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Harriest predicament you've ever found yourself in while in the woods?

BSK said:
Looking back on your life, you realize you had some really close calls between life and death, or at least severe injury. The closest calls of all are the ones that when you think about them, you get a little shiver that runs down your spine. For me, the train incident and the recent falling tree incident are the two I still have nightmares about (literally).

A close third would be an incident that occurred hunting that I'm sure I've mentioned before. It was just a few years ago on one of those days where the wind is absolutely howling and being in a stand is a bit frightening. Before a morning hunt, I was debating which of two stands to hunt, not far apart as the crow flies but on opposite parallel ridges. I finally decided to hunt one of them in the morning and the other on the afternoon hunt. During the morning hunt, with the wind roaring, a heard the distinctive "pop" of a tree breaking off and then almost felt the boom as the tree crashed to the ground on the parallel ridge. I remember thinking, "Wow that had to have been really close to the other stand I had been considering. I bet if I had been hunting that stand it would have been quite a scare!" That afternoon I went to hunt the other stand and found out just how close that tree had been to the stand. It was the top of the tree the stand was in, and the whole upper have of the huge oak had come straight down, butt first, and dead-centered the stand, crushing it and driving it into the ground. On that day, life and death came down to a 50-50 toss of a coin.

Those three incidents still give me the cold chills when I think about them.
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Unbelievable!!!
 
BSK said:
Looking back on your life, you realize you had some really close calls between life and death, or at least severe injury. The closest calls of all are the ones that when you think about them, you get a little shiver that runs down your spine. For me, the train incident and the recent falling tree incident are the two I still have nightmares about (literally).

A close third would be an incident that occurred hunting that I'm sure I've mentioned before. It was just a few years ago on one of those days where the wind is absolutely howling and being in a stand is a bit frightening. Before a morning hunt, I was debating which of two stands to hunt, not far apart as the crow flies but on opposite parallel ridges. I finally decided to hunt one of them in the morning and the other on the afternoon hunt. During the morning hunt, with the wind roaring, a heard the distinctive "pop" of a tree breaking off and then almost felt the boom as the tree crashed to the ground on the parallel ridge. I remember thinking, "Wow that had to have been really close to the other stand I had been considering. I bet if I had been hunting that stand it would have been quite a scare!" That afternoon I went to hunt the other stand and found out just how close that tree had been to the stand. It was the top of the tree the stand was in, and the whole upper have of the huge oak had come straight down, butt first, and dead-centered the stand, crushing it and driving it into the ground. On that day, life and death came down to a 50-50 toss of a coin.

Those three incidents still give me the cold chills when I think about them.
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I'm amazed at how many of these stories you have. I will make a mental note, respectfully, to decline any invites to go hunting with you lol.
 
Chief44 said:
Short version of a long story but a buddy and I were fixing to take down a deer stand several years ago when a large limb fell out of a tree hitting him in the top of the head, gashing his head open and breaking a vertebra in his neck. We were not prepared for something like that and had nothing to stop the bleeding other than our shirts we had on. I managed to get him out of the woods and to the ER. He was very lucky it did not kill him. The really scary part was my 6 year old daughter was standing right beside him. If that limb had hit her, it would have killed her for sure. I now carry first aid supplies when out doing things like that. And catch myself looking up for hanging limbs, something I never thought much about before.
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My mom died unexpectly in 2013. I went home and met my family there in Little Rock. That afternoon, I had to take a work call. Walked out into the backyard and was kind of walking the fence line, obviously trying to focus on the call but pretty oblivious. I hear my brother yell loudly for me to "Watchout!".

Much to the disappointment of some on the political board here, I narrowly got out of the way of a 12" thick oak branch that decided to try and make a bad day even worse. Probably would have been a little more shook if not for the fact that I was already there.
 
Dbllunger said:
Dang! Some of ya'll got some crazy stuff going on. I've certainly been in some very dangerous situations in my life but none were in the woods or hunting related. Well, there was that one time I forgot my terlet paper. It was a little dicey that day.
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I bet your socks have never been more nervous.
 
