Most Dangerous Moment Afield

[Gunner46]

I really couldn't figure out which thread to post this under, so here I landed.

In our collective OYOA' s, what was the most Dangerous situation you were faced with?: Be it weather, a confrontation with an anmial, or just caught where you needn't be at the moment. Tell it.

Lert's make this a training session for everyone. A read & remember, so we won't let it creep up on another one of us, and wind up inadvertantly losing a Brother !

 

[CJ...$]

I fell off a 15ft. cliff down in patagonia... ledge underneath me gave way. i was on an outcropping with no support under it...boom it just went..this was 20yrs ago... Saved my big Coues.. scratched up the winchester a bit... but hobbled back to the boat...2 yrs later I retired on disability... my hip is still trashed today but I manage just fine....you get used to the pain after a while... It could have been worse....My buddy was at the other end of the lake... was a great hunt.. other than smashing my hip up for life.

 

[onpoint]

after my wife let an absolutely stupendous whitetail buck slip away because she didn't see it under her nose, I said to her in my special tone...."well you really F#@%ed that up".

 

[highmountian]

Well stumbled on a sow with three cubs eating on a dead bull elk. Not good with no weapon in hand. See charged and I started yelling, barking , screaming, etc..... all while I faced her with hands held high as possible. She stopped at five feet out and stood on her hind legs. Yep she actually looked down to me. Don't really know way she stop at five feet but thank God she did!! She went up hill as I jumped down hill to get away from her. Man was it way to close for me. Always pack now!!!!

 

[montanadogs]

Set a stand up on an island that has no ground cover but have been tons of nice bulls on for a number of years. You have to float to it with a raft of canoe. One side of the river you can not hunt on due to it being a national park the side you come in on is public. My buddy and I set out at 4 am one cold morning. We made it to the island with no problem. I got up into the stand and my buddy floated back across to set up in an other area. Just before sunrise I hear some splashing and think here they come. Well when sunrise does come I find myself in a very tight spot. About 60 yards from the stand is a female grizz with 2 cubs feeding on a dead elk right on the shoreline of where we landed. I usually carry a pistol with me but that day I didn't. I sat there for about 6 hours while they eat slept played etc. I really wished I had a camera with me. About 2 hours after they left I see my buddy coming down the river. As he gets closer he starts yelling at me to make a run for him. I look over my shoulder on the hill opposite and see the bears staring at him. They are about a 1/2 mile off. I climb down as quickly as I could run about 60 yards and jump into the canoe and we are off as fast as we could. When I made it into the canoe we could hear splashing from across the island but couldn't see anything. When we made got into the fast current only then did we look back. All three were at the end of the island making there way into the water. We paddled as fast as we could for the rest of the 2 mile trip down the river until we got to the trucks. When in bear country always be prepared.

 

[Gunner46]

OK !! Everybody !!! Pay Attention....This is what this post is all about......keeping our Brother's of OYOA alive and doing well, so we can ALL share future stories.

Uh..Hummm....OnPoint, that was a rookie move. Ok, Ok, Forgiven. But , important lessons come hard sometimes. Just don't ever do that dumba$$ mistake again.

Jeeeeezzzeee...

 

[onpoint]

That was not a rookie move. That was 20 years of polished marital attitude at work. The other replies so far have dealt with falls and bears. Child's play. A pissed off wife and 20 year marriage veteran - who earns more than the husband - with a .257 Roberts - alone with her offender- who has a life insurance policy- in the middle of bum*&^% southeast Montana......and you think this is not a dangerous situation for the poor hunter/husband dude? I am relating this true story to keep guys alive and married to their sugar mamas so they can both live and afford to hunt another day. Geez

The buck was huge.

 

[shoots-straight]

That was not a rookie move. That was 20 years of polished marital attitude at work. The other replies so far have dealt with falls and bears. Child's play. A pissed off wife and 20 year marriage veteran - who earns more than the husband - with a .257 Roberts - alone with her offender- who has a life insurance policy- in the middle of bum*&^% southeast Montana......and you think this is not a dangerous situation for the poor hunter/husband dude? I am relating this true story to keep guys alive and married to their sugar mamas so they can both live and afford to hunt another day. Geez

The buck was huge.

