Strange or Unexplained

[Stumpkiller]

 

 

[Dorado]

Back in high school a friend of mine took his cousin hunting. I think they were quail hunting. While out his young cousin screamed and called him over. He'd found a man hanging in a tree with his arms and legs bound behind him and no way for him to get up there. The body was never identified but was suspected to have been an illegal immigrant that got on the wrong side of somebody.

As for me. The creepiest thing I'd discovered while hunting was numerous sets of clothes in my cabin when I was supposed to be the only one on that particular land. Stupid kids. Probably got splinters in places that they really regretted.

[tomsm44]

Just found this thread.  Made it to page 9, will catch the rest later.  Mines not a hunting story exactly, but was in the woods.  

When I was in college, I worked for a small timber company cruising timber.  I was training with the forester one day, staying about 2-3 paces behind him, when I get this chill down my neck and back.  In August.  In Louisiana.  You don't normally get chills in Louisiana in August.  Before I could say anything, the forester stops, turns around, and says, "did you feel that?".  Then he smiles at the look on my face, and says, "you know what caused that?".  I said I didn't, and he tells me to give him a minute and he'll show me.  He then starts looking around.  He spots a fairly open spot in the brush 15-20 yards away that's overgrown with briars, and heads that way motioning for me to follow.  We get there and he starts kicking the briars down.  There under the briars were three tombstones from the late 1800s.  Apparently, there was an old family home in the area in the past, but it was all just pine timber now.  I consider myself to be pretty strong in my faith, but I've never really been superstitious or believed much in supernatural things like ghosts and such.  But I know for a fact that I got a sense that those graves were there before I knew about them.  The forester said that he had found quite a few old grave sites in his career, and that he always felt them before he saw them.

I've also had the old attempted owl attack, several times.  If I see an owl land within 50 yards or so, I'll just slightly move my finger when he's not looking straight at me.  It amazes me how their head will turn straight towards me at the slightest movement.  Most of them will come towards me after doing it a few times, but I'll make a big movement as soon as they do before they get to close.  

Thanks for all the great stories.
Matt

[tomsm44]

Here's something kinda funny.  It didn't actually happen to me, but I award somewhat involved in the story.  When I was in fourth grade, my teacher told us one morning that she must be going crazy because she saw a monkey cross the road in front of her over the weekend. A couple weeks later she tells us, while laughing quite a bit, that she hadn't gone crazy after all.  Turns out someone that lived on Punkin Center Rd, where she saw the monkey, had gotten a new pet spider monkey, and it had gotten out.  

Fast forward to last year, about 25 years later, and I'm sitting around drinking coffee on a Monday morning.  A coworker walks in, sits down, and says, "y'all ain't gonna believe this.  I almost hit a monkey with my truck on Punkin Center Rd this weekend."  Everybody else starts laughing at him, and he says, "I know that can't be what it was, but man it looked like a monkey."  So I told him what my teacher told me in fourth grade, and we googled spider monkey life spans.  Turns out they live up to 40 years.  He later told us he'd started asking around, and it turns out people still see it fairly regularly.

So that's my (miniature) Sasquatch story.

[McDave]

The monkey story above reminds me of an old family legend.  The verifiably true part is that 3 McReynolds brothers arrived here in America in about 1740.  They headed west toward the frontier where they could get some free land.  Legend has it that they had a monkey with them, who knows why.  They ran out of food and they agreed that 2 of them would go hunting while the third one stayed with the monkey.  The one with the monkey waited for a few days, but he finally got so hungry that he ate the monkey.  The other two returned and were so angry that the first one had eaten the monkey that they split in three directions and never spoke to each other again.  Each founded a different branch of the family in America, later to become the United States.  This last part is also true and verifiable.

The interesting thing is that I have met people named McReynolds in different parts of the US who have never known me or my family before we met, but they know the story about the three brothers and the monkey.  So that part of the story may have some truth in it too.  I mean, who would make up a story about 3 brothers arriving in America in 1740 with a monkey?

