What weird stuff have you glassed or happen well glassing for game?

[hime]

While glassing for elk one year I spotted a hawk flying down a small wash. All of a sudden he went straight up and then dove straight down behind a small juniper. About a minute later I heard the distress call from the rabbit. Over the next 5 minutes I glassed up 4 coyotes coming straight into the juniper. It was pretty neat to actually hear a real live distress call.

 

JDH

[singleshot]

My brother and I were hunting in unit 31 one year when we heard the sound of a jet flying very low. The engines sounded like they were really struggling. Eventually a huge jet appeared and the space shuttle was strapped to the top of it, heading southwest back to California I guess.

I watched some guys pull up into a trail head parking lot once and jump out and begin burglarizing vehicles after smashing out a window. I was probably 3/4 mile away and felt pretty much helpless. This happened before cell phones.

I was glassing for bear in September of 1988 when I started watching a full size truck with business placards driving up an extremely rough road in the canyon below me. All of a sudden three guys bail out and start blasting away. I could tell it was high powered rifles not shotguns so I kept watching. After the shooting ended, wich was about 30 rounds they started walking around and picking up the Javelinas they had just poached. They stacked them in a pile and drove off. More than six of them. I ended up glassing up and killing a bear that afternoon with an ear tag. The unit warden came by the house to collect teeth and looked up the tag number and told me where I had shot her. It was a 13 year old sow and I killed her less than 1/4 mile from where she had been trapped as a cub. He also asked me if I had seen a truck up in that canyon. He desribed the vehicle and told me that it was his buddies from Phoenix and that he told them it would be a good place to find a bear. I told him that I had seen it, and asked about the business placards. Yep, thats my friends he said. You should have seen his face when I told him to ask his buddies about the whole herd of pigs that they had wiped out.

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Well I have a spot that I glass from and we have seen what appears to be an alluminum extention ladder in the middle of a wilderness area! Actually Buckhorn was with me when we noticed it....This thing is a long and brutal ways from the nearest trail or road.... However we do have a theory or two about how it got there. One of these days I'll make it over to where it is at, but I am not in any hurry to see it close up...

[HEADACHE]

One time I had hiked into his large saddle archery deer hunting, sat down next to a big downed log for a quick bite and a breather whilst glassing the side of a mountain . . . I saw two ladies coming down the mountainside on horseback. . . they rode right towards me for about a mile or so. . . then about thirty yards shy of running right over me, they stop, hop off their horses and both of them start . . . well relieving themselves. Right out in the open! . . . I was way too slow to react or say anything and had to just turn my face away. Then they got back on their horses and rode not ten feet from me chattering away and they never even saw me. . . I'd bet my face was red!

 

One time I was bear hunting and saw a group of skinny dippers in the cold clear creek.

 

Once I was glassing over a large prarie and I heard the loudest dang noise, I jumped out of my skin grabbing for my rifle! It was an Eagle who had come and snatched up a rabbit from about 30 yards away. I mean I was scared for my life. It sounded like a jet!

 

Spotted a matched set of elk antlers about three miles away and under what looked like a bear cave so I thought. . . .hiked my tired butt all the way up there and turned out to be a set of Indian Ruins. Very cool.

 

The coolest one though was I was up picking up elk sheds, and had a group of turkey jump up, I followed them and they took me straight to the most jacked up antler I have ever found. . . then I start looking for the match to this freak and stumble upon two fawns, not more than half a day old. . . I walked right up and pet on them both, they were super cool! I watched momma go back to them and lick em all clean.

I Have the video on my phone still.

 

And once I saw sasquatch.

[mattobertin]

Last September me and a buddy stop to watch a bull that had about 15 cows herd together. The bull which was a good looking six point kept running off two rag horns that were after his cows. The weird thing was that there was a whitetail doe in the cows and the bull would not let her out of the herd.We watched for about 25 minutes and she never got out while we were there.

Just like some people I guess elk have wierd fetishes too, like the bull you guys saw must have been into the whole midget scene !

[4Falls]

This is an interesting post...

 

Over the years Ive seen antelope in a fight to the death, elk run full speed into ponderosa pines then get up and run off, 3 legged coyotes, javelinas having "relations" which made a herd of cattle run off by the way and people doing things best left for the bedroom. And remember this bit of advice: If your hunting near what used to be Childs, AZ along the Verde River and your buddy tells you theres gorgeous naked girls in the hot springs DO NOT believe him. Yes they are naked but they are not gorgeous and Im almost positive they were not girls. Enough said.

 

But by far the most shocking thing Ive seen was a few years back while archery goat hunting in 19A. Skeeter and I watched two single engine planes bump eachother in mid air and crash into the ground. We were first to the scene, and I checked for survivors. There were none. (details way to graphic)

 

 

 

 

 

[Eagle Eye]

About 7 years ago I went out scouting/shed hunting one spring day in unit 28. All I had with me was a pair of 10s, a tripod and some water. As I was working my way up through a grassy saddle I noticed what looked like a dead animal of some sort at about 30 yards from me. I was super pumped because I thought maybe it could be a big ol dead buck. As I worked my way over to within 10 yards from what I thought was a deer my excitement turned to extreme fear as it turned out to be a mountain lion! A live mountain lion! I immediately froze and thought "great I'm pretty much screwed and I was going to be lion lunch." The lion was crouched down facing me with his ears down and back all within 10 yards of me! I was so close I could see him breathing! I've never been so scared. We had a staring contest for about 1 minute when I decided to slowly back up the whole time waiting for the lion to pounce. Step by step I got further away and the lion didn't move. When I reached about 40 yards away the lion finally turned a ran away. Talk about freaky. Well I kept working my way up the hill in the opposite direction the lion went. 5 mins pass when I heard what sounded like 2 lions fighting in the direction I was headed. That was all I could take and after that I got my unarmed butt back to the truck. Not weird but definitely freaky.

