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When I was about 11 or 12, we were camping in Fort Davis on a ranch. I was exploring, climbing mountains, etc when I saw an owl out hunting. It swooped down to catch a field mouse, made an error and smacked the ground pretty hard. The mouse got away and the owl had a damaged wing. I chased it for a couple miles. It would half fly/half run trying to get away from me. Eventually it gave up and turned around to fight/get eaten. I took my time and got the owl to get onto my arm. I carried it all the way back to our campsite. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were amazed. This owl was pretty good sized and had HUGE bright yellow eyes. We let the rancher know about it and he called some people at the state park. They drove out and were also in disbelief that I had managed to tame a wild bird enough to carry around on my arm and took the owl to go rehabilitate it. I will never forget that experience...

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They make good pets you know.

My dad is extremely partial to gordon setters. We have had several over the years, and one in particular was a hell of a quail dog. There was a period of time when I was probably 13-14 that we did more goose hunting than anything else. That ol bird dog would jump in the truck with us and go even though he never was much for retrieving ducks, and geese. Im not sure he loved goose hunting, but it was better than staying home with mom. One day dad and I were picking up decoys after getting blanked. As I was picking up decoys I heard the familiar sound of wings flapping over head. As I looked up, I saw a loan blue goose decend and drop into the decoys. Out of no where I see that ol dog come running down the levy towards the goose. Before the goose could get much altitude, skip jumps off the levy into the air, and runs into the back end of the goose. They both come down hard tumbeling through the rice field. By the time I got to the bird, skip had done quite a number on him. When we got home, mom would always greet us at the door to see who shot what. She always gave us a hard time for taking a quail dog goose hunting, but ever since that day she gives me a hard time for getting bested by my dog.

On our ranch now we have several duck ponds, and a fair amount of quail. Now days we take two dogs with us, a gordon setter for the quail, and a lab for the ducks. They both go, on all the hunts.

[This message has been edited by 7yrplan (edited 5/6/2009 10:48a).]

This may not be too uncommon, but I've only seen it once. I was wade fishing the north shoreline of east galveston bay years ago, had parked the truck at Anahuac. I was approaching a break in the shoreline where a slough ran in, and I noticed something busting the surface constantly all over the mouth of the slough and back into it. As I got a little closer, I noticed that whatever was busting the minnows were throwing their whole bodies out of the water everytime.

So I get to the shoreline, standing in the saltgrass right at the mouth of this bayou/slough just watching, and I realize that it's solid flounder, over an area of probably 30 yards x 30 yards, constantly busting minnows in a frenzy. Each time a flounder would breach the surface, minnows would fly out of the water, and the flounder would do a flip and fall back in the water. And these were all good, solid flounder. I don't think I saw one under 17".

I threw every color of shrimp tail I had, cocahoes, even tried a jumpin minnow and a brokenback, and could not catch one. I spent a good 30 minutes there, and they were still busting up when I left. I told my neighbor about it, who taught me to fish, and who grew up fishing galveston and trinity. I don't know if he'd ever seen that happen before, but a guide friend of his told him that when you run into that, you could tear 'em up with a 1/8 oz. silver spoon, but they won't touch anything else.

On our honeymoon in Alaska, the wife and I drove to Denali and signed up for a bus tour all the way in. We saw a lot of wildlife including 2 sows with 2 cubs each about 300 yards from each other gorging themselves on berries. The second trio had moved up into a patch of ground squirrel holes on the right side of the bus and the 2 cubs and the sow caught one. The momma bear seeing the cubs playing with it barreled into them and stole the squirrel from them. It looked like a bowling ball an 2 pins. She snatched it away tossed it up into the air and chomped down on it. I can still hear the chomping sound to this day. We also got to see a wolf and 3 cubs out there. It was awesome.

We actually met up with a lot of former students in Alaska. We can't wait to go back.

One morning hunting in South Texas I was watching a group of deer when an average 8 Pt. starts sparing the brush. Somehow the buck got his antlers wedged in a fork and was stuck. It seems like for 10 to 15 minutes the buck pushed and pulled until I began to wonder if it would eventually tire out and posssibly die there if I did not do something to get it out. You could literally see the concern and embarrasment on the face of that buck as others looked on. Finally, the buck makes a huge push and literally runs over the top of the bush, flips around in mid air and gets free. I took video of a good part of it, but missed the part when it broke free. I considered sending it to Americas Funniest Videos but never really looked into it.

Brother and I were in East Galv. Bay, out in the middle between Frozen Point and Rollover. Trout were slicking; we were catching them on topwaters. Brother hung a good trout but it busted him off. As he was digging in his bag for another Spook I got a blowup. Got the fish to the boat and told my brother to quit digging. This trout I had hung also had my brother's bait stuck in the top of its head.

Yeah PETA, they feel pain...

My coolest hunting experience was duck hunting probably 6-7 years ago with my dad in Louisiana. I had a chocolate lab that I had trained and he absolutely loved picking up ducks. One time we went out and the slough we were on was partially frozen over. We busted ice in the jonboat out to a clear spot and got setup, and after awhile one of us shot a duck that landed on the ice and just skidded for a good 10 yards. Fairly thick ice for LA, too. So I sent my dog and we were both thinking he'd get to the ice and just get confused and we'd have to call him back in since he'd never seen that before. He's swimming along, gets to the ice, and without hesitation lunges up out of the water onto the ice, breaking it several feet in front of him. He keeps doing this over and over until he gets to the duck, and brings it back to us. It was awesome seeing him just know what to do and being that determined to get the duck. On two separate occasions he's also chased a duck underwater to get it. One time it was wounded and dove down, and he went after it. The other time was when he was still really young and we were training with a live bird, and he dove after it.

i know that a couple of people on here posted about seeing wild hogs eat a lot of weird things. and it's not that uncommon as a starving hog will eat anything it can get a hold of. there have been several cases of people getting rid of bodies by throwing them into hog pens.

as to the snake and rabbits here is a video of an instances like that has been going around. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gptMo9rKWAU

I worked at the Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area for an internship in college (Canadian Texas - Panhandle).

As I was driving the state jeep doing a roadside reptile survey, I noticed a chipmunk up ahead. What looked like it's mate had been run over recently, and it was attending to it (looked as if it was protecting it to me).

When I worked at the Abilene Zoo, I saw a 4 to 5 foot water snake "trying" to eat an 18-24" catfish while still in the water. I took a video of it - strangest thing I've seen a snake try to do (i.e. eating something bigger than it actually could).

So this story involves the more city inclined roomates that I had.

I had just gotten back from one of the most exciting hunts of my life. A bobcat and myself had had a 30 minute staring contest before I finaly was able to get a shot on him. I really wanted to get this monster mounted but couldn't get it to the taxidermist until Monday. So Sunday I am driving back to College Station and decide that the freezer in my dorm would be a great place to keep it. I leave for dinner still high off the hunt from the weekend. Well I had forgoten about my roomates who probably have no idea what a bobcat looks like let alone why the hell one would be in our freezer. Well low and behold I return to screams and shouts as they had just discovered the feline in our freezer. The looks on their faces will stay with me forever.

I love this thread.

Craziest thing I ever saw was while fishing at Lake Fork. My dad and I were trolling along the bank fishing under some low hanging trees and a small squirrel messing around on the branches caught my attention. There was an acorn on one of the lower branches and the squirrel was on a branch near it trying to reach out to grab that acorn. Just as the squirrel got a hold of the acorn a HUGE largemouth busted the top of the water and ate the squirrel. My dad and I just stared at each other in disbelief, neither of us really believing what we'd seen (hence the looks of disbelief). We kept fishing the area and joking about how we needed to catch some squirrels to use as bait. As I looked back over toward that limb again I was absolutely stunned at what I saw. That ole' bass was over there hanging another acorn on the limb of that tree!

[This message has been edited by Hoss (edited 4/5/2010 3:11p).]

I saw two bats hook up in mid-flight and start getting freaky.

with pictures

I didn't see this personally, but lots of people I know did: A bunch of people were kayak fishing off of anchored floats off bolivar, paired off for safety, and some were on the beach taking a break when one of them suddenly has his line go taut. He unclips from his anchor float (its about the size of a basketball), and gets ready for a fish, but suddenly it breaks. Then his anchor line and float start just moving through the water, moving pretty quick parallel to the beach in about 15 feet of water. His dad, fishing nearby, paddles like mad and catches up to it and grabs the anchor line, and promptly gets yanked out of his kayak and dragged through the water until he lets go. As the float went onward, the people watching from the beach saw the float turn towards the gulf, and then they see the "wingtips" of about a 15-20 foot wide manta ray come up out of the water a few times as it came close to the surface trying to shake loose the anchor line...

