but decided against it.

[Skipmaster1]

The worst one was 2 years ago. It was Late season in CT, the end on january, i was taking part in a town cull hunt and was hunting alone on a golf course. i was about 1000yds from the grounds keepers garage, where i parked. It was cold so i was the only one hunting that day and the grounds keeper was off that day. My buddy wasn't expecting me until 2pm. I was heading out from my stand at 9am and decided to take the shortcut instead of walking all the way around the greens. there was a small stream in the center of the woodlot leading to a pond. It was about 6' wide and 1' deep. i tested the bottom and it was solid so i stepped in with all my weight and mae it to the middle before i sunk. I was quickly above my boots and the more i moved the more i sank into the muck. Before long I was waist deep. I tossed my bow and pack full of $3000 worth of video gear to the bank. I still kept sinking with every little move. i couldn't even slip from my rubber boots. I always carry 25' of parachute cord in my pocket so i took that and tied a carabiner from my safty harness to the end. after a few throws I was able to tangle it in a few saplings and pull myself out. i was lucky. I had to take the long way back which is close to a mile and by the time I got to the truck hypothermia was setting in fast. i stripped threw a bunch of new clothes on and sat in the truck blasting the heat for a long while before i could think straight and get feeling back in my body. If things had gone different i could have died in the middle of a high end golf course surrounded by million dollar houses!

[Steve H.]

Mine involves a snapping turtle and lots of MY blood when I was about 13.

Recent ones involve goat cliffs and lots of fog.

[onewhohasfun]

1997, Idaho, East Fork of the Salmon. At first light Justin and I were on an isolated perch glassing for elk. Within a few minutes a band of elk appeared about 400 yds. above us. We were pinned down in our small patch of trees so we are waiting for the elk to feed off into some cover so we can pursue. I become impatient and begin belly crawling thru the sage, and after about 30 yds I run out of cover so there I am laying face down waiting. Justin had his binos on the elk for about 5 mins. straight when he hears a single pebble trickle down beside him. He drops his binos and UH OH! a very large kitty ( can you say mt lion) snarls and rears back on his haunches. Justin jumps up with his recurve and starts waving his arms and yelling, but the cat holds his ground. He starts backing up and somehow gets an arrow on the string. All this time I am thinking SHUT UP! you are spooking the elk. I pop up just in time to see  fluffy run off. I got to tell you it was about 10 mins. before Justins breathing went back to normal. The cat was whithin 6 feet of him.

[Muskoxman]

I and three friends went on a deer hunt on Montegue island in prince william sound. We set up camp next to a creek that run through a pretty tight canyon. We split up into parties of two and went hunting. I and my buddy climbed up towards the mountains behind our camp. An hour before dark I shot a little doe, we got her dressed out and I throwed her on my back like a back pack. Heading down to camp it got dark, real dark. The terrain has lots of big fallen trees we had to skirt around and when we did we'd get turned around. Of course we were soaking wet, there it pretty much rains all the time, even with good rain gear you're wet from the inside out. So of course we're getting pretty cold and like I said it rains all the time so a fire was out of the question. We finaly got back to the edge of the canyon where the creek was with our camp at the end of it, actually I hoped it was the right creek. Thats when I decided we were going to have to climb down the canyon and walk the creek back, now the bottom was solid brush so we had to stay in the creek and just slip and slid in the dark till we got there, and we did.

My buddy thought I saved his life, but I think we could have walked around in circles all night and stayed warm.

[josef2424]

Great stories! And good idea of how to protect your game overnight AutumnArcher....It seems like a lot of these are from Alaska. Sure sounds like a rough place to inhabit. And Steve, I didnt know they had snapping turtles in Alaska.

[Steve H.]

Josef:  Many of us in AK didn't start here plus there isn't a fence keeping us in although perhaps there should be, lol.

My turtle story which I will tell somewhere, someday happened in Nebraska which is where I grew up.