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Our Den Mother, Mt-7, put a pretty good idea on the board the other day, and with all the doom and gloom out there, perhaps a more light hearted thread would be a nice change.
As such, I think that we need a thread about the encounters we have with Montana's first residents, the wild animals.
Non political, no personal jabs, just stories about living around wild animals. I will start.....Please feel free to join in around the campfire and chew the fat, and maybe tell a few "embellished but totally true" storys. (Old hunters don't lie, they just clean up a few details)
A few years ago during the opening week of hunting season in late October, a blizzard moved across one of my favorite hunting areas south of Livingston, dropping around 18 inches of fluffy fresh snow, and was still snowing moderately so you could see around 50 yards the day I went out.
The wind chill would have probably had the temperature around zero, so in other words, normal conditions
Anyway, As I crossed a drainage, I noticed some tracks and went to look. The tracks looked like a young kid walking through the snow as they had a generally human shape, but the snow being so deep and fluffy I couldn't tell exactly, but as I was the only person with permission to hunt that land, I wanted to see if it was someone tresspassing, lost in the storm, or one of the neighbors.
I followed the track for a ways, over logs, across a creek, under brush, and finally came to an old ditch that was about 4 feet deep. The tracks went under a branch, over the edge of the bank, and dissapeared.
I stopped and looked around to see if the tracks came up the other side, but they didn't. I thought maybe the hunter had fallen into the ditch and couldn't get up, (hypothermia always being a thought in those conditions), so I put my hand on the branch and leaned over the bank.
A young black bear EXPLODED out of the ditch. There was an undercut bank where I was standing, and he had been laying there under me. When I looked over the edge, it had startled the He** out of him. He took off at an estimated 70 miles an hour up the creek throwing rooster tails of snow high up in the air behind him.
Later some friends asked why I didn't shoot him, well, the truth of the matter is, it is hard to draw a bead when you are traveling at roughly the same speed in the opposite direction.
I don't know if I can do this justice. It didn't happen in Montana. I was at the huntin cabin just 4 miles West of Rochester South Dakota. I know I'm going to get blasted from my cousins who were in the cabin. I swear, I walked into Big Foot. Ok, maybe not big foot.
We were playing Peanuckle, like folks do at hunting camp. I had had just a little too much Black Berry Brandy and had to visit the out house. Typical, beaten trail going out there. Walked into something that was bigger then me. Hey, I'm 6 ft tall and weigh right close to 250. This sucker was bigger then me and he really needed a breath mint.
Well, I no longer needed to use the outhouse. I did need to change my pants.
Too little time in MT to have any stories yet, but a few years back in WV I was sitting halfway up a hillside in some oak woods looking up hill. There was a pretty active deer trail on this hill and the bucks were chasing the does pretty hard..
I could hear all hell coming my way from downhill, so I just stayed still with my rifle on my lap.. One by one a herd of does came walking within 5 feet of me- right past and up the hill. After a dozen or so walked by, one big doe stopped right in front of me and was pawwing up acorns.. She basically was looking right through me and stood maybe 3 feet away. She was doing a bit of a head bob, so she knew something wasn't quite right.
I couldn't stand to sit still anylonger, so I pursed my lips and in a real low but soft voice I said "Boo".
I've never heard a doe scream as loud nor jump as high as that girl. I laughed my butt off for a good while after that.
I keep telling people the only reason Montana folks lock our cars is to keep the zucchini out. But did anyone here believe me? No! Well, they will now -- proof that a five-pound zucchini is more dangerous than a wild bear!!
I thought I ran into Bigfoot outside my hunting camp one time, a large hairy, evil smelling beast with red eyes, but it turns out it was just my hunting partner after 2 weeks in camp
Good one Threerun! I can just see that poor doe's nervous breakdown
I had a similar experience near Harlowtown.
I was bow hunting for antelope, (not an easy thing) and spotted a nice buck lying in a hayfield.
There was a deep irrigation ditch about 6 feet deep running along the edge of the field. I figured if I could go down the ditch to a small bush growing on the bank, use the bush for cover getting out of the ditch and getting behind a big round bale of hay in the field, I could use it for cover to get close enough for my shot.
All went well until I pulled myself over the bank. Turns out that bush was not only the only cover for 2 miles in any direction, it was also the only shade and there was a doe antelope lying under it.
When I put my hands on the bank and jumped up, apparently it was the most frightening thing she had ever seen.
Antelope are fast! Normally they run about 60 MPH, but she had motivation
She reminded me a lot of the old road runner cartoons with a strip of fire in her wake and telephone poles pulled out of the ground and pulled behind her by her speed of passing. I don't know where she was going, but it was posative she was sure not going to be late getting there.
Meanwhile, I was still lying on the ditchbank beating on my chest with a rock trying to get my heart started. That is snake country, and when she jumped, I thought the worlds biggest rattler had me cold!!
I could actually reach out and touch her bed from where I was lying. That is close
The buck meanwhile just stood there looking around like, "what the heck happened guys". Completely clueless LOL!!
Location: Approximately 50 miles from Missoula MT/38 yrs full time after 4 yrs part time
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Two Bear stories that are true.
I hesitated to post these two actual experiences, they are true......I know there are some that will think I'm "blowin' smoke", but they really did happen.
