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A few years back this this blacktail doe cut my path at full speed and I'm talking FULL SPEED just a couple feet away from me. Then she did in again this time from left to right. If I weren't so surprised I could have have touched her both times. The third time she ran parallel to my path. I still didn't understand. 20 yards later I dang near stepped on her bedded down fawn. I can't say who was more surprised. K I'm fairly sure I was more surprised but like I said I can't say that.

So the little blacktail fawn jumps back two steps and stops to investigate me, I only jumped back one step and there we are. I lost track of the doe at that point but she was probably only yards away.

The fawn and I stood there looking at each other kinda dumbfound until I finally broke the ice. In the middle of nowhere, in my best conversational voice I said 'Sorry Bud' turned around and walked off.
 
Great share. About 15 years ago I was tent camping with a buddy and his GF. She brought a friend and we took a liking to each other. Anyway, He's in his tent with his GF, I'm in mine with her friend and we both hear something in our camp. He whispers to me and I whisper back. So we both exit our respective abodes at the same time with pistols drawn. A bear had found its way into the camp and was looking for leftovers. We both stood there, in our drawers, with our pistols drawn. The bear looked at both of us and wandered off.
 
Fishing on a small stream a few years back, I heard a rustle in the woods just upstream of me - only a few yards away. I look up, and there's a doe who popped over for a drink. I managed to get my camera (or maybe it was cell phone, I don't remember which) out and get a few pictures. When she had her fill of creek water, she raised her head, looked at me, flicked her ear then casually jumped all the way across the stream without getting wet, and bounded up the steep hillside on the other side. Stream was probably 15 feet wide in that stretch, I was impressed that she didn't need a running start to clear it. Love being out in nature and becoming enough of a part of it that the animals don't mind my presence.
 
IMG_0791.JPG This little guy tried hiding by laying down right in front of me
 
Archery hunting a few years back I saw this big flock of buzzards flying around and out of curiousity I went over to investigate. got about 30 yards away from a dead cow elk when I realized there were a couple eyes looking at me. Realized it was a black bear.. threw down my bow and grabbed my pistol. It trotted off the other way luckily. It was only a .40 cal 229 so I really doubt it would have helped me out much. Can't hit anything with the damn gun anyway.
 
I once picked up a wounded fawn, unsure of how it got its injuries and moved it to the side of a an old logging road so we could drive down and start work for the day. About the time I set it down the biggest black bear I have EVER seen came bursting out of the brush about 10 ft in front of me and kept on running. In fact, every time I've come across one they've always been hurrying off. A quick "boo" is just as good of a deterrant as any pistol in most (not all) situations
 
I was fishing on the Wishkah River a few years back and got a surprise. It was hot, and I was sitting in my lawn chair drinking beer, and throwing crawlers, fillets of squawfish and small perch for sea run cutts. I tossed a perch carcass in the brush behind me and heard something grab it and run. I figured it was a stray cat and kept tossing it squawfish and bullheads for the next hour, but I never got to see it. I could hear it munching away in the blackberry brush, but there was no way I was going in there after it.

Finally I just stood up facing where the "cat" was coming out after the fish and tossed a live squawfish just short of the brushline, and to my horror a weasel came running out of the brush to grab it. That sucker must have ate three times his weight in an hour!! Their metabolism must be freakish.

I moved down the bank about fifty feet thinking he would stay in the brush, only to find that ten minutes later that it had followed me. I turned around and it was four feet away from me just waiting for dinner. It got three more fish from me, and I went back the next afternoon and it was gone. Must have found greener pastures or some other fisherman didn't care to have it around.
 
Years ago right after I got married, my wife and I worked on an alfalfa farm out in eastern WA. One day I was out in the middle of a couple hundred acres of two foot high alfalfa trying fix an electric sprinkler junction box. The lands flat, nothing around for ever and I rode a dirt bike to get out there. All I got on me is some hand tools, a hand held radio and my Glock field knife, which at the time was the fo shizzle, brand new, just out, knife to have.
It was early in the season, the wind was blowing and it was cold. I had a ball cap on with a hoodie and a bandanna over my face for the cold and flying dirt. Had my back to the wind and I'm crouched down on my knees, bent over this conduit box in a unplanted area between two fields trying to find a bad wire out of about 20.
I see movement out of the corner of my left eye about 6 feet away. Look over and quickly realize the biggest, mangiest, meanest looking badger I had ever seen just strolled out of the alfalfa right behind me. He's also between me and the dirt bike. The way winds blowing he cant smell me and badgers don't have the best eye sight. 3 things went thru my mind in like half a second.. 1 holy!@#!$ I'm gonna get killed by a badger. 2- this knife isn't gonna make a bit of difference 3- I'll never make it to the Yamaha.
Then I'm like calm yourself you big sissy. He's walking and obviously hasn't seen you. He can't smell you so he's just gonna keep walking. Right about then the wind shifted. The badger stopped literally mid step and went into full WTF mode. He turns towards me, looks directly into my soul and then takes a step closer. I stand up. The badger goes SHUT THE FRONT DOOR OH NO YOU DID NOT! and I watch all the hair that was left on his mangy body stand up as he growls and pops his teeth at me. I take a big step back figuring it was my last. He stares at me, snorts, then turns and saunters off back the way he was heading. Pretty sure I heard him laughing as he went back into the alfalfa.
 