People see them from the Galveston Jetties sometimes in the summer, so they're out there.

Also, I've seen a porpoise jump out of the water and snag a horse mullet out of the air mid-jump.

I've seen a little baitfish of some kind launch itself straight up out of the water a couple miles off surfside in a long arcing jump about 15 feet in the air, only to have about a 4 foot kingfish follow it up in the air right after, and arc back down in the water right behind it.

Also, RIP Terlingua. Just noticed he has an old post on this thread.

[This message has been edited by MouthBQ98 (edited 4/5/2010 3:44p).]

My brother and I were fishing on Lake Tawakoni in 1963. A flock of white cranes over flew and we watched them 'till they were out of sight. I saw the game warden in the marina later and he confirmed that those 18 birds were the only wild whooping cranes in the world. I'm glad to see they have made somewhat of a recovery. I saw recently where there are over 400 now.

i like this thread.. and i find humor that some of you posted the same story more than once years apart.. at least the stories were consistent!

when i was a sr in high school, we lived on a small residential lake.. i heard my 4-5 month old husky (RIP Blitz 11 years later) barking at something.. went to the back window in time to see a goat climbing our chain link fence to get in the backyard.. i grabbed a camera and by the time i got out there the goat was already in the yard trying to headbutt my pup who was extremely excited yet confused at the situation.. home alone and was a bit confused myself with the situation so i took the pup inside and called my dad.. he said hellidunno.. i went back out there a bit later and the goat was nowhere to be found.. glad i got a picture of it or he'd have called me a liar.

Back in 2008 my wife and I took a road trip up to BANFF/Jasper National Park in Alberta. It was late one evening when we came upon a "bear jam". (Unfortunately for idiotic tourist, there seems to be an abundance of wild berries all along many stretches of road up in Jasper). Well be as that may, there was a rather large black bear sow with two cubs having a late evening snack walking along the side of the road. Not satisfied with a picture from the safe confines of their car, a rather large group of mainly Chinese people got out of their cars and continued on to approach the bear. My wife proceeded to yell at them to not approach the bear, which went unheeded. With nothing we could do now, I decide to make the most out of the situation- I grabbed my video camera to at least get this on video and maybe submit it to one of those "AFV, or "World's Most Dumbest People" shows. As I am reaching around the back seat to grab my camera I hear a horrendous unison of screams. I look up to see the bear charging at the group of Chinese people, stopping just a couple of feet in front of them. To see the look of all their faces was priceless, Im sure all of them had to change their britches. Lesson learned from this-(no, it’s not to approach a bear sow with cubs), obviously it’s to always keep your video camera readily accessible, because you never know when stupid is going to happen.

When I was younger, I was deer hunting with my father in a wooded creek bottom. We had walked in and were sitting on a log when a bobcat walked out of the switchcane about 5 feet to the left of us and proceeded to walk right behind us and on his way. It was pretty awesome to a 12 year-old boy.

Another time, at Lake Somerville I watched a raccoon and a possum fight over a dead fish along the bank. Pretty entertaining.

When i hunt for pigs, i got turkeys
when i hunt for turkeys, i get pigs
when i hunt for deer...i get mexicans.

true story, Falfurrias/Freer Tx are full of....turkeys.

I cannot believe no one has added to this thread since April...

I miss posts from FossilAg.

Just read this thread from start to finish....some great stories. I could add a few, but I have one that is really worthy, as I have been told it is a once in a lifetime occurence to witness.

Early one morning about 30 years ago, I was driving west out of College Station and as I entered the smaller 2 lane roads, I noticed a lot of red tailed hawks on the fence posts. As I continued to my destination, it turned into a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie, with every other fence post sporting a hawk...it was spooky, with some standing on the ground roadside. I had two other people with me and that is all we could talk about as we arrived at my house, which we were constructing at the time.

