While working as an assistant PH in South Africa (assistant to the PH), I got the opportunity to hunt by myself. I was to shoot a warthog, an impala, and a wildebeest.

The warthog and impala were easy to find so I bagged one of each by the second day. The thing about the wildebeest though, they were very skittish because that one piece of property was hunted frequently.

While I was following Wile E. Wildebeest, I came down with a fever. Unknown to me at the time, I had contracted Tick Bite Fever. It is just as you imagine it would be to hunt in the warm sun while you ache so much you don't want to stand, let alone walk. Miserable. What was compounding this was that my three day hunt was stretching into its sixth day.

I was coming to realize that I couldn't keep up with my quarry, shuffling through the brush like I was. I was going to have to sit in a blind, a move that I hated making, but this nonsense had to end. I prayed a prayer that I had been repeating for three days, "Please help me finish this and send me a blind one!" That week I was learning about His sense of timing and how He is clearly on a different schedule.

I was trudging along this road, on the way to this ground blind when I look up and see him.

This is a unique experience for me because he is just standing there, 20 yards away, letting me look at him. After it took me a full five seconds to snap out of my disbelief, I leveled the rifle and WHAM! A .375 H&H bullet punched through both of his lungs, just kissing his heart.

I let out a shaky sigh. It was over. I would have shot a milk cow by then but I walked up to an old, pretty, and big bull Wildebeest. I kneel there, admiring him and damned if he isn't blind!

1. Few years back hunting in a high rack south of Corpus we spooked a javelina, which proceeded to run full speed alongside our vehicle, jump over a pile of brush, land head-first in a ditch on the other side, and roll end over end, dust flying. We were laughing so hard we had to stop for a while.
2. Hunting south of Freer, noticed a commotion in some high grass, turned out to be two baby bobcats jumping around and playing while mother was sitting nearby watching.
3. Hunting/snoozing in a live oak tree in Washington County in the wee hours of the morning, turned my head to stare right into the big eyes of a ringtail hanging onto the tree about 6 inches from my head. Woke me up.
4. South of Corpus,kept a corn feeder near camp to bring in game to watch. One morning some turkeys were feeding under the feeder and a mountain lion appeared stalking from the brush.
5. Large manta ray jumping out of the water near our bay boat outside the Bolivar Pocket.

while hunting this year i saw two small 8 pt bucks playing around in the field locking antlers, but it didn't look like they were serious and hadn't seen any does in a while.

when a big pappa 10 pt comes out and they look at him and he does a "come at me bro" stutter step and they scramble.

The above reminds me of another incident south of Freer. Couple of very young bucks were messing around a corn feeder that had just gone off when a somewhat older buck comes in. One of the younger bucks must have looked at the older one the wrong way because that older buck put his antlers up against the younger one, picked him up and slammed him to the ground. Young one left in a hurry.

I came across this while Aoudad hunting in Wyoming

Did you have a close encounter with an aoudad?

I don't know how uncommon this is, but one time years ago I was fishing on our land outside Bellville. I was sitting on the pier and hear the splash of something jumping into the water. I look down the pond (~80 yards), and see something doggie paddling down the pond. So after a while it gets closer to me, and I see it's a damn jackrabbit! I was like WTF? Never had seen one swim before that, and never again.

Not necessarily uncommon, but pretty cool...I rode up on a bobcat while mountain biking in Arlington last week. He trotted down the trail in the direction I was headed for a short while before heading into the grass. I probably got within 5-10 feet of him. Darkest coloration of one I had ever seen.

Bump for some interesting stories

This was about a mile from my house. Bobcats and coyotes are everywhere up here in the burbs. I've even found beaver chewed trees in the green belt/creek behind my house.

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/02/growling-bobcats-caught-on-video-in-carrollton-neighborhood.html/

One day, on our old ranch in Gillespie county, I saw two redtails spiraling on a thermal, for quite some time. It seemed like the locked their talons together for a bit. I'm guessing it was either some kind of fight for something, or a mating ritual.

The coolest thing was when we went out fishing one day, about 5 miles off Myrtle Beach. It was an odd, incredibly calm day - the water looked like oil, just dead flat.

We tried using some lures, and some squid, and weren't having any luck, and after awhile, decided to head in.

My brother threw the squid overboard, and we were still hanging out, and enjoying the day, etc, and a gigantic sea turtle came up, and started eating the squid. It seemed like it had a head about the size of a basketball.

Couple of years ago was in the deer stand and a buck walks by with two open sores on his head and blood running down his neck. Must have just had his antlers broken off in a fight.

