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One more reason to carry a gun and pepper spray

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    • I've mentioned this here before, but I have actually had bucks square off with me on the trail during mating season. They didn't charge me but i had to step off trail and walk around them, one was less than 15 feet away and wouldn't budge. During the rut, bucks really are the dumb horny frat boys of the forest.

      The worst part about it (for me) is that I have only had this happen in areas that are closed to hunting. I'll spend dozens of hours freezing my ass off in a treestand one week, only to have a freezer's worth of walking venison try to push me off of a hiking trail the next week.
      Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.

    • SarcasmTheElf wrote:

      I've mentioned this here before, but I have actually had bucks square off with me on the trail during mating season. They didn't charge me but i had to step off trail and walk around them, one was less than 15 feet away and wouldn't budge. During the rut, bucks really are the dumb horny frat boys of the forest.

      The worst part about it (for me) is that I have only had this happen in areas that are closed to hunting. I'll spend dozens of hours freezing my ass off in a treestand one week, only to have a freezer's worth of walking venison try to push me off of a hiking trail the next week.


      I was charged by a mule deer once. I had to yield the sidewalk and cross the street. Then at end of the street I ran into an elk sleeping in the tall grass next to the sidewalk. His chin was on the ground and the top of his rack was over my head. This was all in downtown Banff, Alberta.

    • I had a Deer snort at me from a thicket I was passing (never saw him, but for some water vapor when he breathed) it was at night last winter with snow on the ground, gotta say it kinda made me a little nervous thinking I might have to defend against a rack in the dark.

    • except for the mouse that chewed a hole in my pack at sunfish pond to get at a cinnamon roll i bought at delaware water gap for breakfast, the only time i've lost food to an animal was in rocky mountain national park when i left a bag of gorp outside my tent, took a bathroom break, and in the short time i was gone 2 deer had their snouts in the gorp bag.
      2,000 miler

    • I used to hunt, 20 years ago. Ive got one buck, a 6 pointer and a doe the next year. All the years I hunted , even while not in the woods hunting I would never see any bucks, they were ever elusive.... Fast forward 20 years and seriously I see these huge 8-10 pointers every where...constantly, like they are taunting me to go hunting again!
      RIAP

    • I've had deer do some pretty funny things, had two stand on their hind legs and box underneath my stand, had a doe see me sitting against a tree but she didn't know what I was, she kept getting closer and closer snorting and stomping the ground, got within about 8' and got a whiff and took off (you would too if you got a whiff). The photo reminded me of a day on Clinch Mt. in VA when the 1" snow flakes started floating down and deer came alive, had a doe lay on her side and reach under a large log to get something, wish I'd had a camera, she had snow stuck on her face and was only about 10' away....love those days I don't kill anything but have a great time.
      I may grow old but I'll never grow up.

    • SarcasmTheElf wrote:

      I've mentioned this here before, but I have actually had bucks square off with me on the trail during mating season. They didn't charge me but i had to step off trail and walk around them, one was less than 15 feet away and wouldn't budge. During the rut, bucks really are the dumb horny frat boys of the forest.


      You got that right. My wife had a buck dent the passenger door of her car once. He saw his reflection in the side windows, lowered his head and charged it.
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.

    • odd man out wrote:

      There's a new carnivore, common on the AT, that will come up and eat you alive. Be afraid - very very afraid!!! =O

      io9.com/field-cameras-catch-de…it-why-do-deer-1689440870


      Woah, that was a good read. I have to change what I teach my kids in animal science now.

      Astro wrote:

      If the deer are just eating birds, only Bird Brain and Wise Old Owl should need to be concerned, the rest of us should OK.


      LMFAO! I love this forum! So full of witty insults! ;)
      www.appalachiantrailclarity.com - Life on the A.T.

      Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.

    • Foresight wrote:

      Kestrel's are the one's that seem to have my number. 3 times I've had them swoop in after me while I was in a tree stand. Twice in the same day! Freaked me out.

      In spring our magpies swoop people near their nests. A lot of eye and face injuries. They also like to crap on my front porch waiting for me to feed them.
      They're about the size of crows/ravens in the USA. Our crows are much bigger birds, I suspect due to filling the gap we have because we don't have buzzards.
      Images

      • Dads n8 nokia phone pictures 422.jpg

        130.4 kB, 450×600, viewed 402 times
      Resident Australian, proving being a grumpy old man is not just an American trait.

    • I get attacked by red wing balckbirds while mowing the lawn. We have 300 ft of frontage on a drainage ditch behind our hose (I guess that would make it backage, not frontage). Anyway, the RWBB's nest in the cattails and it seems they don't like me pushing a loud internal combustion engine of wheels past their babies. They never make contact, but they do come close.

    • Foresight wrote:

      First and only time my dad ever cussed me......

      I was a Wildlife Biology major so he asks me, "What's the name for those blackbirds with red wings?" and I reply, "Red Winged Blackbirds"....."asshole". LOL!


      There was a TV commercial a few years ago. Don't recall what they were advertising, but in it a young couple was out hiking/birdwatching and one shouts "Look! a Redwing Blackbird". I always thought that was funny. I mean how many bird watchers get excited about seeing a redwing blackbird. Then I noticed that they re-edited the commercial and replaced the redwing blackbird comment with a more exotic species. I guess they heard from enough people that their original script was kind of lame.