Strange or Unexplained

[BlackpowderJim]

Last year I was hunting on the ground near the edge of a corn field and a thin strip of hay field. As I sat there motionless, I heard something crunching thru the leaves as it made it's way closer to me thru the woods on the other side of the strip of hay.

After what seemed like forever, out of the bushes comes the critter. It wasn't a deer. Or a sasquatch either. It was a SKUNK! Comin' straight at me.

I stood up straight to get his attention thinkin' he would run off. Well, he didn't. He just kinda puffed himself up, stamped his front feet and took a couple steps toward me. So I puffed up too and faked a lunge at him. He didn't like that. He did a short charge at me and raised his tail to full mast and I vacated the area immediately.

I shoulda shot him...

[Tom Leemans]

I still have an arrow that has the bite pattern out of the fletching where a doe pulled out my Snuffer tipped arrow, that reached the off side shoulder (OUCH!  :eek:  ) Needles to say, she expired shortly thereafter.

[T.J.]

ttt

[DW]

Very cool and enjoyable thread!!!!!

[Mitch-In-NJ]

This spring I was turkey hunting near a river bed.  I was sitting amongst some wild raspberry bushes when a bluebird landed on my shoulder.

Zippadeedoodaa.

ASAT camo RULES!

But that's not what I want to tell you about.

Back in the late 70s NJ re-instituted turkey hunting.  Around 1980 I was on my first turkey hunt.  Now, you fellas from other parts may have had turkey hunting all your lives, but for me, it was all new.  In fact, I had never seen wild turkey in my life.

Regardless, I was determined to get one.  So I went out with my box call, shotgun, a few stakes and some camo painted burlap for a blind.

I decided to build the blind three sided with a large tree as the 4th side.  This way I had a good view all around and something to lean against.

I got into the woods one morning about 45 minutes before sun up and got set up.  I had just settled in when I started hearing the familiar crunch of a deer approaching.  From my blind spot, of course.

Since it was spring and not neer season I quickly lost interest in the deer and started calling.  To my amazement and utter joy the toms started gobbling.

I heard them fly down and worked that call like I'd been hunting turkey all my life.  I could hear the gobblers coming in and eventually I saw them exiting the woods on my right and into the field where my decoy was set up.

Unlike the turkeys I see on TV, even to this day I have never had a tom just flat out run for my decoy.  They gooble a bit, strut a bit and kind of meander in.  Often stopping 20 or 30 yards away and never coming an inch closer.

A couple toms with jakes trailing were now about 20 yards away.  They weren't coming any closer as far as I could tell, so I started to lift my gun and get ready for a shot.  As I lifted my gun I heard that deer again, this time right behind me.  I guess I hadn't heard the crunching over my calling.  And I guess the toms had heard or seen the deer and decided to take off.

Remember, turkey hunting to me was new, and really, no one in my area was what you'd call skilled in the ways of the turkey.

So forgive me for thinking that the turkeys were run off by a deer.

Well, with my hunt blown and me now in a foul mood I decided to give that deer a piece of my mind.  I figured to just jump out and scare the hell out of it.  But when I did...

I was front and center of the largest turkey that had ever walked the earth!  5 feet tall and 200 pounds I swear!

I fell back, tripped over my blind, crashed to the ground and was up and running like the wind.  The giant turkey... I never looked back so I have no idea what happened to it.

I told this story to only a few friends and of course, no one believed me.  After a while I started to doubt that it had ever happened.  Soon it was more a dream than anything else.

Until...

About 8 years later I was driving to work.  I wasn't two miles from my house, on a back road no less, when I hit a traffic jam.  Now many of you NOT from NJ assume there is traffic everywhere.  Not so.  NJ has a lot of farm land.  More farmland than anything else, really.  So a traffic jam on a Sussex back road is NOT normal.

Anyway, as I sat there (I assumed there was an accident ahead) waiting for the traffic to clear I saw what I never thought I would ever see again.  A giant turkey!  Running right down the middle of the road!  Toward me!

I started to sweat, sure this creature was coming right for me.  I was just the most unreal thing that has ever happened.  And then it was past me.  I looked around and I could tell that the other drivers had just seen the same thing by the puzzled, comical looks on their faces.

Then a moment later a huge farm boy came lumbering past... chasing the giant turkey.

I DO NOT USE DRUGS!

That's what I told myself then and I am telling you now.

I never made it to work that day.  I was too shook up.

The next morning's headline --

Escaped Emu Stops Traffic.

Yup.  An emu.  I have since found out that there is an emu farm not two miles from my house.  Only about 500 yards from where the giant turkey stopped traffic and only 3 or 4 miles from where I was turkey hunting several years before.  I can only assume that another one escaped 8 years prior and was wandering around the refuge I was hunting in.

I wonder what they taste like.

