Questioned my manliness last night! lol...

hunt0168

hunt0168

Well-known member
We're about to have another stretch of insane winds for days, so I decided to make some sets last night. 5 sets and only 1 grey fox showed up on set 4. But it was set 3 that literally sent shivers down my spine and made me step backwards to get away from the horror! Here's the scary details...

I pulled up to the farmer's barn and the wind was coming out of the southwest. Snows are still deeper than I want to deal with, and with the wind direction the best decision would be to stay close to the barn so I could cover 2 fields and watch down 2 tree lines of the woodlot I expected the coyotes to come from. He has a bunch of old farm equipment there, so I set my stool and tripod up next to some hunk of unknown equipment as a backdrop, set out my caller and settled in with my back to the equipment. I spent about 30 minutes calling unsuccessfully scanning primarily west and north. When I called it quits, I stood up and scanned one last time from a standing position. Nothing out there. Well for the first time on the set, with the scanner up to my eye I turned completely around to scan towards the south. What I saw sent shivers down my spine and I think I almost pissed myself! Scariest point blank image I ever seen at night!
20250125002918.JPG


I have no idea what the farm equipment is, but it was simply a metal pole with 3 holes strategically placed to scare the shit out of a coyote caller! Lol... Be careful out there fellas!
 
HAhahaha, that is funny, great picture. "Attack of the Googly Eyed Bastards!"

That reminds me of my first stand I made on my property a few years ago. I heard the whole group howling down at the river just a couple hundred yards away so I snuck out. I sat at the field edge with the foxpro in the field, the field is just hilly enough to hide a coyote every 100 yards or so and with the wind direction I had an idea of how the stand was going to play out. I watched the downwind side of the hill my foxpro was behind, I figured they would swing around behind the hill and pop out down wind. I played a howl and waited, a minute later a heard a lot of noise coming from behind me in the woods and heading my way, I turn my head, then try to get on a knee to point my gun. While im in a yoga pose trying to turn around I hear a huffing-chuffing type dog sound and growling behind me, I turned my head back around to the field hillside where I was looking before and in the field only 20 yards away was a coyote that had a head coming out of each end and making two sounds at once. It scrambled me a second. It was one coyote broadside directly behind another broadside coyote, each face opposite directions, at night, full moon in silhouette it was just a perfect two headed coyote.

By the time I swung back around, sat down and got my gun up I miss a running shot and they were back behind the hill. I went out to check for blood and tracks, there must have been 5 or 6 coyotes behind the hill and one behind me making a ruckus keeping me distracted.
 
Last edited:
i know exactly what you are speaking of and the feeling it gives you when you are scanning and come face to face with the unexpected. limbhanger10 and i were out one night and set up by one of those ground level deer shacks with windows.
while scanning with my thermal scanner i look behind me and see this
ron and mike reflection (2).jpg


i jump and go HEY..as i lower the scanner at the same time and realize its both of us reflecting in the window of the deer shack. i thought two guys snuck up on us in the snow. thermals dont see thru windows but they will pick up your reflection :ROFLMAO:
 
I wasnt hunting for this but its one of my favorite stories. An opossum had me frantically questioning UFOs among other wild possibilities.

When I put my house up for sale the buyer got a home inspection and wanted a few electrical things fixed my a professional so I had the electrician out. Later in the middle of the night I woke up to use the bathroom or get water from the kitchen, in half sleep I stumble down the hall to realize my back yard is lit up like a stadium. I have never seen this before, lived there 5 years, suddenly im in full alert, in the hallway trying to decide if I should walk further to look around the corner and out the sliding glass door or go back to my room for a gun first.

Im standing there for several seconds, the light isnt moving, its not a flashlight, i can tell enough through another window in another room that my whole yard is lit up. I creep down the hallway, stick one eyeball around the wall at the end of the hall and there was an opossum on my back patio...........

I slowly realize the electrician fixed something that caused my motion activated floodlight at the back of my garage to work, they never worked as long as I had the place. I never got abducted and probed thank Heavens.
 
