I feel much more uncomfortable coming OUT of the woods than going in. It's getting darker and colder by the minute, a fog is beginning to develop. I think there's some holdover from stone age days in the human mid-brain that virtually screams "woods alone at night -- not safe".

Mornings are worse than night. That could be from the liquid courage I consumed during the day. For me it's more with the snakes and the ranchers mean arse bull. Either way it still gives me the willies.

About 10 years ago I was walking back to my truck after dark and there was a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of hogs across the brush covered fenceline and I got spooked big-time.Why I don't know but I was all alone on the lease.My truck never looked so good!Another time I went to pick up a lady hunter with my truck about 75 yds. from the blind and about half-way a group of coyotes (sounded like a hundred) started their thing and then another hundred started up and both seemed to be converging on our spot.The lady almost climbed up up on my back and her actions freaked me out too.Again,my truck was a welcome haven. Kix

Funny how we may be scared or nervous on the way in or out, but once we are in our completely wide open tree stand with absolutely no protection around us, we feel 100% safe. I will admit, I have had a few mornings with the blood pumping really hard before the sun came up.

I never go int bear country without at least a big handgun. even if only fishing! I fish Alaska a lot, and those big brown up there make a YellowStone Grizz look like a jackrabbit! Those guys look like a Volkswaggon with hair, day or night, and they are not imtimedated by the sight of mere human!





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As far as having a hand gun bow hunting, is it legal? I wouldn't shoot a white tail with a pistol if I was bow hunting. If it is illegal when bow hunting for deer, whose to say I wasn't pig hunting and hoping for a bow shot but would settle for a pistol shot? From what I gather, you can have both if your hunting pig's. Another thought is; if you are hunting deer with a bow and you carry a pistol to your stand, if you put the pistol on the ground before you get in, ten yards away from your stand is that legal? I carry one as I walk to my bow stand because I'm sick of running from donkey's and pigs in the dark. It is more of a piece of mind for me knowing I'm not helpless.

For fourty years I never had a problem untill I read all these post. Now I'm not so sure. We'll see what happens in a couple weeks.

Sometimes I'll hear a noise and feel like I'm creeping through one of those date palm groves into an OP

if not in the boat usually carry some buck shot

Of all the things, I get more freaked out when I hit a spider web and while I'm trying to get all of it off of me I can't help but think where the little creep is going to bite me and what kind it is.

yeah and I hunt the creek bottom so hogs grunting and squeeling is regular. I have literaly walked INTO packs of them during bow season in the mornings. I now wait until right at first light and seems chances of ambush on the way in are just as good sometimes as setting over the feeder.

I've always been worried about what could be in my deer blind in the dark...just as I begin to crawl into it. By the way, my deer blind is a pop up tent on the ground. LOL

Thats funny, but you do have a point. Reason i say that, My Step Dad knocked his self out one morning, on the window frame above the door, trying to get out of a box stand that had a ring tailed cat in it. Lucky the stand was on the ground. He showed back up at camp, with this big ole knot on his forhead, it was a really good story!

I lost hunters twice on the doe hunt, last weekend. I told them to follow the road, looking for flagging tape ect. to get to the blind. I wonder now if he was a lil scared and then took too many steps

Leaving after dark probably gets me the most. Not really afraid of animals in the dark although I've had my scares. More worried of people I guess being on public land adds to that. Never had that feeling hunting on a lease or uncles land in Oklahoma. Having been away from the vehicle for 4 or 5 hours approacing it in the dark gives me the jitters. You'd have to be crazy to mess with an armed hunter but .... there are crazy people out there.

Humans are the most dangerous thing you might encounter out there.

When we found our lease on the Sabine river I was looking around the net and found a site that reported a Bigfoot sighting less than 2 miles from our lease.

Most of your brain knows it's BS but when you are walking back to camp through the river bottom woods on a moonless night you can't help but wonder a little. Putting my hand on the my Walther P99 .40 in its holster always makes it better.

Night vision is a wonderful thing for sorting out what is making those sounds and what those things are that wander in the dark...

Guess the scariest for me was on a mule deer and mountain lion hunt in South texas near Dryden. We were on 40,000 acres and the guide had to begin dropping us off at 4:30 in the morning. Luck would have it that i was first dropped off, so had to climb to the top of a mesa and sit for over hours in the pitch black. What made it worse was the DEA came to our camp the night before and said to watch out for drug runners who ran the arroyos in the night! I had no stand, just me and the mesquite and rocks. Really wierd. On my lease I have now, we are overrun with hogs, so have to carry a sidearm when bow and rifle hunting. Was hiking down a little canyon opening weekend of bow season, in pea soup fog, and scared up a mess of pigs at the bottom. Scared the #$@& out of me, but I guess that is why we do what we do. If there wasnt some element of risk, then we might as well go to the grocery store to pick up our meat!

Ranch in south texas that we hunted last few years landowner insisted that you have a firearm at all times...bad russian hog problems

Nothing like having a hog that's hidden in the nearby brush, growling at you in the dark and you can't see 'em. Have had this happen to me twice and it's pretty scary.

Or flushing a covey of quail in the dark! Yeesh! That'll get your goat every time!

My 6'3" 240lb son tells a story about walking a high line through a cedar thicket one stormy night a few years back with a dim headlight looking for power problems. He works for a Power Company. He busted a big bunch of hogs. I don't think I have ever heard the whole story yet for he gets to laughing telling it and can't ever finish the story. He says he doesn't know who it scared the worse him or the pigs.

When I was a kid and dad and I would part ways on the way to our stands I'd get scared. Worst was when I woke up an owl that launched itself from the tree right in front of me. I went about 20 years camping and hunting by myself and was pretty much over the 'fraid of the dark thing. Then people started finding meth-labs and marijuana fields around my place, and we started having things stolen from camp. That's when I started to get worried again and started carrying a handgun with me EVERYWHERE when out there by myself. It's not the boogie man or four legged or winged varmints that bother me now, it's the idea of walking up on a bunch of meth-heads or transients.

Have had the same problems in the past in Callahan and Stephens counties. I made it a point to meet the local sheriff and his deputies and asked for a close patrol - which in rural areas is maybe a drive by once a week. I also posted signs (with the permission of the landowner and sheriff) that offered a reward for any trespassing and had the sheriffs name and phone number on the signs. We had a big theft problem and this actually worked. It helped that the landowner was a good friend of the sheriff, and that I knew the sheriff in Eastland county. Point is, if word gets out (and it will)the druggies will find somewhere else to pitch their tent. In our case, I had casually mentioned to the oil guy who had access to our lease we were having issues. Turns out the guys who raided our camp were friends of his son. We also had concealed cameras set up, the sheriff knew where they were, and I gave him permission to access the camera for trespass pics.