-
I was in a hog tunnel chacing hogs in S. Ga one cold morning. A mess of hogs ran across in front of me and I saw this big boar. To get his attention, I took my deer grunt call and muffled it and grunted. The wild boar stopped, turned towards me and started to advance.
At that point, I realized my longbow was too long for a tunnel shot. So I reached around to my back to grab my Kabar. Crap! I forgot it. I am sitting in this tunnel, can't go left, right or bachwards and this pissed off hog is heading for me chomping his jawls.
At 15 / 20 yards, he stops, he's trying to figure me out, I'm shaking because of the cold or just plain skeirt. He turns and runs away. I slowly back out of the tunnel and re-evaluated my hog hunting techniques.
I still go in hog tunnels, I take a shorter bow, and I always check for my Kabar or Bowie.
-
black bears don't have any current narural predators [usualy] but they are timid animals who have shared their world ever the milenia with several apex predators which put thier temperment and stature to shame. sometimes they become rather 'cock of the walk' but it usualy just takes threatening posture and noise to scare them off, so long as you have something to back that up, like a camp gun. where i'm from, this has become a generic term for magnum revolvers and synonymous with bear protection.
i've been stalked by black bear more than once and it's usualy just a manifestation of cautious curiosity. when they know you've noticed them, they usualy amble off and if they don't, and keep advancing, you realy want to give them the idea that they should leave, as curiosity is often a precursor to predatory behavior.
black bear in different areas have different temperments, such as garbage and camp bears [both dangerous 'humanized' bears] will often be more brazen than wild bears not accustomed to people.
the rest of my bear experience is with grizzly bear and my advice with them is to keep allpossible distance or a serious topological barrier, and they may come back by to investigate where they first saw you on a later day if you stay put.
my most hair rasing encounters have been with feral dogs in northern california of all places, which tend to pack up in that area and with one rabbid dog who wouldn't let me leave my property and couldn't walk straight.
when it comes to large animals, all i can say is i'd love to have [and to survive] as many more encounters as i may in my lifetime.
-
I was flyfishing in a pond at Baxter State Park, in northern Maine. A cow moose with a calf came out of the woods to my left about 40 feet away. I was knee deep in the water so I just stood still and kept my flyrod still as well. When the cow moose walked behind me, there couldn't have been 6 inches of space between us. She had the calf on her right side so she was between us. I was quite relived when they got past me and into the pond. Gave them some room to eat and continued to fish. There wasn't any sense in moving because that would have set her off for sure. This park gets a lot of visitors and it's all woods and the moose see a lot of people, but you never know what will happen when they are that close.
-
Once I was on one of my earlier high school kid age survival quests lol we did this often practicing our skills hunting fishing camping : My friend Jim and I backpacked to Canada. We had built a lean to on the north shore on the n branch of the Beaver river, one night we had left a coffe pot full of beef broth next to the roaring fire, bout 2:45 am we woke up as the fire had died and we began to shiver temp 20f. rolled over to stoke the fire and we both saw this large black shadow light was quite dim but clearly something was standing there holding the pot decideing weather to fight or flee we fumbled and retrieved knives and flashlights and put the beems on the intruder, lmao was a very large fisher and he'd had enough he left us to our shivering. Dropped the pot and faded into the blackness.
-
Thank you, Alphabet. I had never heard of or seen a Fisher before. In fact, I had to look it up.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
