CLOSE CALLS

[crowley]

i've been hound hunting for 15 years or so, a newbie compared to some of you guys. for years, i've listen to stories about close calls with bear and discounted most of them as exaggerations or misinterpretations of the bears intentions. 2 years ago i changed my mind in a hurry when it happened to me. making a long story short, a longbow hunter wounded a treed bear, about 350lbs. he climbed to the foot of the tree, looked at the hunter, then at the dogs which were tied back. he turned toward me, laid his ears back head down and charged full bore form fifty feet. i started back peddling trying to give myself time to shoot. as i pulled the trigger, i tripped over a log and landed on my backside. the bears head landed on my feet. i'm sure everyone would like to read about more close calls so lets hear them. no b.s. real deal only.

[ZeluvaRIP69er]

My dad had a few. One sounded just like yours only, dogs weren't tied back and the bear was very much alive.

The bear wasn't trying to get my dad, it was trying to get away from the dogs, dad caught it in a steep like wash, real steep on both sides. The bear would run back and forth, dad layed down on his back and the bear ran right over the top of him, never making a mark on him, the dogs did the same thing only made it look like her got attacked, after the dogs made it the bear turned and went to do it again, dad shot the bear as it was going over him again, with the pistol he couldn't straighten his arms all the way.

He shot through the bear and into his dog Pees back leg. A few months later when dad was cleaning the dog pen he saw something shiny on Pees leg, he went over and sqeezed it out. I still have the slug that dad got out of Pees leg

We know people who got munched by bears, one guy got treed by a bear and the bear just climbed up there and got him.

Dad got in a real bad fight with a lion in a tree one year, he got cuts and scratched from that one.

I think the animal that bit dad or other people the most was Old Sky. I watched that old bluetic run up to dad and grab his elbow and get him to the ground. Anyone who showed him a hotshot or a needle never did it again

[houndnem]

I've had a couple on lions. We had a lion caught in some ledgey rocks and he slipped out the back side of a cave. we thought he jumped and made a run for it so we took the dogs over the top looking for where he came out. after about an hour of circling we couldn't find any evidence that he had ever left. it was about a ten foot drop onto the shelf where he had exited so I decided to jump down and take a look. as soon as I was in the air I noticed a paw in the shadows below. I jumped right ontop of the dam cat!!! I screamed and he screamed and lucky for me he got out of there quick.

the other one, I was blocking the only exit for a big tom that my dogs had bayed up on the ground. he finally got his nearve and ran right at me! all that stuff about apearing bigger making lots of noise and holding your ground goes right out the window when it really happens. I curled in a ball and felt his front paws hit me. lucky for me he was using me as a trampoline instead of a sctratch pole.

That's not counting the many times they have got ahold of me in the tree, but that is my own fault for being where I shouldn't have. also had a bear false charge me at close range, I saw my life flash before my eyes. can't imagine if he really would have grabbed me.

[Outlaw 3]

I got a hot strike on the way home during training season . Cut the dogs loose and we had a split race. One pack pulled up treed. By the time I got to them it was pitch black dark. When I got to the tree I noticed all the dogs were there treeing, even the ones from the pack I could have swore were split. I shined the tree and saw a really small yearling bear. I was looking it over when I heard dogs screaming and fighting on the other side of the tree. I flipped my light around and a mad sow had came back and was grabbing dogs left and right. They had her nearly stretched in just a minute and I tried to get them all pulled off and tied up. As she was biting at the dogs I was pulling off, she clamped down on my calf/shin. Luckily since it was still so early in the year and hot, I had my snake gators on. I had a really bad bruise and a crushed left gator with teeth marks in it but I was okay. After i had pulled back most of the dogs the sow made a run for it and they treed her 100 yds away I caught the rest of them off that tree and waited on help leading them out.

[inchtowntracking]

We caught this big bear on the road and turned out on it, we could hear where they was headed so we rushed to get ahead. When we was walking in to where we could here the dogs the bear popped out in front of us about fifteen yards so I shot it and it ran back in to the bushes. When we walked into it, it was all sprawled out and we thought it was about dead. He didnt like how close we was so he hopped up charged me andi shot him three more times with our AR and dropped him four feet in front of me. I am just glad the gun didnt jamb because my cousiun just looked away when he charged, and missed it all.