[Pine]

It was about 40 years ago , mid October and my friend Mike offered to drop me off in the National Forest near Luther Michigan .
I was very set in my mind that I wanted to do a wilderness hunt all alone . I was to be out there for a week . I had an ice chest with eggs , bacon and two loaves of bread . The rest of my food would come from what I would forage and hunt with my bow or slingshot .
I had four broadheads and two blunts . I also had a small bag of marbles for the slingshot . Archery deer season was open as well as small game , so I was all set . What could possibly go wrong ?
The first two days were very productive , I had taken two rabbits and one squirrel . I did fire a warning shot at a grouse with a blunt and lost the arrow . Oh well ,still had one blunt and four broadheads .
The deer sign was a little sparse . So I decided to try in the swamp that was about a half mile from my camp .
The swamp is called The Big Bear Swamp of Luther . It is a few miles wide and over twenty miles long . It is filled with cedar trees and very tight underbrush .
The third morning I was cooking bacon and eggs in my dutch oven lid and I noticed that there was a very thick fog rolling in . It was so thick that with my flashlight I could only see a few feet . So I decided to wait until light before I headed to the swamp .
I had to check my compass very often just to keep on the right path to the swamp . The eerie thing was with no rain for a few weeks , the ground was soaking wet and I could walk silent as long as I didn't step on a twig .
Made it to the edge of the swamp and started my way in , very slow and constantly sweeping my eyes for what I could see . I found a very well used deer run and I decided to sit in a blow down that made a very good natural blind .
After about an hour , I was able to see a little further because the fog was letting up a little . I could see a tree that seemed to be broken off about ten feet above the ground . This seemed odd to me because there were no other trees in the area that had damage like that , so couldn't have been wind damage .
As I pondered the tree a nice twelve point buck wandered down the deer run towards me . He stopped about fifteen yards from me but seemed very nervous . I didn't think it was me because he was looking slightly in a different direction from me . I just held tight because he was head on to me and there was no good shot .
He then stomped his foot and turned sideways to me and I let fly with a good shot . He ran off and then there was silence for about a few minutes . Then in the direction the deer was looking I heard a twig snap . I wondered what it could be . Then a little ways closer to where the deer had ran I heard another stick break . That was a big stick that would take a lot of force to snap . I started to get a little nervous and curious .
I got up and slowly got to where the deer was and found the blood trail . Started trailing it and I noticed that there were large foot prints next to the trail .
I saw the deer up ahead and it appeared to be pulled apart at the back quarters . There was a large hump moss covered looking object next to the deer that for some reason made me feel uneasy .
I stood where I was for quite some time just watching intently and wondering why the deer looked like that . I finally started closer and when I was just a few feet away the hump rose up and it was enormous ! It looked like a man with hair all over and had to be at least eight feet tall . For a moment I was petrified , I pulled an arrow and it stepped toward me and I shot . Missed , grabbed another , dropped it , grabbed the last broadhead and missed again . Now it was coming after me , all I had left was a blunt . Knocked it and I was staring it in the eyes , and the next thing I remember was the thing running away with the arrow stuck in one of its eyes .
I ran back to my campsite as fast as I could and I was scared out of my mind . I stayed there with the fire going and all I had left was my slingshot .
I had to wait until the next day for my friend to show up . When he did I decided not to tell what had happened for fear that I would be thought crazy.
He asked me how things went and I told him about the small game . He ribbed me all the way home about loosing all my arrows . But that was OK , I made it out alive and that was all that mattered mattered to me .
I have never shared this with anybody till now .
I did hear that some old guy claimed to see a Big Foot a few years later that had only one eye .

[tomsm44]

Ok, I've got one more. This is a story of my dad's from just a few years ago.  Not unexplainable, but definitely a little strange.  

It was late summer, and he was heading to check corn and cameras.  He unloaded his 4-wheeler and headed down the trail.  A quarter mile or so from the truck, he saw a couple of wreaths that had been made from vines laying on the side of the trail.  He didn't think too much, because the trail ran down a property line.  A retired guy lived in a little log house on 40 acres that our lease wrapped around 3 sides of.  We'd even given him permission to take his grandson squirrel hunting on our lease.  