For my 65th birthday in 1997, my daughter & husband bought me a "guided hunt" for a Canadian Black Bear in northern Saskatchewan. I'd only had one other hunt (1961) with a guide (req'd by law) and that was for a Kodiak. All the other hunting I've done since the 1950's has been un-guided........
Their method of hunting is to put you up in a tree-stand (about 20'up) and you wait for a suitable bear to come into your field of view. They (the Canadians) are allowed to use certain types of 'bait' to attract the bears. I don't agree with this practice, but this is the way "they" conduct their black bear hunts in Sask.
1st day: Go up into tree stand at first light and wait....come down about 11 am.....go back to camp for lunch and do a little fishin' until about 3:30pm......then walk the 3/4 mile to the stand and go back up again until dark......no bears are seen on the first day.
2nd, 3rd and 4th days..............same story.....NO bears. Gettin' kinda antsy!
5th day:.....different story!!!!!!! about 4pm a juvenile bear (about 2 1/2 yrs and 250 pds)(way too young and too small to harvest) comes sniffin' around the area and ends up being right at the base of the tree that I am in.................. After about 4 minutes of sniffin' around the base of the tree, he decided to climb up the tree to investigate what that "smell" (me) is up there above him......I'm perfectly motionless all this time until he gets up the tree about 14 feet and is about 4 feet below the wire platform I'm standing on. OK.....I gotta do somethin'........ I have a small digital camera hanging from my neck and a lever action 1886 Winchester (.45-70) in my right hand. I lean over the top edge of the tree stand and get I good picture of the bear right below me (and with the toe of my boot visible in the picture.......showing how close he is.) I then put one 'round' right past his left ear..........sure enough he jumps down and takes off for good.
After about 10 minutes to regain my composure, I again am just waitin' and watchin' and all of a sudden a big old adult male comes into view,,,,,very cautiously.....takes about 20 minutes for him to get into an area (about 50 yds away) where I can get a clean shot. (NOTE: I'm usin' an iron sighted 1886 Win lever action in .45-70 and not my typical scope sighted .338 Win Mag, that I would normally use for big game....I didn't think a scope sighted rifle was very sporting to use under these circumstances.
One of those soilid lead 405 gr slugs put him down where he stood. My hunt was over.............ended up being 7'3" claw to claw and live weight was 453 pounds.......good size for a "spring bear".......in the fall he'd have benn close to 520 #, but probably wouln't have had as nice a coat on him.
The other instance was in June of 2004...........I was getting ready to take my late wife into Missoula for one of many bi-weekly chemo and radiation treatments and had the oxy unit and wheelchair in the front hall and my wife standing right their by the door........................I open the door....and right there on the front deck (5 feet away) eating some flowers out of one of the flower pots on the deck......is a good size black bear!! I was so startled, I threw the oxy bottle at him and yelled at the top of my lungs.......that instantly did it.........he jumped off the deck and ran like hell. No harm......but it took several minutes for my wife and I to get out breathing back to normal. (And rest-assurred, all future early morning trips like that had me checking out the front porch --with gun-in-hand-- before I got my wife and the necessary items into the vehicle.
The joys of livin' in MT.........I would'nt trade it for any place else. GRIZ
This was back about 1976 when I was living near the East Gallatin, east of Belgrade:
This fox (biggest durn fox you ever saw, size of a coyote) started showing up in my yard every night about 2AM. He'd just stand there not 20 feet from my trailer, croon "woo-woo" until he got the dogs in an uproar, and I'd come out to chase him off. I'd yell and throw stuff and he'd "woo-woo" at me, then take his sweet time trotting off into the night.
After about a week of this poor sleep I tried something different -- I went "woo-woo" back at him. The fox stopped his crooning, looked at me like I'd completely lost my mind, turned and ran off, and I never saw him again.
A couple of years ago I forgot to shut the garage door one evening, around two in the morning i heard some rumbling in the garage. I went down to the garage door and listened and decided not to open the door as it sounded as if a party was going on...and there was! The next morning I got up and found my freezer door in shambles and a ton of half thawed food all over the garage floor (had just gone to Costco) egg rolls scatted all down the driveway and all the rib eye steaks GONE!! After picking up the mess and kicking myself in the rear end for being so stupid, I walk out into the front yard only to find the biggest pile of bear "Thank-you". I now make sure I ALWAYS close that garage door.
Montana Griz, that is a super black bear Good for you!!
I have never connected with anything that large.
Goingtothedogs, I feel your pain. My brother had a woodchuck as a pet when he was a kid. Named it Elwood. Funny animal, but made a really good pet.
Anyway we went somewhere one evening and when we returned the house was TRASHED. The door had been broken open, stuff scattered all over the place, even my fathers guitar case had teeth marks in it.
We found Elwood under an overturned couch. A Black Bear had broken in and tried to get him, and while he didn't get to eat the woodchuck, he had killed him.
That same year another neighbor had a bear break into his place, and it trapped itself in his basement by knocking the door closed. They had a problem releasing it because the door opened into the rest of the house, not outside and they didn't want to be inside when the bear came up.
They finally used a board to open the door and got it out.
I don't know if anybody finally got that bear, but after that summer there weren't any more cases of breaking and entering by bears. Still makes me wonder how that bear learned to break into houses though.
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Two Bear stories that are true.
