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Post by onebentarrow on Nov 20, 2023 11:53:43 GMT -5
There is the normal stuff,birds,squirrels,deer (I hope) maby turkeys. Then there is the less normal. Halk catching pray,bird landing on your stand. Halk landing in the tree next to you. Then there is the unusual. That is what I am going to subscribe that happened Sunday. I was sitting in my stand looking around and saw a squirrel climbing a tree about 35 yrds in front of me the tree was about 10 in in diameter. The squirrel went up about 25 feet and just dissapered in to thin air. No hole did not go around tree just disapered. I could not figure out where it went. I kept looking and saw it about 12 feet on up the tree. About that time I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye left of the tree and it was a swurrel climbing in another tree. I watch it and noticed that each time it moved the first squrrel moved too. As I studied the situation I discovered that the first squrrel was the shadow of the second squrrel projected just perfect on the first tree it looked alive and moving. What are the odds? The sun had to be just perfect, no leaves on the tree,live squrrel had to climb tree at just the perfect spot and time to cast shadow on second tree, I had to be in exact spot to see it. I was amazed. That shadow was so perfect that it really looked like a live squrrel. I just sat there and smiled at what I had just seen. Another time years back I was sitting in a stand on a morning facing east over a 10 acre alfalfa field. There was a super heavey frost that night and as the sun came up the field looked white. As the day warmed up the frost started to form water drops on the alfalfa and as the sun shined on them they reflected the blue red and yellow colors of the rain bow. It looked like some one took a million little twinkely Christmas lights and spread them all over that field. It was awsome. Yes I remember the deer I took and how some were more eventful than others but it is the other things that fill in the dead space that makes hunting so enjoyable and relaxing. Remember when you are out there to stop and smell the roses. don't over look the small things that can enhance the experience and make that hunt memorable.
Onebentarrow
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Post by incampnut on Nov 20, 2023 15:46:43 GMT -5
So true. There are many times that I sit in the tree and just enjoying things that are going on around me. I sometimes really don't care if I shoot anything or not, just enjoy the time spent especially on a beautiful day. Yes, it's the little things that matter.
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Post by whitetaildave24 on Nov 20, 2023 18:55:55 GMT -5
Absolutely. We get to experience many things in nature that others never will.
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Post by Huntnfreak on Nov 20, 2023 19:01:42 GMT -5
I say it all the time to people. You have no idea what you’re missing out on if you don’t spend time in nature!!
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Post by sculver7 on Nov 20, 2023 19:02:13 GMT -5
For sure. I always think that getting a deer is a bonus. Everything else I get to see while hunting is the real reward.
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Post by Woody Williams on Nov 20, 2023 19:26:01 GMT -5
Thats what I like about hunting with my grandson. He doesn't just see things he ABSORBS things. He is really in tune with everything in nature.
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Post by esshup on Nov 20, 2023 21:47:18 GMT -5
Onebentarrow, that is so true. I've had so many experiences out in the woods that has NOTHING to do with what I am hunting. Some of the little things but are the most memorable.
In college (school of Natural Resources - wildlife biologist degree with minor in soils and forestry) hunting for ducks standing in some scrub trees between them at the edge of a pond. I see this tweety bird flying directly at me (I have light and dark camo on) and I guess it thought that the light camo was a hole in the branches. At the last minute it realized that I was solid and it pulled up and flew over me but I had it's wind from it's wings in my face. It was that close.
Sitting in a tree stand or on a chair on the ground and having birds perch on the rifle barrel. Chickadee and Tufted Titmice. All I can do is move my eyeballs, I I know that if I move my head they are gone.
Sitting in a tree stand, I feel this squirrel on the opposite side of the tree from where I'm sitting. Then I feel it's paw on my upper arm and just as fast it's paw is gone. I guess my clothes didn't feel like the bark of a tree.
Saturday morning I was covered up with squirrels. Then a Coopers Hawk landed in the tree not 20 feet away. I watched a squirrel make a dive for the base of a hollow tree and while there was room for it's body, it's tail was outside of the rotten area. The hawk flew off but it was 20 minutes before the squirrel ventured out.
The sunrises in the woods, sitting there watching the woods wake up.
It's not the killing part that is the main reason why I hunt, although if I couldn't kill something and put it in the freezer, I probably wouldn't be out in the woods as much. Many people don't realize that it's not about the killing why I hunt.
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Post by Woody Williams on Nov 20, 2023 23:07:28 GMT -5
Can’t see this in the city….