My dad figured one of this guy's grandkids had been back there playing around.  A couple hundred feet farther, he found another stack of wreaths.  Then another.  And another.  After finding them in several spots along the trail, he got to a stack where there was some bare dirt instead of leaves and pine straw.  He saw at least two different sets of tracks, maybe more, and they were all from adults.  Of course, that sort of unnerved him.  

He went on about his business, then headed back out, maybe 15-20 minutes later.  When he came back through, all of the wreaths were gone.  Turns out, whoever was making them had hidden when they heard him coming and probably were within just a few yards of him while he was looking at their tracks.  

When he left, he went the opposite direction at the blacktop to swing by a gas station.  Just over the hill from the access road, there was an old beat up van with a trailer behind it parked on the side of the road.  The trailer was loaded down with outdoorsy craft type items like you'd see people selling at a festivals and such.

He said he was glad they decided to just let him pass.

[Gen273]

I am glad to see this one come back up for the new guys, a lot a fun stories in this one!

[mark Willoughby]

I got story I've only ever told my dad this one back when I hunted with a wheel bow I was on my some land behind my parents hunting seemed like a nice evening calm damp overcast I was on the outside of a cedar thicket by a creek in a natural ground blind about 150 yards in the woods open field to my left thicket right in front of me I had been hearing movement all afternoon seemed like it was walking a
Half circle around me back and fourth all night about dark I started gathering my things in preparation for the walk back to my mom n dads a little fog had settled in not bad though after I was all packed up I stood up all of a sudden a strange feeling hit me that I wasn't alone in the timber I could hear something and it was close I shined my light in the direction of the sound and seen nothing so I shrugged it off as nothing i started walking towards home and froze instantly when I heard footsteps behind me I know what I heard looked again and nothing started walking again and the footsteps where back a little closer this time so I picked up the pace to a brisk walk .. so did it now at the time of this incident I was just out the marine corps I was lean and could cover ground real fast so I started a all out Sprint through the woods down the fence line and so did it something was after me and it was very evident i was flat out trucking and so was it knowing everyone that lived on the road I knew of not one person that could move at this pace I kept running what ever it was... was clearly gaining on me getting closer and closer then I hit the fence at my mom n dads and was in open field I heard whatever it was hit the fence as well after I heard that I grabbed my sidearm I always pack I had 5 mags with me of .40 I turned hit the deck and let her rip I put 4 mags in its direction never seeing my target but I was putting the rounds down range anyhow after the shooting stoped I took the last mag reloaded and ran on to the house for some more serious weaponry
My dad asked me what the hell I was shooting at and all I could say was I don't know not the best response ever but it was the truth I told him the story just like it happend and he said my god I hope you didn't kill someone I assured him it was not human no way possible a person was keeping up with me and that's the gods honest truth we talked it over some more and decided to go back to the fence and check it out I swapped my springfield for a ruger mini 14 and we went back to the fence and seen nothing I told him I'm not crazy something was after me we shined the path I came down and you could clearly see something big had came through there that's when he started to believe me the fence was also jacked up the bottom strand of barb wire was laying flat on the ground not nailed to the post anymore to this day I have no clue what it was but I hope I never run across it again this story is the honest truth I've never had a experience like it before

This is not stranger than fiction.  Last week, hunting east of Peterson, Iowa, I was seeing nothing.  I am a musician, so I took out my deer grunt and bleat combo call and played a merry tune that I hoped a deer would like.  In the lowering sun light I saw a light brown animal moving across the woody pasture about 400 yards away.  I figured it was a fawn running to its mama.  A few minutes later after I wailed on the bleat call, I saw it moving through the cedar line of trees coming towards me.  At about 80 yards it showed itself, it was slinking smooth and faster than I wanted to see, at first I thought bobcat.  Wrong, mountain lion.  Scared the begibbers out of me I jumped and yelled like a manly man that missed his mommy. I was hoping it would bolt away, it did not, it turned and headed off to some more cedar cover of which I was sitting near the south end.  I grabbed my Nifty Seat and fled. I called around, others have seen him as well. Now I don't dare to use my deer call at the other place we hunt, someone there found big cat poop and it is only a few miles from where I saw it.  I am too objective to be afraid of bears and ghosts, but real live mamma moose and big kitties throw my objectivity off.