DeerCamp said:
My mom died unexpectly in 2013. I went home and met my family there in Little Rock. That afternoon, I had to take a work call. Walked out into the backyard and was kind of walking the fence line, obviously trying to focus on the call but pretty oblivious. I hear my brother yell loudly for me to "Watchout!".

Much to the disappointment of some on the political board here, I narrowly got out of the way of a 12" thick oak branch that decided to try and make a bad day even worse. Probably would have been a little more shook if not for the fact that I was already there.
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The couple of close calls I've had with falling trees, and the stories others have told here about falling trees, really points out how dangerous that aspect of outdoor activities really is. While the logging crew was working on my property last winter I talked them about it. Every one of the loggers could give me half a dozen names of friends and coworkers that had been killed by falling trees. And not just trees they were felling at the time, but "widow makers" that just fell at the wrong time.

When spending a lot of time in the woods, the old saying of having "eyes in the back of your head" should be "having eyes in the TOP of your head." Looking up can save your life.
 
BamaProud said:
I've been in way more dangerous situations on the water than in the woods. Small boats in big water is an inherently dangerous combination.
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I bet that's true. Seems every few weeks there's a news story about a boating related death on the local rivers and lakes.

Thank goodness I've never owned a boat!
 
I have been in many bad situations with pop-up thunderstorms but the worst was experience on the water was at night alone in a 14 ft boat on a floundering trip. I was probably 19 or 20. I was running back to the launch about 3 am and a thunderstorm blew up between me and Dauphin Island. Once the wind and waves started the only thing I could do is keep the bow straight into the wind/waves and motor forward. Rain was intense, waves were coming over the bow and lightning was popping all around me. It was pitch black and I had to steer with one hand and bale out the boat with the other. After about 30 min's I ran aground in a salt marsh but really had no idea where I was. After the storm stopped/moved an I could see lights on the bridge and on DI, on I determined that I had veered way too far East past the launch and was on the North side of Little Dauphin Island. It also hit me that I drove under the Bridge (concrete pilons evert ~100 feet) to get where I ran aground.

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I had a non-storm related incident while shrimping. Coincidentally it happened right about where the thunderstorm popped up in the image above.

I had a buddy with me. I think I was in college at the time, so in my early 20s. We were in a 17 foot boat, the net (attached to the boat by 2 ropes, one on each side) got caught on something which stopped us in our tracks and pulled the rear end of the boat nearly under water so that waves were coming over the stern. I cut one rope which made the boat turn hard left and begin to do a circle. The sudden jolt knocked us down while trying to cut the other rope. I can't remember who cut the 2nd rope but when we were loose the boat (still in gear) jolted again and my buddy went overboard. All that happened in probably less than a minute.

Luckily the boat stayed afloat but it had a ton of water in it. I bailed out the boat while my buddy swam toward the boat probably 25-35 yards away.

We never really even tried to recover the net. I'm sure it was badly damaged anyway.
 
I've had several close encounters and weird events. The most embarrassing is probably from this year, as I did everything wrong you could possibly do. And everyone of them...I knew better. I'd already killed a good buck the first of muzzleloader and I had a desire to check out some new property. It joins a lease I used to have and I had seen a logging road going into that public property. I unloaded my four wheeler that morning and headed up that road which headed up the side of a ridge (Mistake #1 - taking an unknown logging road up a ridge). At first, the road went along the side of the ridge, but quickly turned straight up - but I pressed on (Mistake #2 - I always like to investigate on foot new, uphill routes). The leaves where deep in the old road (Mistake #3 - never drive uphill or downhill on a logging road when you can't see what's underneath the leaves. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I started up the steep part, but of course, I couldn't stop..I was looking to pull of, but the terrain just made it difficult and I made the split second decision not to pull off...looking back, I should have. Before I knew it, I hit a rock under the leaves and the four wheeler tipped over backwards on top of me. I managed to push it off as it was coming down on me. It was upside down, I knew immediately I hurt my back and the thought I might be paralyzed ran through my mind initially. My back was killing me, I was embarrassed and angry at my stupidity. I had no phone signal, but I wasn't very far from my truck at all. I sat down and calmed down. Thought the situation through. I was able after much effort to get my four wheeler flipped over. It was flooded, but I got it started after letting it sit a little while. I walked it carefully back down the hill. I loaded it on the trailer and thought I'd just go check some trail cameras on my lease. By the time I checked one, I knew I couldn't do anymore. My back was killing me. Ended up being all right, I'm still dealing with a little residual back pain, but almost to 100%. I've had cringed many times since at my stupidity and how close I came to hurting myself severely.
 