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Post by freedomhunter on Nov 20, 2023 23:34:55 GMT -5
Where jerk rack gave me the slip at 90yd just sitting in a chair on the bank with my Xbow. Would have been a good story
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Post by huntsemall on Nov 21, 2023 5:52:05 GMT -5
Two things come to mind.....setting in a tree I see something small heading my direction....and whoosh it attaches itself to the tree right about me.....flying squirrel. Neat little buggers with big ole eyes.
Had a great horned owl fly into a tree next to me. He was looking me over pretty good. He then moves into the tree I'm in a few limbs above me and now is really giving me the stink eye. I'm checking him out and he proceeds to move directly above me smacking his beak together....I'm thinking now he is gonna sh*& on me...finally talked to him and said that is close enough and he took off. I was in a tree a few yards at an inside corner of a CRP field so I figured he was not happy that I was in his hunting tree.
Woody them there are some awesome pictures.......
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Post by astronankin on Nov 21, 2023 9:00:08 GMT -5
Hard to decide! The spike buck on Saturday evening trying to use his little spikes to work a rub, squirrels climbing trees right next to me (and in one case actually shake the straps on the stand from the weight). Someone's cats out hunting in the woods. Brown-headed nuthatch just a foot above our heads on a wild hog hunt in Georgia and giving us no matter despite us trying to look up at it! Thrushes singing and investigating me, getting within 10 ft and not caring that they knew I was there. Deer walking within 15 yards on the ground and never knowing where exactly I was (most of them eventually spooked). So many things! Birds fighting over a food source or territory, squirrels chasing each other, sometimes in play, sometimes over territory.
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Post by titanium700 on Nov 21, 2023 9:32:17 GMT -5
The time I arrowed a squirrel. Arrow blew through him and there he laid on the ground, waiting till dark to retrieve him on my way out. (Was deer hunting) Just a little before dark I hear this whispery swoosh and out of the corner of my eye comes a huge owl, he landed on my squirrel and grabbed it and flew off…..with my meal.! Lol
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Post by jman46151 on Nov 21, 2023 9:40:15 GMT -5
Turkey hunting one year I hear something rustling leaves to my right. I look over and 3 young rabbits are hopping by with mama herding them trying to keep them going in one direction.
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Post by bill9068 on Nov 21, 2023 10:25:47 GMT -5
Watched a bobcat once climb a tree 10 yards from the tree I was in and look in a squirrels den. Took him about 3 seconds to climb 25 feet. Climbed back down after finding it empty and walked off. Another time I was sitting on a cliff drop off that you could climb up on hands and knees during muzzle loader season watching a valley, I saw something trotting through the woods towards me. It was a fox and this thing climbed up and sat on a rock within arms reach of me. I never moved, it ran off and 2 minutes later a coyote followed the exact same path as the fox and sat at the same spot. I was head to toe in camouflage coveralls. I have many more memories of strange animal behavior including touching a deer walking past me. I was still hunting on the ground next to a large tree. I heard and saw a small doe walking on a run next to tree. As it walked past I reached out and brushed it back end, it didn’t flinch and kept walking. After 50 years in the woods you see a lot of things.
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Post by omegahunter on Nov 21, 2023 10:36:07 GMT -5
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Post by Mack Apiary Bees on Nov 21, 2023 10:39:55 GMT -5
A couple weeks ago in the box stand there is a dead tree about 10 yard in front of me. I had no idea it was hollow and 5 racoons came out of the top. All 5 followed each other up all five oak trees around within 30 yard. The coons where getting acorns off the branches. They also knocked down a lot of acorns. Then it got dark and time to walk back.
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Post by ninepntr on Nov 21, 2023 11:03:19 GMT -5
I got down from the stand to check for blood. Had these two guys hovering around the blood trail, Little guy stayed for 20 minutes. Hot doe had the bucks acting dumb. youtu.be/XLuQbB-pd8U?feature=shared
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Post by coach39 on Nov 21, 2023 12:09:55 GMT -5
Seeing bobcats twice up close was cool. The thing that I NEVER want to be around again happened when I was 21 out in Parke county. It was a cold quiet morning, way off from any roads so it was absolutely silent and pitch black out. I’m sitting in the stand and heard an owl scream. It sounded like it was 10 feet from me. It sounded like a woman being murdered, I almost jumped out of the tree as I had never heard that before. I pray it doesn’t happen again because I would probably have a heart attack right there and die on the spot.
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Post by freedomhunter on Nov 21, 2023 12:48:44 GMT -5
I watched a bobcat stalk and try to catch a wood duck in an oxbow lake on the white river in freedom. He failed but it was cool to see he must have been hungry cause he got wet
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Post by omegahunter on Nov 21, 2023 19:11:41 GMT -5
Couple years back... Lip squeaked it right to the stand.
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