Spooky experiences turkey huntin........

[chatterbox]

One scary moment I had occured a few years back on a turkey hunt with my son Harrison.
We were headed out to a spot where I had had a successful harvest the year before. It was early in the morning with a bright full moon.
About halfway across the field, coyotes started howling. I have never in all my years of walking in the pre-dawn woods heard so many. They were literally all around us, howling and baying at the moon. I look back, and Harrison's eyes were as big as quarters, and I have to admit, for the first time I was afraid. Not for me, but for my son. I actually clicked the red dot on on my shotgun, and had him stay right where I could see him. I figured between my headlight and the moon, I could fill at least one dog with birdshot if need be.
We got into our spot, and never encountered a song dog all morning. Interestingly enough, it didn't keep the turkeys from gobbling.

[WNM]

Plenty of encounters with coyotes that make you uneasy at the time.

When I was younger, my dad and I would fish our pond in Orangeburg Country, SC a lot. The pond had been there for 50 years when my great-grandfather and his friends built it. They had always told a story about stopping to give a fella a ride on the road outside the gate, and when they got out the car, the guy had just vanished. It shook them up, but everyone thought it was a bunch of bunk.

This particular morning was probably in January, cold and windless, and I was around 12 years old.

Being December, all of the leaves had hit the ground, so we had good visibility up around the banks and into the woods. We had been fishing for an hour or so, and I noticed my dad kept looking up into the woods and was taking a good bit of time between cast when he was looking. He whispered and asked me if I saw "that" back up in the trees. I figured he was trying to get me looking hard so he could rock the boat, holler loud, and try and spook me.

I just told him I didn't see anything and kept casting.  He intentionally (at least it looked like it) casted his plastic lizard up into a tree, pulled the boat up to the bank, and stood up. Him standing up had me on edge since he always preached that I couldn't stand up in the little 12' jon boat, especially by myself.

He got his line free, and motored out from the bank, never taking his eyes off a spot back in the woods. Without talking louder than a whisper, he told me to look back in trees, 100 yards or so. Finally I saw it. It looked like a person standing half behind a tree, looking at us.

Now there wasn't a whisper of wind, and without a doubt, that "person" was swaying, a little unsteady on "his" feet. We just sat there quiet, watching. It eased behind that tree, and that was all we saw of it. We sat there waiting to see the trespasser (no reason for there to be one after deer season and pretty poor fishing weather) or deer or whatever walk off, but the woods kept deadly silent and still.

We fished for a little while more and rode to where we saw that thing. No leaves overturned, no tracks in the dirt road (7/10 of a mile from the locked gate to that spot), no car tracks on the road outside the gate, nothing.

I don't know what that was, but it still gives me chills typing this up.

[sixbird]

My story isn't a turkey hunting story, but it was spooky...
First day of deer season in Pa. I had scouted out a spot far down an abandoned logging road. The road curved around the side of the mountain as it descended toward the bottom and a creek that I would set up along. There were fallen trees and rocky areas that required my attention on the descent in the darkness.
As I was making my way I heard what sounded like a faint "woof"
Knowing that bears could still be circulating and the idea that the coyote population was booming, I stopped and listened intently. Being a dark morning and not being able to see more than a few feet, I waited for the rushing of feet in the leaves.
I HEARD IT AGAIN! This time slightly louder!
I unshouldered my rifle ,jacked a shell into the chamber, thinking I'd at least be able to get one shot off before the attack...
Suddenly I heard it... the sound of a mans voice... "easy..."
That's when I realized that some hapless fella' had decided to stop for his morning constitutional, right in the middle of the trail...The "woofing"...well you can guess
I'm not sure who was more shook up!
I just passed by and offered my apologies...Thankfully it was too dark to get a good visual :^)

[lightsoutcalls]

A couple of years ago my hunting buddy and I decided to camp out for a couple of nights in the national forest on the opening weekend of turkey season.  We spent the night in one area that had a horse camp.  The next morning we got to the place we had scouted the previous day and found 2 vehicles already parked there before daylight.  Grrr.  We did some more scouting and found even more sign on a gated road with no sign of human entry.  We moved our camp and set up the tent right in front of the gate, about 20 yards off the main road.  We used the nearby creek to bathe and freshen up before bedtime.  We stayed up late talking around a campfire and eating roasted peanuts.  All was good in the woods. 
That night a thunderstorm of epic proportions rolled in.  Laying on a cot in that tent, I had never heard thunder so loud or experienced lightning so bright.  Even my buddy, who's a good guy, but doesn't claim to pray much, commented the next morning that he made a point to pray that he was ready to go if it came to that.  I don't know that I have ever experienced that kind of intensity in a thunderstorm.
The next morning as I was walking down the forestry road to where I planned to hunt (still dark out) I noticed something light colored on the road that wasn't there the day before.  As I got closer, I noticed a light colored place on a nearby tree. Lightning had hit a tree within 150 yards of our tent and blew bark across the forestry road.   