[Brian Gillispie]

Chicken heh


Brian G

[Bard1]

I vote the "giant turky/emu" story the best yet!  That had me in stitches!

[Problem Child]

I was a headed to a place that I wanted to hunt one morning on Public land. It was few minutes after 1st light when I noticed a squirrel about 8 feet up a tree in the direction I was going. The critter never moved when I got closer and closer. I came to within 12 feet and it just stared at me and shook it's tail. I thought this was a little strange but headed on toward my stand. That's when it really got weird,the squirrel like followed me through the woods for something like 50 yards jumping from tree to tree.Thought that was kinda strange.
Also back in my wheelie bow days, I was up about 20 ft in my old Baker climber one afternoon and this medium size bluish/gray bird appeared about 12 inches in front of my face and acted like he wanted my eyeballs. That'll wake you up !!  :eek:    :eek:

[Flesner]

That giant turkey story reminds me of a similar incident we had in Missori.
A buddy of mine and I were driving in for lunch during the rifle season when we saw a huge bird wandering in a wheat feild.
We looked at each other trying to decide if the other was seeing the same thing.  :eek:  
Jerry said, "that ain't no Missori bird!"  We watched it for a while and decided it must have gotten loose from somewhere close by. We drove on for a couple miles and sure enough there was a small farm with more of those birds in a pen.
We stopped and reported that one of their birds was loose and offered to show them wher we saw it last. It turns out it was called a "Rea" (sp)and the owners followed us to the spot where we saw their rea.
Of course it was no longer there when we got back. Her husband didn't want us to help for fear of spooking it worse so we stayed by the vehicle with his wife while he went looking for his bird.
Now, you gotta' know Jerry and his sense of humor. Serious as a heart attach, he looked at the lady and said: "Lady, looks like you got a case of Gone-a-rea now!

Thank god she had a sense of humor!

[Over&Under]

Gone-a-rea - now THATS funny!!!!

[Weekend Warrior]

Where I hunt sometime. There is a cementary, I had parked in a little pull of spot..I hunted that evening is was well after dark when I got close to the truck.. Getting closer to the truck I got that old Errie feeling    I was about 400 yds from the truck and I saw a light swinging in the graveyard    . No electricty  for a mile or so around.. I do have to say I knocked a arrow..I got into stalking mode an inched closer to the truck and noticed the light didn't move any closer only swing..I got in my truck as fast as I could...
  The next day I found out that a lady had died and someone had put a solar light at her grave site.
  Good thing someone was playing a prank they probably would have got a zwickey in their but..

[MI_Bowhunter]

Not exactly hunting related but this is the only unexplained thing I can recall:

I was in my early twnties at the time.   I was commuting to college so I was still living at my parent's house.

I was home waiting for my mom to return from the grocery store.  From my room I could hear the front door open and footsteps walk through to the kitchen.  I got up and went out to the kitchen to help with the groceries.  No one was there.   I checked outside and there were no cars in the driveway.   At this point the hair on the back of my neck is standing up and I'm getting a little freeked out so I grab a baseball bat and begin checking out the house.  I check all the doors and they are still locked.    I check the rest of the house and find no other people or critters.

I had lived in this house for over 20 years; I know the sound of the front door opening and the sound of the creeking floor as someone walks through the house.  The front door was a tight fit and it shook the house when it closed, a very unmistakable sound.  The floors also had some bad creaks and there was never mistaking when someone was moving around.

I still don't know who or what walked through the house that day.  I've lived in two apartments and two houses since and never had another experience like it.

[WidowEater]

Theres a cemetary in Evart, MI that the tombstones glow in the dark at night.  I heard it from the locals when I was going to Ferris St and went and checked it out and sure as taxes the stones were glowing and twinkling in the night.  I watched them glow until I decided to walk up there and see what was going on.  The stones faded out as you got closer and I have no clue to explain it.

Anyway my own story is that the first year I went hunting with a bow I for real saw a great horned owl and a mature whitetail buck fighting it out in the middle of the woods.  The owl was hooting and clawing and the buck was snorting and flailing its antlers around.  They were making a huge racket and were all over the woods.  I couldnt get a shot at the buck and I didnt want to hit the owl either.  Strangest thing.

[sticknstring_AK]

I've heard the "scream" or "yell" of one(bigfoot) before.  

I know what a bear sounds like, and it was no bear.  Went on for about 15-30 seconds at a time, and it was miles away.  But it was giving my uncle, a friend, and me chills down our backs.  We were minding some bear bait and got out of there fast, mind you it was 1 in the morning.  

This happened back before I even shot a bow(compound or trad).  

People say that bigfoots a hoax, I don't believe them.  I've heard many a story about sightings here from creditable people that I know personally.

I'll be carrying a side-arm on my moose hunt this fall, believe me you'll want one in Alaska.  

The first brown bear I got took 8 shots total to down, all in the fitals.  It absorbed 5 shots of my .300 Win. Mag. and 3 shots of my cousins '06.

