Things you've mistaken for elk/deer

[JustinsDad]

I was about 12 years old. Hunting big game w my 22. Ground squirrels. I saw movement and this monkey goes running across the hillside from one patch of oak trees to another. I had actually started to aim at it because it was a small monkey almost swuirrel size. Turned out to be a neighbor’s pet spider monkey named Felix that had escaped. Glad I didn’t shoot it.

 

[gouch]

My dad always called them "figments" Said the woods were full of figments. I've spent plenty of time stalking figments over the years.

 

[davinski]

Mistook a dead bull elk for a live one.

I was spotting for my buddy, he knocked a bull down in the oak brush. I swore it was still wriggling around but turns out it was just the branches moving a bit in the breeze. May or may not have coached him into pumping an extra one or two into the head. It made for an interesting euro mount...

 

[IDFireLass]

Way to many years ago. My dad girlfriend and I were elk hunting. Walking into a big flat area started to hear elk bugles. Finally got there still hearing the bugles not out line of animals around. Looked up and this old lodge pole blowing in the wind would scrape along another lodge pole and it sounded like a bugle with it would thump thump thump. Went back to this area another time or two and it was still doing it. If it hasn't blown down or burned up it's probably still bugling in the wind. It sure got us going.

Another time hunting elk same people. Having walked up the side of a very steep mountain. We found a nice flat area to stop and rest in. Hadn't seen a thing. While laying there started to hear a dog barking and a few branches breaking above us. Come to realize cow elk do bark. Never seen them either. Also many many years ago.

 

[Bigjay73]

Not deer or elk, but once put a masterful stalk on a javelina bedded under a bush. Unfortunately it ended up being a dead barrel cactus laying on its side. Pretty sure that that was the year I started buying decent binos

 

[hank4elk]

Half hour stalk on a bull shed leaning against the base of a pine. One of the only 2 sheds I have ever saved.
Too many stumps,logs,bushes to name. Chickaree's. My old nemisis jay's....

 

[SaskHunter]

I mistake every possible shrub for a deer at dusk/dawn.

Some of my finest hunting moments were mistaking my turkey decoys for an incoming turkey... Nothing makes you feel dumber than turning your attention away from your own decoys for a whole 5 seconds then looking back at them and getting the "OH SHIT THERE'S A TURKEY" feeling...

 

[pojoaque40]

Too many mistaken animals to count, plus i'm colorblind so if it isn't moving it could be green and i'd still think it was fur... But my problem is that my mind finds human objects in the woods. I'll see a tree knocked over and think it's the pitched roofline of a cabin, or see a boulder and think it's a truck or a tent. I'm often startled by natural objects that i know shouldn't be there. Seems like it always takes me a couple days out in the woods to get all the human trash out of my mind and start seeing nature as it's presented. After a few days it goes away. Anyone else see the same?