[barry]

Several years before my accident a friend and I decided to hunt the National Forest on the last day of turkey season. We chose a spot where I had bear hunted the fall before, it had a good walking trail that went thru hundreds of acres of big woods. We walked and listened and walked and listened, nothing. As we neared the end of the trail, a mile or more from the truck, we decide to just sit for a while and see if we could hear one gobble. I sat straddling and old dead log. We sat there for 1/2 an hour or so without hearing a peep. Deciding that was long enuff we  stood up to continue on, in doing so I looked under the log I had been setting on and there was a rattlesnake coiled up. It was then that I realized that my feet had been just inches away from him the whole time, that's when my legs got a little weak.

[coyotetrpr]

I would have probably wet myself a little.

[3" 870 Shell Shucker]

It was a cold dark night right on the edge of hell......

OK, it was an out of state hunting trip to South Carolina, and I was far from the camp house.  I was dropped off by truck at mid-day, and I told them that I would hunt until dark.  I put out some Tink's 69 before I climbed into the shooting house, partly because this had been a very slow trip with very few deer sightings by anyone in our hunting party.  At least the trip didn't cost much.

About 10 minutes before black dark, I got down out of the shooting house and started walking in the direction I expected they would approach from when they came to pick me up.  I got a couple hundred yards down the trail, and I heard something rustling the leaves.  I stopped.  My flashlight couldn't illuminate the source of the noise in the brush.  I had a bolt action rifle with a large scope as low as it could be mounted, and a fairly weak flashlight.  (LED flashlights weren't out yet.)

I hear the noise again.  I can't see the source.  It moves.  I still can't see it.  Now it's getting really dark.  The source of the noise is circling me.  I can't see it.  I hear it over here.  Then I hear it over there.  I'm turning around in circles, thinking that I must have gotten some of the Tink's 69 on my hands or shoes.  The guy who hosted us at this camp had said that they had a lot of coyotes on their property.

The source of the noise is getting closer.  It's still circling me.  I try to remain in a position facing the noise.  It occurs to me that there may be more than one.  Still getting closer.  Still circling.  Where's that dang truck?, I wondered.  Still closer.  Still circling.  I would have shot whatever it was, but I couldn't see it.  It stayed just outside of my flashlight's reach.  Still circling.

In desperation I did the only thing I could think of........I started loudly singing Victory in Jesus, right at the chorus, "Victory in Jesus, my Saviour Forever!!!".  

#1. I thought that doing so might keep me from being misidentified by any potential predators.
#2. I was ready for Jesus to show up.

Just then I saw the headlights of the truck.

[OldSwamper]

As you can see this is my first post.  As I read some of the stories, I couldn't help but laugh at my story from years ago.  My brothers and dad still laugh about it.....As youngsters, my dad always carried us deer hunting on a dog hunting club on a nearby river.  old bottomland woods if you will....Anyways, I had finally reached the age of being able to sit by myself.  My dad and brothers dropped me off and continued on to the next stands.  Well, we all know how creative a young boys mind can get, especially in the woods when alone.  As it turns out, it wasn't long before i saw IT.  And man was it big.  I kept telling myself it wasn't real but again, creativity was kicking in.  So I sat for the rest of the morning with one eye watching IT.  although enormous, IT was very patient as it never moved the whole time i sat there.  Near lunch time, my dad and brothers come by and pick me up and we walk out.  I relay the mornings events and my brothers begin laughing and picking on me.  Dad even chuckles a little bit.  Much to my dismay, they don't believe my story, despite my detailed account.  I still hear about it today.....

I don't care what they believe, dadgummit, i know what i saw, and it was a Man Eating Rabbit.  rumor has it he still lurks in those woods.  you know what, that could have been the crash i heard this year that ran off the ole TOM that was coming to me.......