Last summer while fishing around tankers a few miles offshore in port aransas, we saw a huge manta ray come shooting out of the water. It had to have gone 15 feet in the air and made a huge splash.I don't know how common it is to see it but it was awesome to see

When I was about 12 years old a buddy of mines dad took us fishing at some crappy pier around Corpus. We had didnt catch anything good for most of the morning until my buddy starts reeling in frantically with something on his line. The rod was bent pretty good so we thought it musta been a decent redfish. As the end of the line nears the pier, we can see that its a nice speck, about 24-25" long. Only problem was its not fighting, just laying stiff like a piece of wood. When he finally lands it, we can see its missing its eyes and has been picked at by crabs and has a large surf weight, leader and hook still in its mouth. He is still pretty disappointed that biggest speck he ever caught was foul hooked and already dead.

Some close family friends have a bay house on Caney Creek in Sargent. We would fish on the pier on the creek into the wee hours of the morning. My dad always liked to leave a line out after we all went to bed then get up at first light and go check his line, often with a big red or flounder on the other end. He would leave a 8 ft surf rod with a big old school Penn reel that was wound with braided line in a big wooden spool that we used as a table on the pier. Well one morning he get up to check his line and its gone along with the spool. We figured a boat came a little close to the pier and pull the whole thing in the water, or the biggest redfish in Texas dragged it in.

My dad was pretty pissed because my grandpa gave him that reel 30 years ago before he passed away. About 5 years later, Dad gets a call from the guy how owns the bay house and tells him that his nephew hooked a rod and recognized it as Dad's. He had it cleaned and we still have it, still works too.

While interning in Tampa Florida summer of 09, was out in buddies boat and hard beached it on one of the island in the bay to hang out. While standing ~waist deep in the water throwing the football around, someone saw a large object and very tip of a fin come out of the water ~15ft behind me. They shout 'Shark', I look back while starting to swim/run opposite direction at same time - so didn't get a great look. It turns my direction only to be a dolphin of some sort (small one).

A couple years ago me, my buddy and his younger brother go hunting on their place on the colorado/lavaca county line. This place is crawling with hogs, and we usually see some every time we go out there.

Any ways we all split up to wait for dark. After corning the easement road, I set in some yaupons and wait for something to come out. After about 30 minutes of waiting, I get the dreaded feeling of something awful stampeding and gurgling through my intestines. Luckily I always have some tp in my hunting pack. I head about 30 yards down the road and step into the brush to unload a nasty dump. Everything goes normally and I sit back down in my ambush spot.

About 15 mintues before dark I hear hogs squealing and they are coming my way. I get ready. Soon I can hear them grunting and carrying on in the brush right where I had just crapped earlier. I am positive they were chowing down on my poo. A few of the pack finally show themselves through the bushes. I managed to shoot three of the **** eating hogs.

I keep telling my buddy I'm gonna start bottling and selling my crap as hog bait. Coming to an Academy near you, Park's Poo Pig Bait!!

[This message has been edited by hellapark (edited 2/22/2013 1:10p).]

I went down to the boat dock one morning to check on something and I heard a splash and then saw a small dog swimming away. He got on a support under the neighbors' dock so I got the net and went over to try and get it. When I got close he jumped in again and started swimming to the bulkhead. As I got closer I saw it looked just like one of those little chihuahuas that wins the ugliest dog contest. Nasty looking guy. I tried to catch him with the net but couldn't so I watched him slowly sink, pop up for a second and then sink again and he was gone. Sucked watching it drown but when the neighbor said there had been a mangy fox running around the yards I was glad I didn't save it.

park, that foul hook story reminds me of a catfish I caught in highschool.

I had something on the line and it just didn't feel right. It managed to wrap my line around a pier on the dock that I was throwing under. I could tell the fish was still on the line so I cut it from the reel and unwrapped it from the dock. When I pulled the fish up, I had foul-hooked a nest of line that this catfish was dragging around after someone had previously foul hooked him and then been broken off.

When I was about a freshman in HS, my dad and I used to go fishing in the south bay on the South Padre Island side pretty often. Over a Christmas break, right after a cold front, dad and I packed up and headed out to fish with a couple of uncles. It was a chilly day and quite overcast but we were undeterred; we waded into the bay until about belly deep so we could cast into the flats just before the channel.