Elk hunting out of Dayville I was sitting on a stand overlooking a 500 yard, 180 degree view with a major elk highway running through it. I'm sitting there on a stump, trying not to shift, scratch, or blink when I see movement out of the corner of my eye to my right. A very nice forked horn muley keeps walking toward my stump from the right, and I remain motionless, almost holding my breath. The buck walks to within arms length, stretches out his neck and sniffs. We're now within 24" of each other. I'm not breathing and not blinking. He stared at me for a couple seconds, then turned his head and wandered off over the hill.

The next day I was down in a canyon on a stand behind a fallen tree overlooking a streamside trail that was all torn up with elk tracks. I see a doe walking down the trail, and occasionally stopping to look over her shoulder. I decided to get very still and see what else came along. The doe disappeared and along came a very nice 4 point buck. He stops and looks my direction and I think ooops, he's spotted me. He takes a few steps in my direction up the hill, then stops to sniff and look around. He takes a few steps closer. He goes through this routine a few times and pretty soon we are 3 or 4 feet apart. He's standing there staring at me, trying to figure out where or what I am. We stayed like that, motionless for about 2 or 3 minutes, then I blinked my eyes and he spooked, and disappeared down the trail after the doe.

They never do this during deer season.
 
So, I get ambitious last Spring as things begin to dry out, and I get out the chain saw and head for the back 3rd of the property, where there are decades worth of downed timber. I set up next to a 12" diameter, 30 ' long widow-maker that's wedged in some other standing trees horizontally about 4 feet off the ground, thinking that it will be firewood in short order. I set down my equipment and gas can, and take off my coat. I pick up the chainsaw and give it one crank, and all hell breaks loose. SOMETHING explodes literally from between my feet! As I recover from the shock I see a spotted fawn wobbling its way up the hill. No doubt momma was not far away. I decided to postpone my wood cutting and brush clearing for a day, and let momma and baby find each other in peace.
 
Muzzle Loader Elk season 2 years ago, I am working my way up hill out of my lower meadow to the tree line and am going to set up and glass the entire valley between my place and the access road way down the other end aprox 2 miles distant. About mid day I decide to climb up one of the old Growth stumps that are still there. It's about 6 feet up and about a 4X4 flat top, Perfect for glassing and for catching a snack. I'm sitting there with my Front Stuffer across my lap and I hear this ruckus coming from below me about 30 yards or so. I look down from my stump and see two bear cubs high ballin right up to my stump and havin all sorts of fun on the way! I sit there nice and quiet and watch the action. Who wouldn't have a ball watchin a couple of yearlings playin rough and tumble! The only problem is they decide to investigate what's at the top of the stump!!!! I'm thinkin, this is gonna be fun now, I slip my .45 out and click the safety down and wait! Sure nuff, the first black nose pops up over the edge and has a good sniff, then proceeds to climb right up to me and give a good close look at this funny lookin thing, sitting there smellin like jerkey! Then the other little squirt makes it to the top and is also giving me the once over! I'm thinkin it's going to be trouble now, they are going to want my food, and when they don't get it, they are gonna pitch an awful fit about it. I try shoeing them away, but they just get playful about it and now I got a lap full of cubs that have decided what ever I am, I'm a good thing to play with! Just about that time I hear this Gawd Awful roar and hear come's Mamma!!! She is rollin up hill like a great big mad cannon ball, hell bent to hit that stump and rescue her babies from certain death! Both cubs vacate right quick and tumble down the stump to Mamma, who ignores them and proceeded to start climbing. I touched off the .45 right past her ears and she did a back flip and went tumbling back down the hill with the cubs on her heels! One of those cubs is now a semi permanent resident on my property now! I figure he decided I was OK and my berries were worth hangin around for. He has a den about 2 miles up the hill toward the ridge and he turned in for the winter just a few days ago! These bears are something else, Way bigger then the Blacks up in the PNW. I hope my guest continues to play nice, I really don't wanna have to do something about it! It's far more fun to watch him doing what bears do with out having to worry much!
 
I was deer hunting up on a tributary creek off of the East Fork Hood River at the crack of dawn, when I came across a large pond.
I stopped to try and figure out which way to get around the pond when I spied a weird V shaped ripple coming straight at me from the other side of the pond.
I stood there watching the V shape when all of a sudden a large beaver slowly surfaces right at my feet and lifts it's head to sniff the muzzle end of my rifle.
It must have liked what it smelled, as it took a couple of licks and then just sank back under water.
 