[Neill_Prater]

I've had a few things scare me when I'm hunting, but the only thing I can recall as actually being "spooky" was once while turkey hunting here in MO some 30 years ago. I was on public land and had heard a bird gobble in the vicinity. I was sitting, calling occasionally, as best as I can remember. A friend of mine, Paul, had discussed going that morning, but was a no-show. I was sitting, listening intently, when I swear I heard someone say my name. It didn't scare me at all, because I immediately thought it was probably Paul, who had simply arrived late, and saw me sitting by the tree. When I spoke to him, no one was there, anywhere!

Now, years later, I think I probably dozed off into that place between being awake and sleeping, and thought someone had spoken my name, but I'm still not sure. Neill

[Neill_Prater]

I'm going to post a story that I read many years ago in some outdoor magazine. I apologize to the original author, whoever he may be. If I remember correctly, it was in a "letter to the editor" section, or something similar.

The author said he was hunting from a tree stand along the edge of a large field late one evening. Several does moved out into the open and were feeding. He was after a buck, so just sat there and watched them. Suddenly, the does all alerted on something at the far end of the field. He couldn't see anything, but all the does kept watching intently.

Then,  as if something was walking down the center of the open field, all the deer watched, moving their heads in unison, as the unseen object of their attention went past them, until they eventually went back to feeding.

That story still gives me the willies. Neill

[redleg06]

A few years ago we had a place in SW Texas and my Brother in Law had came out there with me turkey hunting for the first time (first time in TX - , not first time turkey hunting -he's from Bama) and I dropped him off on a spot we'd roosted some birds. It was unusually cold and wet for that area and time of year and he'd borrowed every spare piece of hunting clothing he could find. He looked like a camoflauge Michelin Man he was so bundled up. Anyhow, I drop him off WAY too early because I had to get a good ways to walk/ set up in another spot.  I had just got to my listening spot and almost immidiately I hear 3 shots right together BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! and then nothing...  This area isnt real populated and we had about 2600 acres to ourselves so I knew it had to be him and it was way to early to be shooting light and he isnt the kind of inexperienced hunter to just go blasting around in the dark like that.  I immidiately assume the worst and head back his way.  I'd probably walked a good 10-15 min and then got to the truck  to drive back up to the area he was in. It was still fairly early and I could hear birds in the distance when I got to the area so instead of driving right out on top of the area, I decided to park with as minimal disturbance as possible, just in case he was still planning on hunting etc.  So I ease up out there and it's just enough light at this point that he could see my outline and I hear him start sort of shouting "HEY! HEY!  GO ON NOW GET OUTTA HERE!!!.....SHU  SHU!!!" .....  When he started "shu'ing" me, I realized he didnt know what I was and he must have thought I was some kind of animal he was trying to alert of his presence....    I thought about playing along and trying to scare him further but I realized he'd manage to find the only climbable size tree out in west Tx and he was ALL the way up it!!!  

I told him it was just me and then had to ask what the hell had happened.  He came down out of that tree and said that right after I'd left, he could see a couple dark shapes run out in to the field beside him and start walking his way. He said he couldnt make out what they were and had almost talked himself into them being turkey.....well he didnt know it at the time but he'd just seen his first javalina's!  He said they kept getting closer and closer to him and then when he tried to shuffle around and move to let them know he was there, they started chomping their teeth at him and one of them grunted and started acting like he was going to charge so he shot 3 times, dropped the gun, and climbed the tree!!! said he wasnt planning on coming back out of the tree till I showed up with more ammo!  Hilarious to hear him tell it.

[ccleroy]

Wheres the story of the fella where him and his brother were abducted by Indians?

[Eric Gregg]

My father in law told a story that sends chills up my spine every time I think about it.
He and his brothers own some old family land that is sectioned off for each brother. They used to live there years ago, but now the old house spot is grown over, the house is fallen down, and there is a long winding road that bi-sects the property. He told me a story of one time, late one evening he was walking down that road to feel the presence of like something was following him. He looked behind him and there was a red colored orbe/ball that was hovering following him. He looked hard to make sure it wasn't a flashlight and could tell that it wasn't. He got the willies and headed on out of there 

I heard another guy on this forum talk about a orbe or light following them........
There are some good stories that will keep you out of the woods.

[CASH]

Well my spooky story literally just happened.  I was engrossed in Hooksfans sasquatch story and didn't hear my wife open the door to my man cave.  All I heard was "G'night" and I just about wet myself and bolted out of my lazy boy

[CASH]

this past spring was camping in the forest the first few days of the season and getting out of your tent one morning and look over towards the canopy and there is cash, seeing that in the dark with a latern barely on scarrrrrry.

scott