We went inside and made a pot of coffee and downed it, then stepped back outside and as my coworkers climbed some scaffolding, I went to hand up the first board of the day and stopped dead in my tracks as I looked up to hand the board off, then dropping the board and pointing upwards....there in the sky was a 200' wide band of red tailed hawks as far as the eye could see. We watched for over 3 hours as they migrated south in a single band from horizon to horizon. About 10:30 AM, a thermal arrived almost directly overhead and the red tails were coming off the bottom to hunt and the rest were taking the thermal rise to exit at about 3000+', still the migration stretched to both horizons. In that one thermal, we estimated there had to be at least 2000 hawks....it was awesome, and of course, I had NO camera with me.

I had called early on upon sighting to A&M and spoken with someone with an ornithology background that explained the migration, and he estimated that over 100,000 red tails might make up a good sized migration. I believe it was at least that many hawks.

Only time in my life I have witnessed a hawk migration....I kept wondering that morning what they knew that I didn't know about moving south that day. Until that call, I never knew they migrated in large groups.



[This message has been edited by Yuccadoo (edited 7/4/2010 12:47a).]

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People see them from the Galveston Jetties sometimes in the summer, so they're out there.

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I was on a jetty at Port Aransas and saw a manta ray in the ship channel portion. A few people were fishing in what looked like a johnboat, and you could see the whole outline of the ray around the boat when it swam underneath it.

My SO were in Yellowstone in June of this summer hiking. We came upon a clearing and luckily he has better vision than me because on the far side of the field there was a dead elk with a grizzly and her cubs feasting. Wolves emerged from the woods and tried to challenge the bear for the carcass. Although we were watching this through binoculars, we decided we were close enough to this carnivore battle and turned around and went back to camp.

I worked on a ranch in Montana and saw some elk chase off a bear once.

Deer hunting in Archer County a few years ago....set up in a 14' tripod during early in the rifle season. Had one feeder about 100 yards to the south of me, another feeder to the west of me at about 125 yards. There is a small half-arsed food plot in-between, and a good number of mesquites.

Anyway, sitting there in the afternoon, watching the occasional meadowlark flit about and not much else going on. I hear a pig squeal, and see a small black piglet trotting through the high grass to the west feeder. I watch it for a few minutes, expecting momma and siblings to show up, but no other pigs ever show. This piglet - under 20 pounds - fed for a bit under the feeder. I was thinking of perforating this eater, when I heard it squeal. I see a coyote has picked approached the piglet, and the piglet has started running as fast as it's little legs could carry it from the west feeder toward the south feeder. It was running across this food plot, and this full-grown coyote was bouncing along behind it, alternating the bounce on each side if the piglet as it ran, ears and tail erect. It reminded me of my labs, when they get happy in the backyard and start bouncing around. The coyote followed the piglet to the south feeder, obviously not interested in eating this pig, and the coyote stopped under the feeder for just a moment while the piglet continued on its way.

Thought it was a pretty cool thing to see in the wild.

[This message has been edited by AggieRob93 (edited 8/15/2010 12:16a).]

Worked on a survey crew in different parts of the country to pay my way through college. The most memorable summer was spent in Wyoming in an area near the Big Piney Marbleton metroplex (population 115 each connected by a sidewalk)

On our crew was a short black guy named Kavar, that was the "scariest" (cowardly) mother ****er I've ever met. Over the course of the summer the following events happened:

1. Kavar decides to relieve himself on a large bush that was host to some kind of large birds. Said birds launched out in all directions, one of which hit him square in the jaw and knocked him out cold for about 20 seconds. When he came to he screams, and bolts straight back to the truck. Never laughed so hard in my life!
2. Down in the valley a processing plant sounds off their siren during a test. A herd of nearby deer which Kavar had been eyeing suspiciously for about 15 mintues, scatters at the sound. Kavar screams and bolts straight back towards the truck.
3. Working along a steep face of a valley near the Hogsback, I turn back to notice a mountain lion about 200 yards behind us, and 50 feet up, quietly following us. Kavar screams, and we both bolt back to the truck (stupid thing to do in hindsight)
4. In a massive field of tall grass, I catch sight of the truck. All you can see of Kavar is the tip of his orange helmet wading through the grass. "This is bull**** man, we're lost, I can't see the ****in truck." Mind you, we're a survey crew with a GPS pack. He strikes out on his own without his radio. We lose him, and it quickly gets dark. We called out and called out, watching him walk circles distantly in the field. Eventually we had to SPOTLIGHT him back to the truck.

