How close

[GhostHawk]

Ok I saved the best one for last on purpose.

Year was 1976, Scene, River woods, River had been channeled, cutting off oxbow loops. At the start and end of each oxbow was a aprox 15 yard strip of dirt with a culvert to let excess water drain. All grown up in trees since the channeling was done. It was bow season, and the boys were going to drive or push about 1.5 miles of woods on a nice sunday October afternoon.

I was told to go to the oxbow, find a place, sit tight until the drivers came through. Another guy came with me, parked his pickup out in bare field 50 yards from the woods.
He went right to the end of one oxbow. I went left to the start of the next.

Found a boxelder tree with a pretty good lean to it. I was able to lean back against the tree, almost sitting. Gave me a nice solid base, and I had good visibility in the direction the drivers would come from.

So I am leaning against my tree, cammo from head to tail. And I heard something coming, something making a lot of noise. So I'm all fired up then I see it. At first it looked like a horse, but the nose looked wrong. Then I saw this big wide set of horns and figured out it was a moose.

It was swinging along in this loping gait they have, not running hard, just drifting through the trees.

It starts to swing out to the open. Stops, sees the truck. Shakes his head. He does not like that truck.

At this point he is probably 50 yards away, to my right, at the edge of the trees. He snorts, ticked off about the truck, turns to the right and heads right at me.

Now my brain goes into overdrive. What if he just grinds me into this tree with those horns? Freeze time. So he is swinging through the tree's, weaving his big rack around this tree then that. And I realize he is going to pass close to me. TOOOOO close to me.

And I know he is already ticked off about the truck.

So he is coming on, and I can see it has green teeth. And that his left horn is going to take my hat off. So at the last posssible second, I scrunch my neck down half an inch.
His antler brushes my hat but does not knock it off. Meantime my eyes are burning details into my brain about his hair, the color, how it shines in the sun. How big his cojones are. My LORD what cojones he has.

And then he is past, and I am alive. And stuck, frozen, adrenaline shock I think. Still stuck some 10 minutes later when one of my friends walks up to me.

Hey bill, did you see the moose? I point down, finally manage to get out a word. Cojones, BIG.

He sees the moose tracks right in front of me.

Bill were you standing here when he went by?

I nodded violently yes.

I pointed to my hat, still sitting slightly askew on my head.
"Horn, ttt t touched hat."

Bill you telling me his horn touched your cap and moved it?

Yeeeeup.

You didn't dare move?

Nope, sc, sc, scared. Dunno what he'd do.

Finally my tongue loosened up, I told the whole story to the whole bunch.

You could tell, they'd of liked to call me a liar. But I was still leaned up against that tree, my tracks, and his showed plain. So there it was, less than 2 feet from my toes to his tracks. Kind of hard to disbelieve your eyes when the tracks are right there.

So that night I'm sleeping, and I am awakened by a strange noise. I raise up on one elbow and look. It is my dad, on his knees by the side of my bed. And he is holding up my underwear.

Dad? What's?

Go back to sleep, we'll talk about it in the morning.

Seems my hunting buddies had ran into my dad at the local bar. Sent him to check my shorts. Dad was plenty dang sheepish about it the next morning. But he wanted to hear the story from me. Just like it happened. Don't add nothing, don't leave nothing out.

Too close, too dang close by too many feet. But I can see see that long nose, the shiny hide, the big cajones swinging, and the horns, ever so lightly brushing my hat.

No I don't expect you to believe me. I'm not sure my hunting buddies did, and they saw the tracks. Pretty sure my dad did.

True story, told just the way it happened. Nothing added, nothing left out. If anything it is Understated, not adulterated or exaggerated blown up in any way. Believe or not, I care not. I know what I saw, and did, and what the moose did, and did not do. And why that moose did not see me I won't ever know.

I'm just happy as heck he chose not to grind me into the tree.

[Harter66]

I got in the exact right....wrong place once . A spooked herd of mulie does nearly trampled me in a quakey run . It was set up as a drive and I was set up as the shooter . I could hear them but no chance to get a line or pick one . Into sight about 50 ft away and out again . They made a turn about where I was standing 3 of 8 within arm's length . I don't know that they actually saw me as they settled into that La Pew cross country bounce about the time they stopped turning .

I've seen several rut bucks that were just oblivious to everything and not look up until they were 10' from a running truck ........of course I had a doe tag or an elk tag ......

[WRideout]

Once when I was duck hunting along the Sacramento River with some other guys, we decided to split up and move downstream some. I stayed put. The river was real high, and it had pushed all the critters into a slim margin of bushes and weeds before the plowed fields. A few minutes after the other duck hunters moved into their hiding spot, a very large buck burst out of the bushes and ran across an open field, about twenty yards away. He was fat and out of shape; his tongue hung out while he ran. I just stood and watched holding my twelve gauge loaded with high brass sixes. In that part of CA they are all blacktails, which is a subset of mule deer.

Wayne