I was on a lease a few years back in Wilson Co. I was walking out one night and swore I saw a big hairy creature hiding in the trees with white teeth smiling at me....freaked me out. After about a half hour of walking, I saw it again, this time it was in a Jeep....turned out to be @Dbllunger



Not a true story. Except for the white teeth part. 😁 I've got nothing after the satanic story. Had to pull something outta my 🐴
 
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I went squirrel hunting with an old single shot .410 when I was 12 or 13. Found a hickory tree and quickly knocked a grey out. I reached to pick it up and it was still pretty lively, but it's back was broken. I didn't want to ruin the meat, so I wasn't going to shoot it again. Being young and dumb, after a little deliberation, I decided the quickest way to finish him off would be to thump him with the butt of the gun. So I reared back and dropped it as hard as l could, unfortunately and stupidly I didn't realize that I reloaded the gun in all the excitement. As soon as the butt made contact the gun went off. I was standing over the squirrel with the forearm of the .410 in both hands like I was tamping a fence post. And when it went off I felt the wad brush my face and couldn't hear anything for 2 to 3 seconds. Like time stopped. I don't know how it missed me. God was with me that day, and I learned an invaluable lesson. I've never told anyone that story out of embarrassment.
 
I posted this quite a while back in another thread. Please forgive me if you've read it before:


In 1988, the same year that 1/3 of Yellowstone burned we got trapped in Idaho by fire. There were four hunters, two cooks, two guides, one wrangler & about 20 head of livestock in camp. Hunt was a 10 day in Selway Bitteroot Wilderness. Knew we had fires in area when we packed in 10 hours but they were quite a way to west. Day 6 the wind shifted from NW & we were in trouble. We spent the next 5 days bushwhacking cross country to stay away from fires. When we finally made it to a Forest Service watch station the fire was headed due east & we were headed south down a canyon. We came within 200 yards of the fire & I can still hear the sap in spruce trees boiling before they exploded like a Roman candle into flames. Had to take our shirts & coats to blindfold the horses as they were panicking, the mules were fine & never missed a beat. I've got a couple of 110mm instamatic pics that I took as we escaped. Really thought that this was it and we were gonna be crispy critters. Scariest time for me in outdoors in 50+ years including getting caught in avalanche. We came out about 20 miles from where we packed in.
GOD is good!
 
Only contribution I have is falling through a washed out are by a coal mine. Similar to falling through ground in a marsh but I didn't expect this and if it were any deeper I'd have been done for. I walked out on it thinking it was rock to take a picture. I'm not even sure how this little mud cliff formed but the bottom of it did make for one awesome trail cam location as the deer were smarter than me and funneled by instead of walking on it
 

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tellico4x4 said:
I posted this quite a while back in another thread. Please forgive me if you've read it before:


In 1988, the same year that 1/3 of Yellowstone burned we got trapped in Idaho by fire. There were four hunters, two cooks, two guides, one wrangler & about 20 head of livestock in camp. Hunt was a 10 day in Selway Bitteroot Wilderness. Knew we had fires in area when we packed in 10 hours but they were quite a way to west. Day 6 the wind shifted from NW & we were in trouble. We spent the next 5 days bushwhacking cross country to stay away from fires. When we finally made it to a Forest Service watch station the fire was headed due east & we were headed south down a canyon. We came within 200 yards of the fire & I can still hear the sap in spruce trees boiling before they exploded like a Roman candle into flames. Had to take our shirts & coats to blindfold the horses as they were panicking, the mules were fine & never missed a beat. I've got a couple of 110mm instamatic pics that I took as we escaped. Really thought that this was it and we were gonna be crispy critters. Scariest time for me in outdoors in 50+ years including getting caught in avalanche. We came out about 20 miles from where we packed in.
GOD is good!
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Would love to see those pics.
 

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