What's the coolest thing you've ever found, that you weren't looking for, while hunting?

[ChrisAU]

Posted this before, found during scouting a few weeks before hunting.
View attachment 135112

Any more details on what I'm looking at here?

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

View attachment 134928
crystalized leaf in Southeast Montana last fall.

Kind of looks like a feather....

 

[elkduds]

Any more details on what I'm looking at here?

Mid 1980s on Red Mtn north of Gunnison CO, long before digital photography. "Pilot" was overly aggressive in scouting elk. We found it a few days after the crash, while scouting. Noone was seriously injured, aircraft was intact. Plane was removed. I later searched NTSB crash website, this was not mentioned.

 

[Losing_Sanity]

While deer hunting many years ago, a friend and I found a human skeleton once. Reported it to the Sheriff's Office. I have some pictures somewhere but I'd have to find them. We never got feedback on what the Sheriff found out. Looked like he/she just crawled up under a bush in the shade and died there.

 

[AggieHunter]

Not necessarily the coolest I've found, but the mining history in SW CO provides many relics for discovery. Here are just a couple of examples, both found in amazing places.

There are some cool mines and caves up in Chicago Basin

 

[appaloosa]

I found this on top of a mountain in Wyoming....

 

[T Bone]

The remnants of a baby's high chair, all by itself at the mouth of a mine at 11400' elevation, just south of Chicago Basin, CO.

A "Royal" brand typewriter, also at the mouth of a mine shaft in Unit 50, Idaho.

 

[Id-Dave]

I found this on top of a mountain in Wyoming.... View attachment 136562

No sign of the rest of the airplane?

 

[Id-Dave]

Found this old shingle a few years ago. I re burnt the letters with a soldering iron. Still trying to track someone down locally with this last name so I can learn some history behind it.

 

[NEW PA MT MN]

Not while hunting but hiking above my cabin in Alaska there are seven old copper mines to explore. I love looking at the old equipment and think about the work and weather the men endured back then. The pulley was in a shed that has fallen apart and sliding down the pilings. I'm guessing it's 20 feet in diameter.

 

[Letthemgrow]

That looks totally safe.
Got any pictures from inside?

 

[antlerradar]

View attachment 134928
crystalized leaf in Southeast Montana last fall.

looks like crystallized gypsum. Fairly common in southeast Montana but the detail in the pattern of crystallization on this specimen is not nearly as common.

 

[Khunter]

looks like crystallized gypsum. Fairly common in southeast Montana but the detail in the pattern of crystallization on this specimen is not nearly as common.

View attachment 134928
crystalized leaf in Southeast Montana last fall.

Yes, more specifically it looks to be selenite mineral (gypsum). Seems more coincidentally leaf like than a mineral grown around and replacing structure of an actual leaf...

 

[F250]

Very cool old mine pics !!

 

[daltrix99]

Found this Black Bar paw (western Montana) and most of a front leg. Couldn't find any other parts - best guess is that a bird dropped it.

 

[glass eye]

 

[2rocky]

^ Japanese Fishing Net float.

 

[HuntTalk Freak]

Last week I was wading through the creek at my in-laws place to check it out, no one had ever done it since they bought the place twenty years ago, I found a little statue of Jesus. I brought it home and it sits on our bookcase now. We aren’t terribly religious but finding that randomly in the middle of nowhere enjoying nature means something to me.

 

[diamond hitch]

a gold mine

 

[BuzzH]

Hard to say for sure, I've found a lot of cool stuff while either working or hunting.

Found all this stuff hunting pronghorn right outside Laramie...buffalo horn, arrowhead, a 45-90, and 2 50-90 cartridges, one still loaded. Actually, I found the bison horn and the 3 empties, my brother found the loaded 50-90, and my wife found the arrowhead. All within a couple square miles of each other.

Was working one day, drove wayyyy the hell out on the Arizona Strip, coming back found this in the road, probably about 20 air miles from St. George:

Found this in the Frank Church:

Believe it says 1885:

Petroglyphs while hunting coues deer in AZ: