Opening morning of rifle season a few years ago right as the sun came up my target buck was standing at the feeder. I was waiting for the perfect shot when his head whipped back and he took off. Two seconds later the little pigs showed with mama (a huge black sow) right behind her. I told myself over and over not to shoot because I was sure if I did I would never see the buck again. But I just couldn't help myself. I shot mama right through the heart. When I did she squatted and ran into the woods. As the day got brighter I could see two solid red strips that looked like they were painted on the grass. I got out of the stand (for some reason without my pistol) and walked into the woods with my rifle. Only paying attention to all the blood I didn't notice the large boar bedded until I heard his grunt and he was coming toward me. I jumped in the air and I think I got off two shots from my bolt action 270 before my feet hit the ground. I popped the top of his head off about 5 feet in front of me. Now there is really blood everywhere (including me). I called a buddy to come check it out. He could not believe how much blood was produced in that encounter.

Never saw the buck again (live or camera)

Skunks!!!!!

I had to clean my pants on this one...years ago, I lived in and hunted Florida. The lease I was on was swamp land that most years was pretty dry swamp. One particularly rainy year, I had to wade through knee deep water to get to most of my stands. Now, I had never seen much gator activity, but had seen some pretty big tracks, and knew there was at least one BIG gator in the area. So here I am, walking out at night, rifle loaded and in the ready position 'cause I was already spooked by the thought of a big gator somewhere in there. As I am walking, there was a deer bedded down in shallow water and reeds just to my right. She didn't react to me until I was right on top of her, and then she exploded out of the water and bounded off. Thank God I was young, or I probably would have died from a heart attack.

This occurred this past Sunday morning.

I was out swapping cards in my trail cameras for the upcoming bear season in AZ. While on my way to my third camera, I started to hear what sounded like a calf being killed. There are no cattle up there. So being the intelligent person that I am, I pick up the pace to go investigate. As I am closing in on the sound, a very large black bear and I crossed paths (less than 10 yards). He was not impressed with my presence. We literally just stared at each other for awhile and he slowly rambled off. Too bad it was't bear season. Anyway during this encounter the sound disappeared.

With a confirmed unafraid large bear in the immediate area, I did not push my luck on investigating the source of the sound. I swapped cards and made my way out. Cannot wait for August 24 when bear and mountain lion can legally be hunted.

Wasn’t me that was scared, but I was guiding some quail hunters. I took them where I knew a covey would be, and I saw some of the covey, maybe 10 birds, go into a little patch of low scrub about the size of a hubcap. The rest of the covey flew, and shooting started. It was the customers shooting. I just stayed by that little patch. They walked back with some quail and stood by the Jeep. I told one of them, a fellow I knew pretty well, to “kick that little patch”. He wanted to know why, and I said to just give it a little kick, so he did, and those quail came boiling out of there a foot from his face. Man, he jumped way higher than a fat man can normally get. No quail were harmed in the making of that memory.

The old man that ran the ranch for the company was terrified of rattlesnakes. That was fine with me, till that old prankster caught me in the shower and threw a whole trash can full of ice water on me. Man, I had ice stuck in my hair and I screamed bloody murder. He laughed till I thought he’d faint. Ok, old man, this means war. Next day we killed a bunch of quail, and the rule was to bring them in in a cardboard box so the old guy could count them for the records. One of the guys had shot a monster rattler that morning, and I put it in the box of quail. No way could you see a difference between the quail colors and the rattler. Took it back to the ranch, and the old guy started counting them while talking nonstop giving me s___. Then he grabbed that rattler and pulled loops of snake out of that box. Started howling and yelling and cussing me and threatening to kill me, and he picked up a big thick stick and took out after me. Good thing he was old and couldn’t catch me. Lord, I miss that old man....

I have had many encounters with pigs at night, close enough to kick them, I even had a big old boar watch me pass by. But none are as terrifying as quail busting loose.
My worse scare ever was hunting a 20 ft tower blind at night with the wife. I always joked with her about what she would do if she heard someone coming up the stairs at 11:30pm. Sure enough one night right at midnight, we hear the sound of someone coming up the stairs, the blind was even moving the way it does as someone comes up it. I quickly turned a flashlight out the window, reached for for my rifle. There wasn't anything there. This ended the hunt for the wife. As we were walking away from the blind she wasn't saying a word, terrified I guess. I shined my flashlight back at the blind just wondering what that was. As the light hit the window facing us I got the distinct eyeball glow in the window as you would get from deer in the headlights.
My wife's step picked up as she headed for the Ranger. She never said a word till we got back to camp.
I too was startled, especially from the steps, but I am a simple guy and figured there was explanation for this, wind, light off the glass, our minds playing tricks on us, whatever. I never figured that one out. I love to share the story with kids when hunting at night.

Where I hunt on Ft Hood there is an old cemetery in the area. Its fenced off and was from some settlers. Anyways its right down by a creek real thick and dark. First time I walked back there by myself at night it was a little creepy but doesn't bother me anymore.

I had just spent two days in a wilderness area in Nevada and I was hiking back to the truck in the dark. I got back to the trail head at about 11 pm and my truck was the only one in the parking area. I was about 100 feet away from the truck when got my keys out of my pocket to unlock the doors with the remote. When the dome light came on, I could see a shadow of a head through the window, not inside the cab but on the opposite side from me. It ducked but it didn't run away. It wasn't big enough to be a wild horse so I was pretty freaked out. I clicked the button again to relock the door and he dropped to the ground to try to hide behind the tire. Then I knew it was a person. I paused for about ten minutes debating on what I should do. There was no cell phone service and no place else to go except back up the mountain. I approached cautiously with a flashlight in one hand and a weapon in the other. When I got about 50 feet away, the guy got up and ran down the road. Before he was out of site, a second guy emerged from a bush and ran down the road behind him. There was only one way out and I didn't see anyone or any other vehicles on my way out. It was 75-80 miles to the nearest town.