That's why I never taught my wife to shoot, or hunt. One bad day on PMS, and bam! :hump:

 

[onpoint]

That's why I never taught my wife to shoot, or hunt. One bad day on PMS, and bam! :hump:

There, I told a story. good enuf??

 

[shoots-straight]

I liked it. Tell another, these people are learning valuable lessons here.

 

[shoots-straight]

Next time add pictures!

 

[onpoint]

Next time add pictures!

I have strayed too much this weekend. picture added as requested.

 

[onpoint]

Gunner, are we too far off topic? A politician with a metal object and wacko liberal protesters look dangerous, don't they?

 

[Devil Diver Down]

1994. Hunting elk in AZ GMU 6A. We wake up Opening morning to steady snow. Huge flakes. After getting the truck stuck in the dark, we park at the top of a bowl after first light and see some cows moving on the hillside. I follow the road that runs down the middle of the bowl, parallel with the herd. After about 5 minutes, my dad takes a long shot at a raghorn and they bust over the hillside. I follow: one ridge, two ridges, three. Small fingers in between. Hard to count over 2+ hours. I get into the middle of the herd and it's the first time I ever heard cows mewing at calves, etc. Small bulls come into a clearing but I can't see thru my scope b/c the snow flakes are huge. Finally, the herd dissipates like a quail covey--I'm following nothing.

I start back and realize my boot prints from 2 minutes before are snowed over. This is before GPS (at least for me). It's maybe 11am and dark, low clouds and more snow. I count ridges on the way back, look for landmarks, the hint of sun. Nothing is looking familiar. I get to what I think is the bowl but there's no truck at the top, no road down the center. So I hike to the other side of the bowl, up and over. I finally (after passing on a decent bull b/c I was getting panicked) spot power lines to the east, so I know the bowl was my bowl--road was snowed over. Finally my old man comes puttering up the road in the truck.

And then we had a long, sometimes calm, talk about not moving vehicles on a guy.

 

[mdunc8]

I have an unhealthy fascination with lightning. It's probably my favorite thing to take pictures of. Here's a few from opening week of bow season last year. Those bolts ended up directly over us about a half hour later.





I'm not sure that we were actually in that much trouble since we were camped just below treeline and the top of the ridge, but my butt was puckered pretty good for about 30 minutes.

A close second was having a grizz wander into my camp in the middle of the night while backpacking by myself in Yellowstone.

 

[thecrittergitter]

I think most already know one of my most dangerous. It ended up with a dead griz piling up within feet of where i stood. Total crap luck that the bullet knocked it down that fast. I almost took my 3 yr old out with me that night and was sooooooo glad that i didn't. I'm certain things would have turned out much worse. When the second bear charged right after the first was shot, backpeddling like hell, who knows how that reaction would have been different if my boy was there............

It sucked, got a little bit of pansy in me now, i can't even sleep at night now when im in griz country....

 

[mdunc8]

Did FWP or the Feds give you a hard time or were they fairly reasonable after hearing/seeing what happened?

 

[Lawnboy]

Did FWP or the Feds give you a hard time or were they fairly reasonable after hearing/seeing what happened?

Yea he's the poster child for Fwp as a bad guy. He loves checking bears in now Nothing like getting hooked up to a polygraph machine when being questioned

 

[thecrittergitter]

You know, it wasn't as big of a deal as it would be now that they are back on the endangered species list.

I've actually got a bit of a chip on my shoulder for the way things went down. It really wasn't too big a deal at first. I called them right away, I came in and gave a statement on what happened and took them up to the site. Because there was a second bear in the area, they didn't want to approach the dead bear that next day for the "safety" of the other bear and the people. So, they went back a week later to get the carcass. They made it pretty clear to me that it was no big deal and as long as what they found at the scene matched my story, there was nothing to worry about. Well, after they went and got the bear, they actually MADE UP, yes, made up a story that they found a 7mm bullet in the hillside that didn't match the alighnment of where i claimed to have shot from. It was very apparent, very quickly, they were just trying to get me to see if i would change the story. When it was said and done, i asked to see the remains of the bear and asked where the bullet had actually hit it. ( i never got to see that because the second bear had charged me as well ) He said the bullet through the bear appeard to match what i said happened right through the face and out the back of the neck. So, all in the same day, they mentioned a bullet path, the only one found in the bear, went through the face, out the neck which could only be from a head on shot, yet 30 minutes prior were trying to claim they had found a bullet in the side of the hill that indicated something other than that. Really pissed me off when i realized they were just trying to see if i would change the story.

