Spotting mountain lion on way to stand - meh...

When you are walking along in the dark and shining your flashlight off into the woods, maybe your imagination goes to a cougar watching you, and you quicken the pace 'til you convince yourself to get real. Here is something else to get the nerves ends firing...how about a random tiger.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/tiger-knoxville-tennessee

I was on a lease years back and one of the guys was scared to death he was going to get are walking to his blind by a pet lion or tiger that got loose.

I'll be 71 next month and when I walk to the stand in the dark, if you were to jump out and yell Boo!, I would unload
my gun on you, reload and unload again.........then say, "who's there?" It's not that I'm a scaredy- cat.... I'm just a little overly
cautious when in the woods in the dark.

Yep, I'm more afraid of the animals that walk erect on two legs even in rural/woods than any cat (now if in grizz country that is exception) because there are just some crazy people out there, especially in more prone poaching and meth locations. Plus now with all the night vision and thermal hunters, night safety takes on further new meaning.

It bothered me greatly as a 10-yr old, especially after a cat of some kind circled my tree in the dark screeching bloody murder at me for about half a pre-dawn hour one time. It hardly bothers me at all now but I am wary of snakes, skunks, hogs, and 2-legged vermin.

Stepping on a rattlesnake is the only thing that concerns me in the dark. I rarely use a flashlight so not to scare wildlife and generally walking on a road. I think it exciting being on the ranch in the dark, all sorts of things happening. I've walked into pigs, quail, cows, and deer several times. I live on the ranch and hunt most days during deer season so have seen a lot and heard a lot.

I think it was in the late '90s or early 2000's there was a traveling circus at their Winter camp somewhere between Big Sandy and Gladewater. Somehow some of the big cats got out of the enclosures. They were able to get all but one tiger back pretty quick. The one tiger was on the loose for a couple weeks. If I remember correctly, it was finally shot by a land owner out checking his stock.

When we had our ranch just outside of Hawkins I used to see track and scat from a cougar. Everyone told me it was something else until a guy shot a cougar in his backyard inside the City limits attacking his dog. That woke a lot of people up.

In all honesty, it's the skunks that scare me the most. I'm OK with snakes, pigs and even the two legged vermin. Confident that I could handle any of them. A skunk will send me running screaming like a little girl.

Lol. When I was a teenager I was out scouting some family land that I got permission to deer hunt on. A skunk started walking down the same trail I was on, heading right for me. I yelled at it, but it kept coming. I didn’t have a gun on me, so I picked up a stick and chunked it at him. That pizzed him off, it opened it’s mouth and took off after me in a full run. Sucker must have chased me 100 yards before it quit running. Wasn’t scared of me one bit lol.

The skunk was likely attracted to your screaming like a little girl

Waking up a covey of quail on the way to the blind will get anyone's heart racing.

Yep!

Years ago I went to visit my folks over in NE Louisiana to do a little visiting and hunting. When I arrived after dark, Dad was laughing about what had happened that evening. He and my BiL were leaving their stands and walking to the truck, which was maybe 1000 yards away. A cat yowled and screeched (bobcat, we guessed), and it was real loud and close. Dad said it was pitch dark as he turned to where the BiL was standing and he commented on the eerie sound. The BiL didn’t respond. Dad took out his flashlight and the BiL wasn’t there, but one glove was. Down the dirt road was another glove. The BiL was waiting in the truck with the doors locked. He had run that 1000 yards in the mud. Dad said they didn’t discuss it, but he and I sure had a laugh and a bit of whisky over it.

The BiL is a great hunter and a great guy, but he does not like the dark.

I hunt more in the dark than I do in daylight

Porcupines....yes we have them in Texas....are the most startling thing I have run into in the dark. I generally don't use a light and they make a massive amount of noise that doesn't fit into the normal things that go bump in the night. They make an angry kazoo sound, chomp their jaws (loudly), shake the quills which makes a rattling sound...and chase you running backward similar to a skunk.

Yes sir - I was just about to post that same thing! I was on a hunt years ago near Sanderson/Dryden area, sitting on a ridge about an hour before sunrise when a lion let loose a blood curdling scream. That ranch was about 40K acres and the outfitter required that 2 of us hunt within radio range (back before cell phones) in case of a problem. After that cat screamed I radio'd him and he said he was shaking in his boots as he heard it as well.

I walked up on one every morning on the way to the blind for an entire deer season. I would even change my route for that part, in hopes of avoiding them. Didn’t matter. I hit them every single time. I knew it was coming, too. That also didn’t matter. I know it shaved years off of my life.

Walking up on a group javi's will wake you up.

Many years ago I was hunting elk in Northern Arizona. Before dawn 3 of us were walking in and walked into a bunch of bedded elk. They bolted and busted into trees, etc. This lasted for probably less than 5 seconds. Nobody got hurt but one guy had wet his pants and had to go back to camp to change clothes. That was me.

Yep, had a covey roosted under a ladder stand. They busted out when I was on the second step, scared the heck out of me.

A tiger on the loose would damn sure make me nervous.
A mountain lion is one thing but a 600 lb cat with 3" long teeth...….you don't stand a chance unless you hit him square in the brain with the first shot!

The need to get Joe Exotic out of pen and have him come sweet talk this tiger out of the brush!

Had a dicey encounter with a badger one night on my way back to the truck. I think those things are born grumpy and never outgrow it.

This requires details.....

Agree with others, quail will give you a heart attack, but skunks are my real worry.

Only way to scare a badger is to make lovey, lovey, come here big boy sounds. He'll get out of there in a hurry.

For me, it's aliens that I worry about.

It doesn't even need to be dark, I was stalking a group of does a couple of years back in tall grass and had a covey of quail explode out in front of me. Scared the crap out of me and ruined my stalk. I've run into porcupines, deer and hogs on the way to a blind, that will wake you up in the AM! Scrambled up a herd of Aoudad one time at my friend's ranch, it was pandemonium of hooves over rocks, running right past me out of a big cedar clump. My heart didn't stop beating hard until after first light!

I didn’t want to say anything. Thought I was the only one.

These days I have, more than once, walked into a mess of pigs when coming back from afternoon hunting.

Yes! This just happened to me yesterday evening walking to my feeder to pull camera card and a covey of about 10 blew up out of nowhere and scared the bejeezus out of me. Always does. Wife was laughing her butt off 30-40 yards behind me. Was good to see that big of a covey though. Them and coachwhips, especially when the dang things are coiled up at a gate and take off hauling legless a$$ soon as you get right on top of them!

Snakes are what I worry about. Can't stand them. I lived in Alaska for several years and the best thing about it was I could walk wherever I wanted and know for certain I wasn't going to run into a snake. I would much rather bump into an angry grizzly than a calm garter snake.