Whoa..

There are a lot easier vehicles to break into in the city! Pretty scary.

I was hunting a pipeline in Angela County about 42 years ago. I was in a ground blind watching everything (squirrels, coons, birds, etc) in my binoculars. I few crows were yakking it up. It is amazing how noisy the woods can be. Then it got very quite. For 5 or six minutes there was no noise. I'm scanning the creek than ran though the pipeline and something big walked out of the woods, across the creek and back into the woods. It was on two legs and only took about three steps and went back into the woods. I have no idea what it was and I don't believe in Bigfoot, but I saw something. About 20 minutes later the woods got noisy again and I saw a few does.

Before daylight , I climbed in a box stand whose walls had been carpeted for sound proofing.
There was a ringtail cat inside the walls and was not happy at all about
sharing his stand. This was my first encounter with one of these critters, I thought I was
about to be eaten alive.

MO

I've had critters/owls in the blind, stepped next to quail, heard all kinds of weird noises at night.

Worst was one afternoon/evening I was in my blind and on the next property over I noticed something "white" in the bushes, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. It would move slightly but not much, it was the weirdest thing I had seen and I know I hadn't seen it there before.

After what seemed for forever, I finally realized what it was when some big fat girl stood up and walked off. Guess she was relieving herself. I am not sure where she came from or where she went to, I had never and haven't since seen anyone on that property (it is called a city park, but closed to visitors and all raw/native property) But after that I left my blind and went back to camp to have a beer and try to remove the thought from my mind.

Admiring the big Banana Spiders and their catch on the way to an evening hunt, only to walk "face Full" into one of their webs at night on the way back! All kinds of Ninja Moves in the darkness. I use more than a pen light to walk back at night now...

Hearing an Elk in rut bugle (1st time) while camping alone in Northern AZ, at 2am.

I've always thought people to be the scariest things in the woods. Animals are predictable; people are nuts.

Heard a large Mtn Lion sound off one afternoon right before dark..another one of our hunters heard it aswell..scary!!

Back in high school I hunted a lease in Brady. It had a big 2 story house set back in the woods over a mile from the road. Back in those days we didn't have any feeders we just walked to an area and set up under a tree and waited. Well one night right at dusk I started back toward the house and out of the corner of my eye spotted some movement up ahead. Went instantly into ninja mode and sneaked up to the spot. As I was getting closer and closer I just knew something was there and when I got to the spot, the tree next to it literally exploded.....in turkeys!!!! Well I had never seen a turkey in the wild and didn't know they sat in tree's! Needless to say I had to take a moment or two and collect my thoughts!!!

Roaches. I can handle spiders. Roaches make me want to scream like a woman. Not in the woods but way back when I used to live in the sugar tree apartments in corpus over by the bluff. I was laying in bed, complete dark. I heard a roach scurry across the ceiling above me and stop. Two seconds later I felt a "thud" on my sheets. I screamed like a little girl and shot out of bed like I was being electrocuted. Damn I hate roaches. I never found it. I slept on the couch for days.

A skunk and covey of quail will ruin a morning walk in quick. I carry a pistol to the stand regardless of if I need it or not. Just makes me feel better if having to deal with a hog, cat, meth head, etc. I can’t think of a specific instance but I’ve hear some really weird stuff in the woods. Between growling, clawing and what sounded like outright screams nothing really surprises me anymore.

The dark usually doesn’t bother me, but once I had an encounter I won’t soon forget.

Years ago I was walking to my bowstand located about 1/4 mile deep in the canebrake bottoms. My little Maglite hit a reflective “eye” about 40 yards ahead. It was huge. The eye would disappear, then reappear. I was literally frozen in place. No gun. I stood there long minutes trying to decide whether to fight or flee. By default I did neither - just stood there in an interminable game of “chicken” with the humongous creature that would disappear behind a huge oak and then reappear to give me the evil eye.

Finally it got light enough to see this monster - a mylar balloon wishing me “Happy Birthday!” that had floated down from the sky and picked the oak tree along my path to settle down behind.

Pure greatness.....

That's Classic!

I would have had to shoot the balloon out of pure spite......

Some years ago I was bow hunting a tripod at our old lease. Right about sunset I hear something large moving through the brush towards me like a bull dozer. It was not the careful footfalls that a deer makes. It's getting closer and closer and I'm thinking I'm about to get a shot at a grande boar. It's coming straight in behind me, so I don't turn to look as I don't want to spook it. Whatever it is gets within about 15 yards and stops. It then let's out a super loud and deep growl/grunt. Never heard the sound before in all my time in the woods. At this point my curiosity is peaked, so I spin around while simultaneously coming to full draw. Whatever it was got a slight jump moving, and all I could see was brush crashing as it fled. But but the way it was displacing brush and trees it was big!

Later that weekend a buddy that was at the lease with me heard the same growl not far away as he stepped out of the cabin door to take a leak around 10 at night. It spooked him so bad he did not hunt the next morning.

Still don't know what it was. We looked for tracks, but there were none in the hard, dry earth that October. Never heard it after that evening.