Not long after we set up, one of my uncles yells out "bring it in, Danny!" as he is looking at my dad. My dad gave him a WTF look because he had no idea what my uncle was talking about. My dad and I then look about 10 or so feet ahead of my dad and saw what my uncle did...a shark fin emerge as a number of mullet leaped out of the water. That shark was chasing mullet and my dad was temporarily in the way. I thought my dad was Jesus the way he ran on top of water all the way to shore.

I don't remember catching anything that day, but I sure do remember watching my dad haul ass on water as if it were sidewalk.

I was crappie fishing in a Newnan's Lake in central Florida. My buddy and I were in a canoe but the locals were wading and having better luck. We soon realized the water was riddled with gators. So we did the only reasonable thing and joined the locals in the water chest deep for better fishing.

Back when i was 10 or 11 the family and I reached the top of Pikes Peak and the building(observatory) there. I see a doe not too far from the car so I decide to approach. I reach out and touch its head and the thing rears back on two legs and hits me square in the chest with its front legs. It knocked me down and took my breath away. Best part is my family got a picture of it. Will try to find it.

A couple years ago I had turned off my street to go to work. A see a squirrel get demolished by a car in front of me and while the little guys tail is still twitching a red tail hawk swoops down and snatches it right in front me seconds before I run over it.

That deer story.

I was a Aggie Bus Driver for several years during my time in Aggieland. One time, I was driving a route down Olsen Boulevard, about to make the left turn onto George Bush Drive when out of the corner of my eye I see two squirrels chasing after each other. As I start my turn, I see them coming right to the bus from my right side and see them go under my bus. I feel one bump with my right-front tire and quickly switch my view over to the left side-view mirror just in time to catch the second one go under my left-rear tires. I keep turning and manage to see both squirrels pancaked right smack in the middle of George Bush Drive. It was a sad day for squirrels everywhere.

1. I was in Myrtle Beach a couple summers ago doing the tourist thing at the beach. I was in about chest deep water when I saw an eerily familar dorsal fin surface and retreat back into the water about 30' away from me. My swimming day came to a quick stop and on my way back to the beach I notice several dozen people on the beach looking at something in the water a couple hundred yards from where I was. I walk down to see what is going on to find sharks had pushed mullet close to the shore and were feeding on them in a frenzy. You could see the sharks ripping through the waves and blowing the bait out of the water. At times the sharks themselves would come completly out of the water.

2. I was fishing in the surf in Matagorda near a shrimp boat that had recently pulled in their nets and was culling. We were fishing for trout and were severally undergunned since the water was boiling with sharks. They were hitting anything we had in the water, shrimp, popping corks, the boat was even a target. The gulls were so full from eating cull that they could barely get themselves off the water and we saw a number of them become easy meals for sharks.

My stories all involve my family, which is usually the case when we are hunting or fishing and always good for a laugh since they are borderline retarded..
My dad's vision has gotten worse and worse over the years and he insists on one of us drooping his arse off and then coming back and picking him up from the deer blinds. We had all been telling stories of the deer we had seen on cameras and my dad had this old 12 picked out and he was a hoss. I wanted that deer bad but it was at his blind so I figured he would eventually get it. Second to last day at the ranch and I go back about 10am to pick his goofy butt up and he doesn't come out of the box blind when i pull up. I get out and I am just about to walk to the ladder going up to check on him when i see that big 12 at the feeder and blast him. He was sound asleep in the blind, the old fart woke up pretty startled to the 30-30 shot right below him! He is on my wall and my dad is still pissed at me every time he sees it!

We have a place in surfside and wade often into the surf and bay. About three of us are in the bay a little after the sun sets and we can still see pretty good but should be walking back at this point, but we keep fishing. My brother gets 'bumped' by something (we've since always assumed a big shark) and freaks out cuz it moved him about 4 feet and put a big and I mean nasty bruise on his ribs the next day. Not sure how lucky we actually were on that one that it ended like it did.

I have property in Dripping Spring and have two bow blinds. One morning i climb into one of my tripod blinds in the dark and I am just sitting there with my eyes closed waiting for daylight. I heard the noise before I felt the pain. This swooshing sound and then the wind hits me. The damn owl (I'm assuming still) lands partially on my head with one talon and the other in my neck/shoulder. I ended up with 4 stitches in my head and 11 in my neck/shoulder because he freaked out as much as i did and he clamped onto me good and I shook and he cut me pretty bad. Never saw it or knew for sure what it was...but it was very big bord and hard some serious weapons he clamped me with.