 

Wow, thats a crazy story. I bet you carry a pistol now lol.

[DesertBull]

Two years ago my friend and I were hunting pigs down around Florence. My friend had just killed one and I took off around the hill to see if I could catch up to the herd. When I rounded the hill, I saw 3 of them on the opposite hill, looking down in the wash. Then I see a hawk come out of the wash, with a football sized javelina in it's talons. It took the poor little fella up a 100 feet or so and dropped it. When the pigglet hit the ground, the heard took off and left it.

 

None of your stories holds a candle to the one SBD could tell you.

[Bill Poole]

I was hunting javaelina north west of prescott 12 or so years ago and glassing a canyon, quite a ways from the nearest road, I saw a guy walking the floor of the canyon with what looked like a bag of groceries in one arm and holding a party balloon with the other hand. he disappeared from view and I have no idea where he could have been coming from or going to.

 

Poole

[az4life]

Nice post

5 years ago in 5B I was sitting on a rock eating and about 30 yards a way I saw a deer running my way once it reached 20 yards away I could see that it was chasing a coyote the chase came as close as 10 yards away

Two years ago in 36c I glassed up a MNT lion come down from the top of Diablo with a fawn in its mouth great show

 

Interesting... had a similar deal about 30 yrs ago in 4b (Dang it HURTs to say 30 yrs...) I saw a doe chasing a yote and since I had seen nothing all day I popped the yote from about 300 yds across the canyon. the doe stopped and looked around, went over and sort of pawed at the yote, sniffed it and trotted back the way she came. Yote pelts were about $20 back then and It was not worth the work I found out after the hike!

 

Lots of similar experiences to what you guys have said (Fighter jets blasting through canyons past me before the sound hits, Truck down a mine shaft, A lion stalk me within 10 ft, but one more...)

 

Hunting in an area overlooking the silver king mine north of superior, we heard someone yelling jibberish and we Glass up this guy (nicknamed him Crazy Larry) come out of his trailer at the mine, with his pants down around his ankles Laughing his head off. He was so loud and happy and doing a little shuffle around the front of the trailer with his pants around his ankles.

 

 

[desert ranger]

A few years back I had a archery cow Elk tag in 6a. So I'm sitting in my ground blind one evening reading my paperback book and glancing up and around every few minutes. After about two hours of seeing nothing, I look up to see a nice cow standing broadside at about 20 yards. How she got there only the Man upstairs knows.But probably confirms my wife's belief that my hearing has suffered from too much exploding gunpowder. I lay down my book pick up my longbow and now see a calf nursing from the cow! I could not do it! They both walked off shortly thereafter. After reviewing this scene hundreds of times in my mind, I've come to the same conclusion; I don't need the meat that bad. I would pass up the shot today.

[4Falls]

Was thinking about this post and realized some stuff thats not that wierd to AZ hunters must seem strange to hunters from else where. Such as:

 

Rocky Mtn Bighorns in the cactus.

 

Desert Bighorn at the lake.

 

Elk in the desert.

 

Pronghorn in the pines.

 

Mulies in the low country.

 

Whitetails in the high country.

 

 

[bowhuntaz1]

Good stories. Im new to this site. In 2oo2 I was hunting Y.P.G. (yuma proving grounds) and had 2 harriers about 200 feet off the ground go over my head.

In dec of o7 in 5b south, I was in a homemade ground blind waiting for elk when a guy and his son came within 20 yards of me and the dad droped his pants to take a dump. I whistled at him and he fell and got a butt crack full of snow. I think his son was laughing harder than I was.

[ajohunter]

Bull Elk in a Gila Bend canal....lol

[WinMag]

About 12 years ago down in Chimny Canyon....you know the unit. We walked up on a water hole just before first light only to find a pickup parked right on the edge of the water. As I shined a pinlight into the window there were two people doing the nasty thing in there. After Mike and I stopped laughing I asked them what the heck they were doing and they told us they did not think anybody would be out there. I told them they should read the huntting regs once in awhile, as it was opening morning for the WT hunt there and they are far from alone in the woods.

 

Toward the end of our hunt last year I pulled a joke on one of my buddies and his son in law. As I sat glassing into a canyon I kept hearing voices in the canyon below so I repositioned myself for a look and saw they were glassing the other side of the same canyon. So I gave out a few wolf wistles at them and sat back hidden from them. After about three times of this I pulled out my cell phone which has duelling Banjos as a ring tone on it. I held it up in the air and played the Banjo for them. His son in law jumpped up and said. "What the heck, first we a gay hunter wistling at us and now we have Deliverance. They left the area real fast! We all had a pretty good laugh back at camp the rest of the hunt over that one. .