Most Dangerous Moment Afield

[choc dogs]

I've really never had any bear or other predator encounters that spooked me much, I'm sure if I really knew how close I'd been, I would be changing shorts more often. The one outdoor spook was climbing into a tower stand in western Oklahoma, no one had hunted it in about a year, and when I reached the top of the ladder and opened the door to go in, a racoon decided to use my head as springboard to try out for the winter olympic games.I stood there on the top rung, hanging on with my toes, while automatically swatting at my head and cussing. One of my buddies who saw the whole thing with binoculars later told me it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen. On the other hand, I filled three doe tags out of that stand that night, so I guess it worked out ok.
The next scariest moment I remember is when I left the gun safe unlocked in the garage when cleaning guns, and my wife happened by and saw a new sxs 20 gauge in it. I barely survived that incident.

 

[Summitthunting]

When I was 16 my dad and I went on a late season cow elk hunt near Craig, CO. I shot the first cow I saw and started to gut her. My dad walked up just as I slipped and plunged my uncle henry LB-7 to the hilt in my left thigh. We immediately put pressure on it and headed to the hospital which was 6 miles away. The ER doc said a few more inches higher on the thigh and I would have died next to the elk. Needless to say I'm pretty cautious with a knife now. I'm also a gun safety nut because I was shot with a .22 when I was 12. Another kid was letting the hammer down on his Win. 1906 and his thumb slipped, shooting me in the left foot. Everything turned out alright on that one, but I'm very selective about who I hunt with now, based on how they handle a gun.