While hunting wapiti one year in Colorado. I was hunting in this thick draw and was watching a group of deer making their way down the mountain on the other side and noticed a Bull Elk right behind them. He follows them all the way to the bottom, kind of like a Whitetail Buck pushing the does out in front of him. The deer would stop and that bull would come right up behind them the deer would start flipping their ears around, freaking out and nervous as could be. The bull wouldn't back off and the deer would take off again. The bull did this for 700-800 yards. Well once they came up the other side towards me they split up and the bull came right next to me, Yes! and I got him.

One winter night I was coon hunting with some friends in N.E. Ohio. We had a little snow on the ground and the temp was in the teens. We hunted for a hour or so and the dogs were on a hot track and then the dogs were barking treed. We went toward them and they were barking up this big tree at the edge of a big pond. We shined our headlamps up into the tree and found the coon but we couldn't get it to look at us and all we could see was its tail. Well I volunteer to wade into the pond in my hip boots and go to the other side of the tree to take a look and see if I can get a shot from that angle. I start my way around and it's thick and full of briars and vines. I'm only a inch or two from having freezing water go into my waders so I force my way in to the tree, plowing my way getting scratched all up and I finally get next to the tree and turn my headlamp up and not 12" from my face it this BIG Possum. Scared the crap out of me! Once I regained my composure I shot it in the head, back then a Large Prime Oppossum would bring 8-10 dollars. I then proceed to and finally find the coon and shoot it and it falls....right into the ice cold pond. One of the dogs jumps in after it....now I have disaster in the making...that coon will drown my dog.....I go after the dog to cut him off and keep him away from this coon, now I'm up to my chest in freezing cold water holding the dog by him collar and splashing water at the dying coon to keep him away from the dog and me. Finally the coon makes it to shore and dies. Well needless to say my hunting was done for the night.

early October in the Pedros ,a little mountain range on the southside of Pathfinder resorvoir in Wyoming, This is where they found one of the Nimigar "little People", but that's another story.
weather was good, left wife and 2-1/2 month old daughter in suburban and headed out for a short loop, wearing a flannel shirt and down vest .
A several steep draws from the truck ran into a couple spike bulls, one didn't leave the draw on his own power. quartered him and began leapfrogging the quarters toward the truck, as I topped the first ridge I was hit with an icy blast of sleety rain, since I was sweating like a colicing horse it didn't take long to cool down, after making several trips I made it to the ridge the truck was on, but was 1000' or so above the outfit and close to 3/4 mile away and getting more hypothermic by the minute, and it's getting dark. I stash the quarters in a juniper and began to make my way to the truck but my balance is getting severly affected by the hypothermia and I'm starting to fall down about everyother step, My shirt, vest and pants get ripped to rags. I beagn to hear strange sounds on the wind, but dismiss them as my mind playing tricks, what I don't know is that there is a mountain lion screaming so close to the truck that my wife can hear it with the windows rolled up. She then started the outfit and turned on the lights to settle her and which gave me a better point to focus on, which really helped my mind. After what seemed forever I came into the lights and my wife saw me and was sure the cat had jumped me from the way I looked. I got in and somehow in my semiconsious state was able to get her drove through a couple bad spots to where she felt she she drive with out getting stuck, I then curled up and passed out, I don't remeber what happened from here but this is what they told me, she drove us to a friends ranch and they first poured a large shot of whiskey down me, then stripped me and put me in my buddies bed and it was a waterbed with a heater and a electric blanket, just a warm coccoon, I slept for 14 hours straight, I survived but felt like I had been drug around the whole state of wyoming behind a runaway horse, I survived and learned some valuable lessons that have been drilled into my kids, Went back in two days later
Strange thing is just couple months later two buddies were on snowmachines in the same area, both machines ended up breaking down, they weren't dressed for a night out, one died from hypothermia not very far from where this happened to me. Coincidence or was the mountain going to collect its dues on way or the other?
When you head for the bushes, plan for the worst and pray for the best.

dpmule-

It's ironic you mention the "little people"...... they were in the Pryor Mountains and in the Bighorn Canyon by Lovell as well. In fact that's where I'm headed in about an hour for some more ice fishing. We have a custom here in Montana, when you head into the Pryors you always "leave something for the little people" to avoid bad luck. It can be some crust off your sandwich, the last bite of your candy bar, etc. Thats some rugged country and there are countless tales of really inexplicable bad luck happening there.

Carl

What you say we take as gospel, always leave a token, always.

How's the ice and the bite on Yellowtail this winter?