Well I'm rabbling getting into different subjects,  lets hear more of you're stories.

Steve

[gregg dudley]

Those mangy yote pictures reminded me of the pictures that they ran in the local papers last year of the local black bears that were having problems with mange.  Some of them were completely void of hair.  I'll bet some of the folks who first saw those critters walking around had a few odd moments until they made an id.

[sendero25]

Lets make this a permanent forum, maybe call it "Campfire Tales", it has been a lot of fun, and with a new hunting season and Halloween comming up...who knows what new strange stories may come up!
The most important thing is the stories are all believable, they are told in a "friends around a campfire" format , not the usual nonsense found on the "x-files" type websites.
I for one would love to hear more. The stories don't have to have "bigfoot" or "ufo's", but anything unusual during a hunt is really interesting and a lot of fun.
Where else can you go to find "the best glue for inserts" and "I heard this sound while bowhunting..." on the same site.
John

[Swamp Pygmy]

I just started hunting and I'm young so I don't have as interesting of stories as those here but I'll tell you mine.

One of the places I intend to start hunting I was scouting earlier this year. There are many large pigs here. Sometimes I see several in a day in excess of a hundred lbs. It was a few weeks past hunting season so I went scouting and didn't see anything. I only found a HUGE hole dug. I even took a pic with my cell phone. It's about 4ft across and more than a foot deep. And was dug in one night. Apparently all for the bite of one root. (between the fall harvest and spring I guess its hard to feed an animal that sized)

On the way to finding it the wind was in my face so walking back I wasn't being stealthy. My wind was wrong so no sense in going slow. I was just walking when I hear a woof. But woof doesn't do it justice. It was the sound they use in movies when a character opens up a door and a monster growls so loud the persons hair blows backwards like he's got his head out a car window. Then the character closes the door. It was that kinda woof. A movie soundtrack monster woof.  

If you've never heard a hog bark or woof at you close up its kinda unnerving. It sounds very similar to a big dog like a pitt bull. But this was loud like a fog horn.

I caught in the corner of my eye of the woodline a bear sized animal black as night. I had a machete in my hand and I yelled "Ha! Get! Ha!" smacked the blade on my boot to make a loud metallic noise and ran about thirty yards and jumped on a blown down tree. It didn't want anything to do with me but it was twilight and all I had was a small machete and I wanted out of there.

The next day with the sun on my side I went to where I head the noise. Only managed to find one print. The biggest hog track I've ever seen. The father of all mothers. If you know about hog tracks you know once a pig gets a certain size the print pretty much stays the same. Doesn't get much larger. Well this print from toe to toe width wise. Was the same size as my pack of cigarettes length wise. Thats a big pig!

I'll be pursuing what I've dubbed "the grizzly boar" in less than 2 months.

[blueslfb]

Nothing mysterious or strange but it scared the livin crap outa me.  I used to hunt Drummond Island every year and one year just as it was getting dark a wolf or wolves decided to howl at the moon about 40yds from my stand.  They tuned up and they sounded like they were right on top of me.  It made for and interesting walk out that night with my trusty .40cal in  my hand.  After getting to the quad I looked down and found they had walked right by the quad.  Made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

[Larry247]

I think it was year before last, i'd shot a deer late in the evening and went back to the house to give her a while. I waited a few hours and went back with my 12yro son J.T..

We opened up the electric fence and rode up on the mountain and followed the blood trail and recovered the deer, took an hour and a half or so.

I pulled through the fence and let him off and i pulled down to the tractor shed and shut the wheeler off and listened at how still it was while JT latched up the fence in the dark.

All of the sudden, i let out a locater yote call tryin to spook him. He said "funny dad". He was still 50yds from me when a yote yelled back right up above us! He ran like his hind-end was on fire to the truck! "WHAT WAS THAT, WHAT WAS THAT! After my ribs stopped hurting from watching him run 50yds in 3 seconds i told him.  

[String Cutter]

While turkey hunting one year I sat up against a large white oak. The tree had a large hole about the size of a basketball at the base... Well, I sat down and did a few yelps with my box call. Then leaned back against the tree.
I kept hearing something strange and it was close??...real close??.. sounded like  feathers raking against bark or something???? So I slowly turned my head and came within kissin distance of a turkey buzzard's head sticking out of that hole. nose to beak..Could have licked her if I wanted too.
I jumped up and she jumped out... We just stood there looking at each other  just feet away I guess 5-10 seconds then I started backing up away from her... She never moved an inch, standing her ground ,just watching me.. I went ahead and left. But came back an hour or so later to pick up my box call..
I figure she was using the tree as a nesting site and had little ones inside.. That's why she stood her ground.????
Another time I had a vole climb into my cargo pocket in my pants while I was setting on the ground turkey huntin.Just glad noboby saw that one.