Was up on top of a pass on the Pacific Crest Trail with a troop of Boys and Dads. We had just found a nice fir needle covered meadow to set up camp. Tired after a day of hiking we all bedded down in tents and it was time to sleep.

After camp got quiet I start to feel some thuds. It came right thru camp stamping and snorting and definitely unhappy. We all stayed quiet until we could hear and feel the steps head off away from us.
That's when I heard the 1st zipper pull and a quivering voice ask did you hear that? What the heck was that?

Oh yeah. We heard. Never saw it. We got up and tracked it a while till it hit hard ground. I figure we upset some alpha bull elk by bedding down in his favorite meadow.
 
GF and I had just started dating and hiking together back in 2002-03 and were sharing a bottle of wine on a sloping meadow overlooking Cascade Head. 20 yards behind her, a family of elk, probably 9-10 of them calmly strolled by, paying us no mind whatsoever. We'd been talking and laughing so they had to know we were there. But they completely ignored us.

On the way out, we saw a sign indicating that we had been in a no-people-allowed area. Honest mistake. I have no idea how big the excluded area was, but those critters looked like they were feeling pretty safe. Maybe they can read signs and figured we wouldn't bother them there?
 
This one's even better...

I was looking on an old computer today for pics of the elk incident above, and stumbled over these.

After another stroll in the woods with my GF, we were getting back in the car when a couple llamas came trotting through the parking lot and disappeared up the trail. You don't see that every day!

So I snapped a few pics and we split. A couple hundred yards down the highway, I saw a driveway and decided to stop. Lo and behold - a house and a lone llama standing in a corral area with 10' of broken fence on the ground.

So, being a good Samaritan, I hopped out to report what I'd seen. I tapped on the front door, and 10 seconds later the hanging blinds on the adjoining window were violently yanked aside. It took 2-3 seconds for the angry face behind the glass to convey the following non-verbal message:

"Hey, city slicker, there's a reason I live 15 whole miles out of town [next to a highway that sees thousands of visiting sightseers every single day all year round]. I don't know who you are or what you want, but you've got some nerve coming down here and knocking on MY door!"

You know... THAT look.

So he rips the front door open and gives me a hateful "Whaaat???"

"Missing a couple llamas?"

"Oh what a focking nightmare!!!"

"They went up the trail across the street about 2 minutes ago. Have a nice day pal. Oh, by the way... you're welcome."

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I probably told this one before but...this was in Sequim btw
Since I'm a lousy fisherman I bought a couple salmon to smoke. I had a fire pit and left the butcher paper in it to burn some day.
Well I decided I needed to get up about 11-12 o'clock and burn that paper so some rascal didn't carry it off.
It was a warm night and I don't wear much while sleeping. I put on my slippers and grabbed a lighter.
I get to the fire pit that is 30-40 feet from my rv and hear this whining of a fawn I guessed. Then some growling.
Oh poo..... then I hear running any gruntingo_O
WTF was that? I asked as I held my BBQ lighter up for defense :eek:
One friend said a bear and another asked if I saw hair on the fence it would have crossed. There wasn't any hair.
OK it was a lion,a bear would have gone thru and over the fence,a lion would have cleared it;)
Perfect,cougars in my back yard. Mostly tall grass so no prints
 
We used to own this dude ranch:
www.billcodyranch.com

We had some old Ford pickups with the 460 v8 for hauling our old horse trailers around, and I was there on one under the hood trying to fix it (I find that I have to basically crawl in under the hood to get to anything on these big old trucks). Anyway I heard this "clop, clop, clop" behind me and I'm thinking, "Damn, another horse got out of the corral again," which was a constant irritation. So I pull up and look behind me, and there's this big old bull buffalo calmly walking past me. He just eyed me and continued on without a care...

Another time in Spring, before we opened for business, I was up on the roof of a cabin doing some repairs. I heard this "knock", and then another one. And then another. I finally decided to take a look to figure out what it was. Up on the hillside there were two big horn sheep, rams, going at it, knocking heads together. On the side there were a couple of ewes waiting to see who the winner was.

Another time I was at home, about a mile from the ranch, and I looked down on the highway and saw several cars stopped there. It was in the Spring too. I went down there to see what was going on and there was a big horn ram with the curl of his horn caught in the fence wire (thank heaven it was not barb wire). He was jumping around and not having any success getting loose. I talked to the neighbor and we thought we might go over and just get the wire off his horn, but when we tried to get closer he just went crazy jumping around, so we backed off. Then the neighbor went in his house, got some cutters, and cut the wire. The ram just staggered off. He was pretty tired by then.

Those big horns came down to winter in the valley, just there along the highway. Here they are in my back yard, and at the entrance of the ranch. I sure miss that place.
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