I shot a big and really nice 161 buck in Bendera that limped down the road to me, only to find out later that night that some guys on the back side of the ranch had trailed the blood from one of their shots all the way to my blind. It was kind of awkward and I did find the second shot when I was cleaning it later on but I had dropped it and it wasn't changing hands at that point.

[This message has been edited by DrippinAg (edited 3/5/2013 1:44p).]

My Grandfather and I (10 years old at the time) walked down to Dogwood Creek on our property in Western Washington Co., where back in the day there was always a pretty good fishing hole. There was considerable splashing around a grapevine that trailed into the water. We got within about 15 feet and noticed there were two water moccasins that were nose to nose wrapped around a grapevine. As we looked closer they were both fighting over the same mudcat. One had swallowed him up to the pectoral fin from the tail end, and the other met it from the head side. My Grandfather told me to run up to the house and get his 22 and to grab some ratshot shells. My Grandfather was able to get within 6-8 feet of those snakes and killed both of them with ONE shot of the ratshot! I would have bet the farm and lost that would have never been possible!

Last Friday while fishing Galveston at the cruise terminal.

1. Caught a red snapper.... 2.5" long on a live shrimp.
2. My son and I both hooked up at the same time and reeled in the same fish.

A few years ago, we hit up Lake Belton to chase after some hybrids. Sun wasnt even up yet when we went to our first spot, and we noticed something swimming circles in the water. This was about 200 yards from the shore, near Temple Lake Park. We eased up to it, and discovered this guy.



Set him down in the boat, and he never moved. Got to the shore and set him down, and he just laid there for awhile before he finally walked away. He was exhausted.



[This message has been edited by Burroak (edited 10/9/2013 7:07a).]

Duck hunting in Minnesota, watched a nice 8-10 point buck (too far away to tell for sure) walk into the lake, swim across and walk out into the woods on the other side.

Was deer hunting in Iowa with son and the cat there was (unknown to us) under the hood or under the van. I started to back out and the cat ran out into clean, unbothered snow, ran around in a circle several times and fell over dead. Not a mark on him - no blood in the snow. No idea what actually happened but he was DRT.
Great stories! THANKS!!

Posted this on its own thread a while back, but this seems more appropriate.

While kayak fishing for rockcod off of Carmel River state beach, had several Risso's Dolphins swim by us. The guy in the blue kayak visible said one swam under him and turned back to the left away from the kelp bed.

http://youtu.be/lWi5b2AN0M0

[This message has been edited by Pro Sandy (edited 10/9/2013 12:28p).]

Every summer my family spends a week on the beach somewhere with a bunch of my old corps buddies and their families. The group grew a lot over the years as the families grew and we always spent a lot of time fishing with the kids. I quickly learned to buy cheap rods/reels and gear because the kids were constantly dropping things off the pier/deck/dock, never to be seen again. Whenever a rod went missing, the blame always shifted either to a "monster" fish or a sibling. It was not an uncommon occurrence.

A few years ago, we stayed in a house in Pirates Cove on the West end of Galveston island. The house was on one of the jetties and had a boat dock in back. Kids caught lots of crab, stingray, croakers, eel, specs, and a TON of hardheads. One afternoon, the kids reported that one of the rods had been dragged off by a "monster" fish. Other than inquiring about whose rod it was - and proceeding to heckle the unlucky dad - we didn't give it much more thought.

The next day, one of the kids hooked a fish and I noticed that, for once, it really did appear to be a "monster." That cheap Zebco was bent almost all the way over and looked for sure to be more than a trash fish. After a few minutes of straining by the kid, a rod tip broke the surface and we quickly identified the missing rod from the day before. I gaffed the errant rod and began pulling the line in with it. To my amazement, a relatively large HARDHEAD was still flailing about on the line from the missing rod. You've never seen a kid was so proud to have caught a thieving "monster" hardhead AND the rod that it had stolen!

Boating home along the King Ranch shore line and seeing a coyotee in chest deep water going after a school of fish was neat to see.

Last year while deer hunting near falfurrias I had about ten doe in the sendero munching on a fat trail of corn. The heavy corning was necessary because these doe were daily visitors who could wipe out a trail of corn before daybreak. At one point two of them were walking head down directly towards one another happily picking up kernels. Once they reached the same point and their heads almost touched the larger one stood on its hind legs. The smaller one looked up and raised up on its hind legs as we'll, and as soon as it got all the way up the larger doe kicked the absolute **** out of it using its front legs. I could could hear the wallop from 50 yards away and it connected right in the neck and jaw area. That smaller deer took off running into the brush but was back eating in less than 10 minutes.