[matt schuster]

This did not happen to me but happened on an old dirt road on which I used to hunt in Georgia.   Two guys had a tent camp set up and a couple of old Deliverance-type rednecks saw their fire and pulled up in an old noisy pickup truck, stopped and chatted for a while.   They did not seem quite right and there was no reason they should have stopped.    After midnight, one of the two hunters woke up and heard the sound of that old truck pull up and stop several hundred yards down the old dirt road.   In a move that saved his life, he woke up his buddy, and they got their rifles and moved outside the light of their dying fire.  The two from the truck walked right up to the tent and opened fire with either rifles or shotguns at which point both were shot and killed by the hunters.  No charges were filed.

This happened maybe twenty years ago or longer. I am a lot more scared of people than I am of anything else in the woods.   Of course,  as I get older, I probably need to most scared of my own foolishness.. .

[Captain*Kirk]

Matt, that is downright scary.

[jimmytidmore]

Can’t even remember how I ran across this thread. Been reading through the posts here and there throughout the past week or so. Had to stop for a few days because I was hunting/camping out in the middle of the woods and didn’t want to freak myself out

Anyway, there are some really good stories here. Thanks for sharing—share some more!

[Doug in MN]

5 years ago hunting in an area that is very close to a small airport outside a town here in MN. I had been in my stand possibly 3 hours it was early season the sun was out I got warm and asleep I went. A very loud noise woke me I turned to the noise to watch a small plane crashing into the trees maybe 75 yards away. His engine had failed on take off, I got out of my stand as fast as possible to go render aid and feared for the worst. As I closed the distance all I could hear was pretty loud cursing and ranting an raving, the plane was upside down and destroyed parts and pieces every where. Inside was the single most crabby ornery human I have ever encountered.  He was hanging by his seat belt upside down maybe 10 feet up. I asked if he was alright all he said was he would be just fine as soon as I got off my ass and got him out of the plane. Got into the tree above him lowered him a rope and he got it around him. He let the seat belt loose and I lowered him down. I was going to check him over for injuries all he said was "I am heading back to the damn airport you stay by the plane" and off he went. I remember thinking what the hell does he think is going to happen to the plane until he gets back.

[ronp]

I'm glad you brought this back up.  A lot of interesting stories to pass the winter time.

[fmscan]

Shot a tom turkey and the other 3 toms jumped all over the dying one. Buddies that can't be trusted...

[1Arrow1Kill]

Don't know if anyone has shared this 'Legend of the Dogman of Northern Michigan'.  Check it out on YouTube:



     I hunt in the woods mentioned in the legend, but not on years that end with '7'.   

[Long Barrel Colt]

These stories are exactly why I carry a handgun while bow hunting (well that and because of any wild dogs)

This every time

[supernaut]

Very happy this thread was brought back up! I just spent about 2 hours reading every post, great stuff! I've always had a fascination for the supernatural, ghosts, aliens, bigfoot and legends since I was a kid and can read stories like these all day long.

As far as my own encounters, I've had a few. Came across a group of what we assumed at the time and later confirmed by a Corps. of Engineers officer as a group of satanists. We were coon hunting with dogs on Corp. of Engineers property on the back waters of a local dam in the early 80's. I shared this story in the "Supernatural" thread awhile back.

I was a funeral director in the early 90's and get asked all the time if I ever experienced anything "weird". Only once. My mom's side of my family are Italian, they are very superstitious. One evening my mom called and said her and her sisters (my aunts) had all gone to see a psychic. I don't really buy into that stuff but whatever. She proceeds to tell me that as soon as she sits down the psychic says to her, "You have a son that works with the dead. I am being bombarded by souls that want me to tell you that they are around your son all the time and look out for him because he took good care of their bodies after they died". I didn't think much of it. Later that night around 2 am I received a death call, put on my suit, went and picked up the deceased and returned to the funeral home to embalm just like I'd done hundreds of times. The embalming room was small and was in the basement of the funeral home, I'd spent a lot of nights there. All of a sudden I was overcome by the feeling that there were hundreds of people in the room with me. I can't explain it and never experienced anything like it before or since. I was rattled and said out loud, "If there is anyone in this room besides me, I appreciate you looking out for me but please don't ever make your presence known to me". As soon as those words left my mouth, it was like someone flicked a switch and I again felt like I was in the room alone. I called my mom the next day and asked her to never talk to me about her psychic visits again. 

