re: Scariest thing that happened to you in the woods

Walked up a staircase once in the middle of the woods and I haven’t slept since

Me and my friend was playing in the woods, we were probably in middle school. We brought my two dogs with us and they ended up stirring up a ground hornet nest. I ended up getting stung more than 30 times. It took me a long time to go in the woods after that.

What do you do with them once you've caught them?

Camping in North Georgia with Cub Scouts. Food and "smellables" go in bear boxes all around the site.

About 4am, I hear a crash, the obvious sound of our rubbermaid bin with pots and pans hitting the ground. Then another crash. I can hear walking around, crunching sounds. I'm wide awake, assessing the situation. I have a leatherman knife at my disposal, and that's it. I weighed the option of peeking out to see what it was, but I knew what it was and opted to just stay put. The crunching steps approached my tent (I was at the far end of the site), and paused, and I could hear a visible sniff/snort, and then it walked away.

Went out to check once I felt okay about it, and it didn't do any damage, it just knocked shiat over. Talked to the other adults that morning, and most didn't even hear it! Two other guys did the same as me, they were like...what good would come out of making my presence known?

I only had one kid on this campout, and they were in the tent with me. I suppose if they were in another tent, I probably would have had to duck out.

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Covey of quail flushes from right under my foot.

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Been there and done that...... Dang near had to go back to the truck to change my pants.

I guess the scariest thing was back around 2001 or so I was hunting at a buddies lease in South Arkansas around Mt. Holly. I was in a gound blind at the top of a hill that had two long shooting lanes.... one of which I had to walk out to get back to the truck.
Should have been a good afternoon but I saw nothing until about 20 minutes before dark.... Caught some movement down the lane about 80 yards away. Thought it was a deer at first so I got my gun ready just in case... then I began to make out a head... then a body... then as it stepped into the lane a long tail that turned up at the end. It was long and lanky (nothing like a bobcat). It stopped in the middle of the lane and I got a great look at it for like 20 seconds. Long enough to know it was not a bobcat. In my mind it looked like from nose to tail it almost stretched all the way across the shooting lane. No doubt in my mind it was a cougar/mountain lion/ whatever you want to call it.
After it left I was thinking how cool it was.... until i realized I had to walk out that way. When I say I sprinted to the truck I mean it was probably the fastest I've ever run for nearly a quarter of a mile. Get to the truck and my buddy isn't back yet and it's locked.... he gets out of the woods and I'm up in the bed of the truck with a flashlight and my rifle looking for anything to move!
When I told him what I saw he just said "well now you are the 3rd person who's seen it out here"
That was back before the AGFC admitted there might be a population in AR.

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TigrrrDad

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Years ago, back when I was in Lafayette one year early in April I went to Henderson to fish. It was extra warm that day after coming out of cold weather. In more than one smallish cypress tree there were snakes including moccasins sunning themselves in the branches at about head level. And you come up on these trees while staring down at the trolling motor head and then look up and bam, there's snake in the branches at head level. It was either the snakes or the giant wasp nests so you had to be vigilant. So I know what you mean about snakes in the branches.

I annihilated a copperhead with a .22 while my dad and I were squirrel hunting when I was 9 or 10. He damn near stepped on the thing and I still have no idea how I saw it at all. It was a cold morning so it wasn't doing much of anything other than existing, but I just told him to freeze, stepped around him and calmly mag-dumped my Ruger .22 into the thing.

I was part of a group that would hunt black bear in northern Wisconsin using baits and dogs. On the morning of the hunt, we would all split up and drive to the various baits to see if they had been "hit" and how large the tracks were. This would determine which bait we would let the dogs out at. Me and my Dad are on our 3-4th bait and we see the bait has been hit and there are decent sized bear tracks, so we head back to the truck to call the rest of the group and let them know. As my Dad fires up the truck and turns on the headlights, there is a huge black bear at the edge of light. We must have interrupted his feeding and he followed us back.

Got charged by a 1000 pound moose backpacking in the grand tetons. Had to dive behind a tree to keep from getting run-over. Walked up on him while trying to refill water supplies for our hike back down the mountain and he was angry. I think it was the rut there. The rangers warned us about them and to keep our distance.