Saw both a ringtail cat and an ocelot within 15 minutes of each other while deer hunting in NW Walker County. It is the only time I have seen either one in the wild, so I think it counts as an unusual wildlife observation.

Some will say that the ocelot was probably just a bobcat, or possibly an aoudad, but I say it was an ocelot.

[This message has been edited by Rincon (edited 3/23/2012 7:16p).]

Several years ago I was paddling on the San Marcos, training for the Textas Water Safari. I was only a couple miles below town where it is very narrow. There was a tree that had fallen across the river from bank to bank, and just as I paddled under it, a bobcat was passing over....he stopped to look at me, then hit the gas and was gone....beautiful creature.
Have been fortunate enough on other training runs to see herds of deer drinking, wild hogs crossing, and plenty of gators lower down on the Guad.

Ocelot at deer lease just outside Bruni Tx. Had seen him cross the sendero a few times but just thought it was a bobcat. About 30 min later he stopped and sat down in the middle long enough for me to get a good look at him through my binocs. It was very obvious from his markings it wasn't a bobcat. Once he stood up and walk away, I saw his tail and was astonished I was able to see something so rare. Then Bigfoot came out and ate him in one bite! J/k on the Bigfoot

2 years ago, my cousin and I were kayak fishing in a cove on a lake in Colorado Out of nowhere, this huge hawk swoops down and stoops upon something in the grass, then you see it come up with a big ribbon snake in its talons, and fly up the hillside into a dead juniper.

Unfortunately I don't have any good stories of my own. All of my hunting\fishing experiences have been fairly mundane. Though my dad tells a few. Can't guarantee the accuracy since they are 2nd hand but...

1. Dad took a sail boat to Mustang island and was gigging for flounder. As he is walking along something stirs up the sand and swims out from under his foot. He swears it was a flounder the size of a manhole cover.

2. Dad was fishing off a small bridge near Six Mile, TX (outside Port Lavaca). He hooks something big and finally gets it to the bridge. Lifts it out of the water but it was too heavy to bring it over the side and his buddy had left the net in the truck. As his buddy races back for the net, my dad stares into the yellow mouth of a trout big enough to hold a softball. Then watch as his line snaps and his potential state record fish swims away.

3. My dad, uncle, cousin and I were deer hunting on a lease near Robert Lee, TX. We were heading out for the evening hunt. We had 1 truck and I was the 1st to be dropped off. On the way to drop my dad off they saw a bunch of dear crossing the road. My dad killed his first deer from the front seat of the truck. They quickly field dressed it and took it back to the bunk house. Then back to the hunt (forgetting to reload the gun). Over the course of the evening my dad shot one more deer but used all of his ammo. As he sit and weight for my uncle, he had a deer walk through the trees and stop in the road 10-15 feet from the milk crate next to a tree that my dad was sitting on. After a 15 minute stare down, my dad started messing with the deer. He would snort, sneeze, huff, etc... to see if he would get spooked. After 15 minutes of the deer staring him down and making his own noises, my dad lifts up his hand and the deer bolts.

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While hunting with my bro when I was about 11, I wasn't old enough to shoot deer and we had decided to stop stalking and sit on a hillside for a while watching for deer. I was fidgeting to much and he commanded me to lay still. I laid back, and soon went to sleep. About 15 minutes later, my brother looked over and saw a doe approaching me from behind. She walked all the way up and sniffed the top of my head before snorting and walking away. Good thing doe permits were required back then and we didn't have any. Otherwise my brother might have woken me up with something besides the rock he tossed my way.

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I was fishing on a creek one spring years ago when I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and there was a deer about 10 feet from me stripping leaves off a tree.

The deer was completely unafraid of me. After a couple of minutes, I moved slightly and it didn't phase him at all. I stepped toward him and that didn't bother him. I ended up walking up to the deer and petting it!

I later found out from a Texas State Trooper that someone had been illegally raising the deer in their back yard and that Texas Parks and Wildlife (I think) had found out about it, removed it from his yard, and was dropped off along the creek.

Over the rest of that summer, I saw the deer several times. By the end of the summer, the deer was definitely getting more skittish, but he would still let me walk up and pet him.

Forgot one more. Dad went offshore fishing on a charter out of Corpus. On the way to the oil rigs he saw a sting ray come out of the water and do a backflip.