[supernaut]

One more. This happened when I was bowhunting about 15 or so years ago. Not necessarily supernatural but eerie and sad and I think of it often.

It was the last day of bow season. I was hunting a 400 acre farm near where I'd grown up and I was the only bowhunter the farmer gave permission to so I had the place all to myself. The rut was hot and heavy and I'd been after a particular, nice 8 point all season. I was pretty sure I had him narrowed down and planned on climbing a tree 20 yards from a giant scrape I knew he was using and sit from before daylight until dark in hopes of getting a shot.

At the time my then fiancee and now wife lived about 30 minutes away. I left well before daylight and was up the tree and ready before the sun came up. I'd seen several deer in the morning and a few smaller bucks chasing throughout the day but not the 8 I was after. At exactly 3:12 pm (I remember because I checked my watch) I heard a single gun shot on the next property over, across a gravel road and I figure maybe 500 yards away. It was fall turkey at the time so I figured someone got a turkey. It was also the only shot I heard all day. Right before dark the 8 point came into the scrape and offered me a perfect shot at 20 yards broadside. I watched the arrow connect with an unseen twig before it got to his vitals and sail way over his back and out of sight. My hunt and season was over. I climbed down, headed for the truck and stopped at a little country store about a half mile up the road for a snack and a drink for the ride home.

The next day (Sunday) my dad calls me and asks if I watched the news yet today. He proceeds to tell me that there is a story about a hunter being shot near where I was hunting. He also says that the state police were at the store I stopped on my way home asking anyone if they'd seen anything. I tell him about hearing the shot and let him know I'm going to call the state police barracks and let them know. I make the call to the barracks, a secretary answers and I tell her about hearing the shot and she takes down my name and address. No biggie, or so I think.

The next day I'm at work and get a frantic call from my fiancee who was also at work. She tells me that our neighbor just called her and state police detectives were at our house with a warrant for my arrest  . I explain the situation to my boss and then call the state police barracks. I get the secretary at the barracks, she puts me on hold and then I get a detective. He assures me that there is no warrant for my arrest but they do want me to come to the barracks to speak with them.

I get to the barracks and am immediately greeted by 4 detectives. They ask if I'm comfortable being interviewed and recorded and I agree. Two of the detectives take me into a room while the other two go into an adjoining room. I sit at a conference table and can immediately tell the room has a panel of two way mirror. I can only assume that the other 2 detectives are watching from the adjoining room. I've never been in trouble with the law in my life, I did nothing wrong but I can tell you....I was nervous! They start recording and want to know every single little detail of everything I did the day before; what time did I get up, where did I hunt, could I take them to the tree if they asked, what did I see, (I had to rehash the story of missing the buck in great detail), what did I hear...everything. They would periodically stop me to ask more details. When I got to the part about hearing the gun shot, I said I was sure it was a shotgun. This really brought on the questions. "How did I know it was a shotgun?". I had to explain that I'd grown up around guns my whole life and I knew what a shotgun sounded like going off.

Once I told my story and they asked their questions the two detectives that were with me told me stay put and excused themselves. About 10 minutes later the other two detectives came in, sat down and asked me to retell the entire days events again  . They stopped me a lot more and asked a lot more questions. I assume they were trying to trip me up or see if I was lying. I finished the tale again and they excused themselves. About 20 minutes later all 4 of them came back in, thanked me for my time and told me I could go and they would call with any further questions. I was there about 4 hours. I never heard back from them.

I finally heard some details regarding the shooting about a week later. The fella that was shot was bowhunting in a portable tree stand just like I had been. Someone walked right up to him while he was in his tree and shot him once with a 12 gauge loaded with 00 buck shot and left him there. His brother found him late that night when he hadn't heard from him he went out looking and knew where he hunted. There was a lot of speculation regarding why he was shot. Some said it was over a married woman and others said it was a long running dispute. To this day the case remains unsolved.

I went back and hunted that farm only once or twice the next season and just never felt right. I've never been back since.