Have I got a story for you boys and grils....here about 3 years ago...we were driving into town from the farm a day before the first rifle season opened up and less then a mile from the house a piebald muley doe runs across the road from us....we sat and watched her for about 45 mons before she dissappeared into the sage brush.....another 2 miles down the road (it's 13 1/2 miles one way on gravel road to town) I spotted this big anamial in the middle of the feild definatly not a deer...turned out to be a spike elk.. he had 3 1/2 foot spikes...this was the last day of early Muzzle loader elk season...and dad just happened to know that one of our neighbors had an elk tag. This area isnt known for putting out any elk in Washington. The Davenport area is predominantly mule deer as far as hunting goes. So we rounded up Les and another neighbor Dave and we watched the bull in a grass water way for about 2 hours....there wasa bunch of deer feeding in the feild and the bull started following them...he ran them around for about 45 mins or so then went into a willow thicket and bedded down. Les and Dave made the stalk.....Les dropped the bull in his bed with one shot...WDFW aged the bull at 8 1/2 years old...he had hardly any teeth left and was missing a toe on one of his hind legs...definatly not a day I will forget...a piebald doe and a old bull

This isn't a hunting story and it didn't happen to me, its an incident my husband had while fishing.

He's an avid flyfisherman and fishes year round. Every year on Thanksgiving weekend he hikes into the Black Canyon (by Montrose Colorado) and fishes the Gunnison River. During those hikes he always sees bighorn sheep and has taken some nice photos (which reminds me I need to post some on the bighorn forum!). In 2005, he did his usual hike and kept an eye on the sheep and rams. One ram took an interest in ole hubby and confronted him suddenly in the middle of the trail. He tried to yell and wave his arms, but to no avail, the ram obviously thought he was a threat to his sheep. The huge ram lowered his head, cocked it to one side and squared off ready to ram him. At the last moment my husband raised his arms and tried to make himself as huge as possible while bracing for the impact from the ram. Unbelievably the ram stopped at the last second before making contact and just stood there. He did not take off or even back off. My husband slowly backed away. To this day he still gets quite animated when he talks about how close he was to having a wrestling match with a bighorn ram!

dpmule-

The ice is good this year on Yellowtail, we've seen 10"-16" depending on how far from shore you are. As for the fishing, it's been very good. Saturday we got 3 walleye, 4 sauger, 3 rainbow, 1 perch and 1 ling. One of the walleye was 25" and over 7 lbs. We lost 1 really good fish a few feet from the hole, never saw it but it was a big fish. We'll be heading back out this weekend I'm sure.

Take care-

Carl

Good stories... Let's keep them coming.

Carl, thinking of those walleye fillets is making me hungry.
By the way that Jerky is great! I've had to limit the boys on how much they can have...so we can make it last, lol.
With all of your years guiding...I know you have a lot of stories. Please share a few with us.

Makwa, Please share some....because I know you could write a book with all of your exciting experiences.

SH, Rather-b-huntin, Bitmasher.......you're holding out on us.......Lets hear some.

Well a number of years ago I was guiding a chap from Louisiana in central British Columbia. He was looking for a moose and the bulls were heavy in the rut. We left camp in the pitch black and I pointed old Hawk up the trail towards a big muskeg swamp and then gave him his head, he knew his way and no steering was needed.

About an hour later, we were riding through some big spruce and nearing the edge of the swamp. The ground was heavy with frost and the cold steel gray of dawn was creeping through the trees. Hawk stiffened and ground to a halt. Something had gotten his undivided attention, so we slid off the horses and tied them to a couple of trees.

We pussy footed to the edge of the swamp and began glassing. I knew something was out there, but at first nothing was readily apparent. Then I caught a flash of white about a mile away across the big muskeg. The white was the mane of a big bull mountain caribou who was high-tailing it across the swamp. Hot on his heals was a big gray wolf.

The bull had obviously been running for some time as his tongue was hanging out and it was obvious he couldn't keep it up much longer. The bull swung around towards us and it became clear that he was going to pass right infront of us.

I got Louis into a good position next to a small spruce tree and told him to chamber a round and wait for my signal. As the bull approached the wolf was snapping at his hocks and at about 200 yards the bull bucked and kicked a few times, then swung around and faced the wolf. He had his head lowered and slowly turned, keeping his rack facing the wolf as it tried to circle behind him. The bulls sides were heaving and we could hear his raspy breath as he sucked for air.

As the wolf turned to our right he presented a broadside shot and when I whispered "Now!", Louis's .300 Winchester roared and wolf collapsed. The bull just stood there with his head lowered and panted as we slowly walked towards them. When we were about 25 yards away the caribou moved off a few yards and then just stood there and watched while we skinned the wolf.

Damn, I sure wish I had one of those new DVD video cameras that day!