This fall I was having a tough time patterning a nice buck. Sometimes I would see him a mile or more from my permission. I saw him enter my spot on an annual trail one morning, the next morning wind was going to be good to sit in the grass on top of an old gravel spoil pile within bow range of the trail. I snuck in over an hour before legal shooting. Just after legal shooting time as I sat in the knee high grass, I heard a growl right behind me. It sounded like a very large dog, a very mad dog. Then I hear what sounds like a deer bouncing away. Before the deer bounding away sound, for a second I DOUBTED (seriously doubted) my decision to sit on the ground just before the rut with a pack full of deer scent. The buck that snuck up downwind of me is a smaller version of the buck I was after probably offspring. Never have heard a buck growl that sounded so canine. A few days later I rattled and grunt called from a tree nearby. A few minutes later I heard the same growling. I knew right away who would show up. Didn't even take the bow off the hanger.
 
hunt0168 said:
We're about to have another stretch of insane winds for days, so I decided to make some sets last night. 5 sets and only 1 grey fox showed up on set 4. But it was set 3 that literally sent shivers down my spine and made me step backwards to get away from the horror! Here's the scary details...

I pulled up to the farmer's barn and the wind was coming out of the southwest. Snows are still deeper than I want to deal with, and with the wind direction the best decision would be to stay close to the barn so I could cover 2 fields and watch down 2 tree lines of the woodlot I expected the coyotes to come from. He has a bunch of old farm equipment there, so I set my stool and tripod up next to some hunk of unknown equipment as a backdrop, set out my caller and settled in with my back to the equipment. I spent about 30 minutes calling unsuccessfully scanning primarily west and north. When I called it quits, I stood up and scanned one last time from a standing position. Nothing out there. Well for the first time on the set, with the scanner up to my eye I turned completely around to scan towards the south. What I saw sent shivers down my spine and I think I almost pissed myself! Scariest point blank image I ever seen at night!
View attachment 14101

I have no idea what the farm equipment is, but it was simply a metal pole with 3 holes strategically placed to scare the shit out of a coyote caller! Lol... Be careful out there fellas!
Click to expand...
Thatā€™s why I hunt solo, no one can make fun of you for screaming and jumping lol.

Sometimes when walking with my tripod extended, the legs will hit some grass to my side and think somethings charging in at me. Always sends me into a side step hop haha.
 
Here's a nice little manly story that happened last season...

So I met bohunr to hit some spots..
We head to where we saw a pair the week before out in the field when we were getting into setup. With the noisy frozen ground, they knew something was up and were very skittish.

We get set up.....I go through some calls and notice 6 deer about a half mile south(up-wind) all stand up and look in the same direction and sure as heck there's a coyote working the edge of the field. I tell bohunr he's coming straight to us. I let him get about 150 from the call and switch to mouse and he starts crouching and stalking to the call. He gets 50 yards from the call...stops and I shoot him. We wait a bit for another to no avail and I go get it. Bohunr walked down the soybean/corn transition and grabbed the call, I got the coyote and we walked back to the tripods.

We stood in the dark and gabbed a bit as I packed stuff up... looked over the big male and were deciding were to go next when all of a sudden the coyote picks it's head up right at bohunrs legs. Bohunr then tries pushing me down towards the coyote to get a running head start... this all happens in a matter of 2 seconds and I'm baffled by what is going on because that coyote has a hole in it's head and an exit wound in it's neck the size of a dinner plate.

Well as it turned out, I lifted the coyotes head with the drag to attach it to my backpack and bohunr saw that head lift up out of the corner of his eye and thought it came to life.
His heart passed the "when wild animals attack" test...
Never laughed so hard in my life.
 
limbhanger10 said:
Here's a nice little manly story that happened last season...

So I met bohunr to hit some spots..
We head to where we saw a pair the week before out in the field when we were getting into setup. With the noisy frozen ground, they knew something was up and were very skittish.

We get set up.....I go through some calls and notice 6 deer about a half mile south(up-wind) all stand up and look in the same direction and sure as heck there's a coyote working the edge of the field. I tell bohunr he's coming straight to us. I let him get about 150 from the call and switch to mouse and he starts crouching and stalking to the call. He gets 50 yards from the call...stops and I shoot him. We wait a bit for another to no avail and I go get it. Bohunr walked down the soybean/corn transition and grabbed the call, I got the coyote and we walked back to the tripods.