Then, i find out later that some of FWP guys, whom I won't mention names were still pretty upset about losing another grizzly bear when they claimed at a bear seminar that with pepper spray, that bear would have lived. I love it when guys who claim they know all about grizzly bears say that pepper spray would have been a better choice. Well, i'm a firm believer pepper spray does work, i know for a fact and experience that it does! But when you walk into a pissed off grizzly and don't have but about 1 second to make a decision that means you could live or die, I'm gonna tell you, i'm gonna pick me EVERY TIME!!

Its always so easy for someone to think they know what they would do in the best interest of the bear, but i can tell you, every one of the bear lovers at FWP that were so upset by it would have done the same thing.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not on a total FWP bash here, just some certain individuals there that need to pull their head out of their azzez

 

[thecrittergitter]

Yea he's the poster child for Fwp as a bad guy. He loves checking bears in now Nothing like getting hooked up to a polygraph machine when being questioned

Oh, yea, thanks LB for getting me started on this one! Apparently when you are on the, "your an azzhole for killing a grizzly bear" list at FWP. They feel they should put you through an OJ simpson trial when you check your next black bear.

I will go ahead and tell you how this went down since i'm on a roll with it I show up to check my 2010 bear at FWP. Guy in front of me throws his bear hide up on the counter. Its a sow. Guy does his check and is out the door in 5 min. I put my bear up there, again a sow. I'm recognized by the check guy as the grizzly bear killer. Next thing i know, they are bringing in the biologist to give her opinion since the first guy thinks there was a possibility of a cub being with the sow. (hence greenhorns photoshop version of the photo) She evaluated it and said it was very unlikely there was a cub with the bear. They wrenched and wrenched on all the teets and ended up getting a drop of milk out of one of them. She said that the very nature of not being rubbed up around the nips and dryed up milk production, that the sow likely had kicked any cubs she may have had off 6 to 8 weeks prior. Next thing I know, head honcho warden shows up and looks at the bear and says "how long did you watch this bear before you shot it". Told him, at least 20 minutes. Plus over an hour to finally cross the canyon to get to it. He says " 20 minutes is not even close to enough time to determine whether a sow has a cub or not" You need to watch every bear for at least 40 minutes to determine there are no cubs around Then proceeded to tell me I'm not experienced enough to be hunting bears, and asked if this was my first bear other than the grizzly bear I shot.....Just being a complete azzwagon. In fact, he said he knows for sure the sow i shot had cubs with it, and now they are gonna likely die. I really couldn't believe i was hearing this crap. In fact i told him we could hike up there and look. He asked where it was and apparently, when I told him, it was too far of a hike because he said that it wasn't going to be necessary but that he KNOWS for sure there were cubs with it. Then proceeded to tell me the exact opposite analysis for the bear as what the biologist just got finished giving before he got in there. Trying to keep my cool before blowing up, i asked him the very thing the biologist said to us, "do you think that its not likely the bear had kicked its cubs off weeks ago". His exact response to me was this "Yea, its likely, and its also just as likely that aliens flew down here in a UFO and abducted the cubs too".........This pretty much had me ready to punch him in the face so i told him to finish his check on the bear, nothing was wrong and i would be on my way. He then wanted to see all the meat. I said, no problem, its in the truck, but funny how the guy in front of me never had to go through this circus. They were just doing anything they could to try and get me for doing something wrong. His last statement was, " well i can't write you a ticket for anything illegal, but i know this bear had cubs with it............you should have seen the biologist, you could tell she was like WTF, i just got through telling these guys the exact opposite of what you said. I didn't want to throw her under the bus but if I get harassed like this again, everybody is going under the bus

My buddy that was with me was appalled at the way i was treated, all because of the whole grizzly bear thing..........

Even when you follow all the rules, they still try to make you feel like a criminal, thats the part that pisses me off the most with the griz thing.........

Makes a guy second guess what the right thing to do is..........