Animal Encounters

[ppine]

Nice video by Marten. When the encounters are frequent, it causes a change in many people's thinking. They start to realize that their number could come up. It is always best to have firearms and not need them, than the opposite. I was carrying a pistol this week in some wild country about 100 miles from here. A guy in town I met saw three bears last week. The drought is causing the wildlife to do some strange things.

I was on a lake in northern California, listening to migrant loons in the morning mist. Spring and fall are the only times they are around. I ran into a flock of wild turkeys, bald eagle, osprey and a flock of 45 Sandhill cranes. The fishing was crummy due to the drought and warm weather. Two years ago I ran into a mountain lion in the same area.

 

[lowangle al]

I had a wolf pee on my tent in the Alaska range. At first I thought it was my 7 year old was sleep walking or something, but he was still in his sleeping bag. Looking out of the tent I saw the wolf walking away.


One time coming around a tight bend on the narrow (15 ft) Swanson River on the Kenai Penninsula my wife and I both got stared down by a large grizzly. We had been making lots of noise too, because about an hour before we found a dead bull moose half submerged in the river. He must have died early in the winter because he still had his antlers. My wife said they would look nice over the fireplace and asked if I could cut them off. This was early in my tripping career and I didn't have a saw or ax so I hacked them off with a big knife getting covered with bits of flesh, hair and bone in the process. We were a little nervous after stirring up the stink and the little bit of flesh still on the antlers was pretty strong too. We were yelling frequently and I was banging on the gunnel with the paddle but it wasn't enough to notify the bear we were coming. It was windy and the banks were high and lined with tall grass.

When I saw the bear he was probably less than 20 ft. away, when I looked at my wife to see if she saw it, she was on her knees with her head down below the gunnel in the bow. Not knowing if she saw it and also to let the bear know we were human I said " there's a bear". when it heard me he turned his head towards me and looked right in my eyes. He then stood up on his hind legs, probably to get a sniff, turned and moved into the trees. My wife(after paddling furiously for a few minutes) told me he also looked into her eyes and that she was too scared to even warn me and was hiding in the bottom of the canoe. I was afraid this incedent would end my wifes desire to get out there, but luckily it didn't.

I kicked a crocodile in the Everglades but didn't know it until a year later. We were near Cape Sable where Fl. Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico and we were in the water when I walked into a large "log." I stomped all around the area trying to find that log again but it was gone. The following year we were down there again and when we went for our permit where the ranger gives you a talk on the rules and he told us about the importance of not letting the racoons get your water because there are too many racoons. This time he mentioned that the racoons are a problem because they eat the eggs of the endangered American crocodile. Whoa, crocodile? I never knew there were any down there. Later as we were approaching the same beach where I kicked the log we saw a large croc run faster than you would think from the tree line down the beach and into the water. It was then it hit me that the log I ran into was a crocodile. The previous year we had seen their tracks and even a nest that got torn up but I assumed they were turtle tracks not being familiar with the area.

 

[red langford]

I've been out moose hunting all week and Tuesday I walked around a corner and there about 150 years away was a moose. I was in the process of walking into my stand so I put everything down and pulled out the binoculars to see if there were any horns and sure enough there were two small little horns there. I had a tag for a cow moose only so this one was going to have to go on it's way. So eased back to the treelike and watched this moose graze here then there then a little more over here then he was getting closer and closer and I was getting nervous. A bull moose in rut even this smallish one is is a force to reckon with, and here he was hair on his back standing straight up and me looking for an escape route. He come to within 50 yards and I take the safety off the gun. I'm thinking firing a warning shot may scare away a trailing cow but now as he moves to within 20 yards I am thinking I may have to shoot this thing to save my arse. He carried on past me but I am not really sure he knew I was there but that is the closest I have ever been to a moose in my life and gotta say the closest I ever want to be to one in rut again unless I have a tag for a bull.

 

[Canotrouge]

I live in the Yukon, and spend a lot of time in the bush, so encounters are some what frequents... Noting crazy, but frequents!! Last week wile moose hunting, I came out of a small lake to an other one and right in front of my on the hill side was a lynx. I had a pine marten a few weeks back crossing the road in from of me...

A few years back, wile hunting for moose I was soloing wile my sister and law and her husband went a head of me up stream on a small creek off the main river so after a few minutes, I decided to follow them up and after a few hundreds yards, I hear something in the brush on shore, the creek is about 18 to 20 feet wide, I'm in a 17.5 feet canoe, I look on my right and about 50 feet from shore is a young grizzly bear looking at me standing on his hind feet, I talked to him, he goes down on his four and move forward maybe 10-20 feet and he's back up standing sniffing and looking at me... I keep talking to him, since I can't really turn around easily, he doesn't move, so I slap my paddle in the water like a beaver would do with its tale, and the bear just ran away as fast as he could, and they run fast!! I was a bit nervous after that, but this is the kind of encounters we run into up here... So far I always been lucky!!

 

[ppine]

Good stories. Moose are amazing at close range and as dangerous as anything out there. I used to run into them in Wyoming.

Anyone that lives in the North or spends a lot time in the bush always has some great bear stories. I have a friend on another forum that is a wildlife biologist in the Northwest Territories. He says "bears are a fact of life, and you just have to deal with them." That kind of sums it up.

 

[Canotrouge]

A friend of mine that lived all is life in the bush as a trapper/ guide, says that there is nothing you can do, regarding bears, if your time is up, gun or no gun, spray or no spray you will end up dead... On the other end, if your time is not up then you have nothing to worry about!!

 

[sweeper]

We were camped near a tarn at about 11,000' on Mt Elbert in Colorado and in the morning my tent mate says to me, "Did you hear the Mtn Lion outside the tent last night?"
I said, "You were awake to hear that also?"
We crawled out of the tent to see large cats tracks between the two tents. As the other pair climbed out of their tent we asked them if they had heard the cat that night. They told us we were full of Skat until we showed them the tracks that lead down to the tarn and then off over the ridge.

 

[lowangle al]

A lot of It is about luck with bear safety. For years I had a rabbit foot in the headband of my hat instead of a feather, and I always have one in the pocket of my life jacket and it seems to be working. I have passed a couple of them along to people I meet out there who don't have a gun or bear spray. I don't know if it makes them feel safer or not, I hope it makes them smarter though. A couple times over the years I've had people share my campsite with me because they were afraid of bears, and this is on a large lake with plenty of vacant spots nearby.


The older I get the more respect I have for bears. A best friend of mine was attacked while sleeping in his tent, he was alone and almost bled to death while waiting for almost a full day for the pilot to return. A previous employer of mine was attacked while gutting a deer on Kodiak Island. His rifle was leaning against a tree and he ended up killing the bear with his knife, getting severely chomped on in the process. He attributed his survival to his many years in the concrete business toughening him up. Both of these men were near 70 years old when they got attacked with many years in the bush, they both had guns and they both ran out of luck. I know a couple people who have been charged and a couple who have come within touching distance, one of them got bear slobber on them when the bear turned to run.


I much prefer the animal encounters that aren't life threatening.

 

[Odyssey]

Thankfully not all encounters are dangerous.

 

[Qayaq]

Had an interesting run-in with a lemming while prospecting near Kugaaruk, Nunavut. I was following a small path through a wet hummocky area when I met a lemming coming towards me. It was taking claim to the trail and when it got about 5 feet from me it started jumping in the air, gnashing it's sharp little teeth. I gave way and stepped aside as it scurried past on its path.