We stood in the dark and gabbed a bit as I packed stuff up... looked over the big male and were deciding were to go next when all of a sudden the coyote picks it's head up right at bohunrs legs. Bohunr then tries pushing me down towards the coyote to get a running head start... this all happens in a matter of 2 seconds and I'm baffled by what is going on because that coyote has a hole in it's head and an exit wound in it's neck the size of a dinner plate.

Well as it turned out, I lifted the coyotes head with the drag to attach it to my backpack and bohunr saw that head lift up out of the corner of his eye and thought it came to life.
His heart passed the "when wild animals attack" test...
Never laughed so hard in my life.
Click to expand...

we were laughing so loud i thought the farmer would call the cops and complain about a bunch of drunks in the middle of the field.
 
Things that go bump in the night!! Haha!! Thanks for the good chuckle to start my day! Our minds do like to play games with us even though I think we are the bump in the night that everything else needs to be scared of.
 
okay...

out hunting by myself, winter time on a farm where the neighbor had some really large dogs, bull mastiffs i think. they kept getting loose and causing trouble. this particular night, while walking to my spot i notice some HUGE dog tracks in the snow all over the field i happen to be in. no problem...i have a gun :)

i was wearing snow camo and my regular camo turkey vest that holds all my gear. it was also windy that night with some strong gusts of wind every now and then. i'm calling and getting no responses, starting to question my sanity as to why i'm even out on a night like this.

i lean over the gun to look thru the scope and at that time here comes a wind gust and i hear a large animal running up behind me in the crunchy snow, and its coming fast, RIGHT ON ME...

i jump, twist, turn, panic, looking all around thinking if its the mastiff, this is going to hurt...i made moves that Michael Jackson couldnt do in his prime.

AND...nothing was there... not a thing. i mentally check myself...yep, pants arent wet :) (or loaded)

then another gust of wind and i hear the same noise...its the loose arm slots on the turkey vest slapping around in the wind, going FLAP-FLAP-FLAP really fast and i just chuckle to myself

also...thermal scanners will not help see whats running up on you in the dark, it also doesnt help to lower it and try to see whats coming...ITS DARK :ROFLMAO:
 
I've been thermal hunting going on 10 years and always walked back and forth to stands in the dark. This season I've been using a monocular and got real comfortable being able to see where I was going. I didn't charge the battery last time and it died last night. I almost panicked a little until I got used to it again.
 
Dew Claw said:
I've been thermal hunting going on 10 years and always walked back and forth to stands in the dark. This season I've been using a monocular and got real comfortable being able to see where I was going. I didn't charge the battery last time and it died last night. I almost panicked a little until I got used to it again.
Click to expand...
Haha. Try that plus no light and going to retrieve a coyote and it moves and your scope is 3.5 base magnification. You really feel stupid when you realize the limb/log you stepped on is what moved the coyote, lol!! I now ALWAYS keep a headlamp in my pocket for those just incase moments.
 
bohunr said:
okay...

out hunting by myself, winter time on a farm where the neighbor had some really large dogs, bull mastiffs i think. they kept getting loose and causing trouble. this particular night, while walking to my spot i notice some HUGE dog tracks in the snow all over the field i happen to be in. no problem...i have a gun :)

i was wearing snow camo and my regular camo turkey vest that holds all my gear. it was also windy that night with some strong gusts of wind every now and then. i'm calling and getting no responses, starting to question my sanity as to why i'm even out on a night like this.

i lean over the gun to look thru the scope and at that time here comes a wind gust and i hear a large animal running up behind me in the crunchy snow, and its coming fast, RIGHT ON ME...

i jump, twist, turn, panic, looking all around thinking if its the mastiff, this is going to hurt...i made moves that Michael Jackson couldnt do in his prime.

AND...nothing was there... not a thing. i mentally check myself...yep, pants arent wet :) (or loaded)

then another gust of wind and i hear the same noise...its the loose arm slots on the turkey vest slapping around in the wind, going FLAP-FLAP-FLAP really fast and i just chuckle to myself

also...thermal scanners will not help see whats running up on you in the dark, it also doesnt help to lower it and try to see whats coming...ITS DARK :ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
Now that got me laughin too. Esp. the pants check and 'ITS DARK. Thanks
 
Back
Top