[crowley]

GREAT STUFF! hope there is more to come.

[nmplott]

My biggest scare was:
The dogs ahd a lion ledged up real nice and I went to get some photos and I crawled through the rocks to get a better view. As I steped on to a new ledge, I heard a rattle shhh shhh shhh and thought to my self "Oh F&*(" but by the time I go to the "OH" he had struck and hit my pant leg. I shook him off and high tailed it away from there. When I got off, I checked my legs and there was glob of venom in my jeans but not on my skin. I though I was going to die from a heart attack. That has been my biggest scare.

[CkZona]

My dad had a bunch of stories this is the only that ever sounded real so ill say it. My dad had 3 dogs after a bear that seemed to have a wounded leg. It took off down a creek bed and while the dogs took off after my dad went out to head it off as it curved back around. As soon as he hit the creekbed this 150-175 sow rammed him and he said it felt like a semi truck hit him.

[dandavidson]

Those are great stories!!

[ZeluvaRIP69er]

My biggest scare was:
The dogs ahd a lion ledged up real nice and I went to get some photos and I crawled through the rocks to get a better view. As I steped on to a new ledge, I heard a rattle shhh shhh shhh and thought to my self "Oh F&*(" but by the time I go to the "OH" he had struck and hit my pant leg. I shook him off and high tailed it away from there. When I got off, I checked my legs and there was glob of venom in my jeans but not on my skin. I though I was going to die from a heart attack. That has been my biggest scare.

That is crazy, was it in the winter time? I thought in the winter you were pretty much safe from Snakes

[Big Mike]

I had a few close and personal dealing with lions, didnt amount to anything to dangerous but could of.

I had two close encounters with the same lion. Marty Greenwood and I run a average sized tom into a pretty good size bluff say 100yds x 100yards. We watched the dogs jump the lion and run it into the bluff from across the canyon. The dogs couldnt locate the lion in the bluff so I climbed up to help and marty stayed where he could watch the whole bluff in case the lion squirted out. I whooped up the dogs and walked a circle around the bluff but they didnt hit a track going out so figured the lion must still bein there. I start crwaling around of the bluff checking every crack but couldnt find the lion. After about 30 minutes of this Marty yelled to me there was one crack I hadnt checked. He guided me to it, it was a narrow cracke 10-15 feet straight up on both side that led to the cliff face of the bluff. The crack was just wide enough for me to claw through. I get close to the cliff face and hear the lion growling at me and it is close, im talking 2-3 feet but I still cant see the lion. It keeps growling and i finally find it. It was in a cave below me about a foot from where my foot was, I was standing right on the SOB. Lucky for me there was just a crack big enough for me to see him but not big enough for the cat to get his paw through which he tried to do. The lion squirted out of the whole and walked along the main cliff face to another cave.

I had to go back around to get back to the lion. This time the lion was right below me 10-15 feet in a crack and I could see him perfectly. Well i started chunkn a few rocks at him to get him to come out. I had about the third rock in my hand when i realized about the only escape route the lion had was through me. At the same time i realized it, the lion turned and gave me that stare that said "Im coming right at you buddy". Here he came. He jumped up and landed about a foot from where i was standing, and of coarse I had no gun. He paused stared at me for a second then walked off. Got my heart beating for sure, and it was all self induced. We caught him in another cave, got some great pictures, then left him to run another day.

[STUNTMAN]

I was running a cur that ran silent with a Lurcher, I was off on foot and hiking in and I heard a cry an moaning ahead of me. I started to jog and got through some thick stuff and found my cur and lurcher streaching a cub with out thinking I grabbed The lurcher by the collar and bent over to get Super Bad the cur and woke up on the ground trying to breathe and figure out what happen. Momma came back and wasnt happy and blind sided me, felt like a truck ran me over but the worse was I inhaled a ton of dirt and coughed for a few days.

[nmplott]

Nikki,
It was in the middle of October, when it started to cool off, but not cool enough

[bearbaito6]

Yep I had a close encounter thats how I got the name bearbait

[pegleg]

this wasn't big game hunting but left its scars anyway. I was about thirteen and we where goose hunting. anyway at o dark thirty i jumped into the blind box on top of a badger who apparently fell in during the night. it was pretty wild for a while! I wasn't even sure what was going on until i'd shot it and crawled back out of the box.