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15 Hunters Share Creepy Things That Made Them Never Want to Go Back in the Woods

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Ready to be creeped out? If you’re the kind of person who frequents the woods — whether it’s for hunting, hiking or bird watching — these scary stories from AskReddit might make you think twice about back heading out into the wild frontier.

1. Drug runner?

“My father and I were following a trail for a while so we decided to take a break and catch our breaths, I sat on a log off the trail and my dad stood on the edge of the trail waiting for me to get up. I hear some movement and scan around and I see a man, dress casually, walking quickly down the trail with a Glock in his hand.

He is not really following the trail, he is just walking toward my dad with haste. Before he comes up to my dad, he asks if he’s seen anything(pretty normal). I keep an eye on him because I don’t believe he was there to hunt, I think he was there to make sure my dad hadn’t seen anything he wasn’t supposed to. He wasn’t dressed like a hunter, he didn’t walk like a hunter, and It was deer season and he decided he would take his Glock out to get a deer… I wasn’t buying, so I put a round in the chamber and watched them talk.

He seemed to be confident until my dad mentioned that he was here with me and gestured in my direction. I nodded and made a half-assed wave. And he seemed to lose interest in us and ended the conversation shortly after and turned around and walked back the way he came, just about as fast as he walked up to us. It worried us a bit but we continued on. We haven’t been back to that area in a while. My dad told me that there have been drug busts near that area in the past. This isn’t a supernatural tale, just an experience that made me not want to go back to that area.”

2. Bones

“I work in the woods for a living and I’ve seen a fair amount of odd things… Carvings in trees, old beat up cars, random weird trash scattered through the woods, and a fair amount of animal carcasses. I’ve had instances where I’ve gotten spooked, stuff like jumping big critters is always quite jolting, but I can recall one rather butt puckering experience. I was working with a few other people at the time, spaced out of sight but not out of ear shot. I crossed over a little ridge atleast 2 miles from the closest road, in the middle of the woods, and I saw what looked like a full skeleton of a cow tied together with twigs and a little bit of twine.

Who ever made it had fashioned it to be sitting on a log. They left a very neat pile of bones in front of the thing, and nothing anywhere else. I saw it and about fainted. Definitely really fucking odd considering how far we were off the road, and how thick and steep it was. I ended up getting the folks I was with to come check it out, really just for shits and giggles. I took note of it and we moved on to the next plots.”

3. Creature in the night

“A long time ago my grandparents bought a small cabin in the woods in Pennsylvania. My dad, uncle, and aunt are all small children. My father told me this story. They’re all sitting around outside with a small fire going when they hear branches breaking and footsteps coming from the darkness. They think it’s a black bear because it’s close but they can’t see it. It’s seems to be going straight for my uncle, the littlest of the children.

He starts panicking while everyone tells him not to move. Now this big black beast is within arms reach of him and he’s shaking like a leaf with his eyes closed. All of a sudden it opens it’s jaws and starts licking his face.. turns out that the next property over is owned by a couple who raise Newfoundland dogs and one got out.”

4. Snake pit

“There is a place in Kingston, Idaho or the otherside of Fernan Saddle- depending on which way you go to get there. I call it the snake pit, and no I don’t mean the restaurant. I still visit the area now once in a while and camp there. Anyways next to where I camp in the trees is a basin, and it has a bunch of old 1920s-1930’s rotted cars in it, overgrown by bushes and trees but sunlight falls on the cars.

First time I camped out there I walked into those woods and the leaves all started to move. The snakes were running from me while they were sunbathing on the cars. Fuckin creeeeped me out. I don’t go in there for wood anymore and I don’t see the snakes leave that spot so I just let them be.”

5. Fire three shots

“When I was a kid, a poacher must have thought I was a deer or something and shot a round at me. It impacted on a tree above my head. I immediately fired three shots as fast as I could, not at the shooter but in the air. In my hunting group, immediate three shots means “HELP” basically.

My dad and our hunting club immediately came out to find out what the fuck happened by honking the horns of their trucks letting me know they were coming. I basically laid on the ground until I could tell they were near the dirt road. Told them what happened and guessed it was probably a road poacher trying to get a deer as it came from the same road. They didn’t see him. It was private property and we were always very aware of who was at what location and who was hunting where. Nobody was suppose to be in the part I was at.

Scared the shit out of me. This was mid-90s. Reason why I don’t like hunting on public property is cause of that and I don’t know the people out there.”

6. Near-death experience

“I was in the woods once in really dense fog and had an arrow fly past my face into a tree haha nothing like a near death experience to avoid the spot and idiot that shot at you.”

7. Caught on camera

“When i went hunting with my dad one time we saw a homeless looking guy carrying what looked like a torn cloth and a screwdriver on one of the trail cams. this cam was pretty deep into the woods, and it was no one we knew so we were pretty creeped out to go back out there.”

8. Hell no

“I was being watched on the woods, it was the strangest feeling. I got paranoid enough that I began walking all the way to where I knew a park warden was parked. After about 100 meters, I turn around to make sure I wasn’t being followed, and I see three bears smacking my stuff around. One bear was standing up in the middle of the access road staring right at me.”

9. Overly friendly dear

“Not a hunter but I go backpacking and fishing quite a bit. I have an irrational fear of bears, and waking up to bear tracks around my camp was quite unsettling and I did not spend much more time in the area.

I’ve also had a creepy encounter with an overly friendly deer. I was in a pretty isolated area so I thought it was odd to see a deer that was so calm around humans, this deer would not leave me alone it walked around my camp all day and came back at night to scare the shit out of me by laying down outside my tent.”

10. Missouri

“Camping alone in the middle of Missouri the night before turkey hunting. The place I found was a fairly well used campsite but no one was there. About to go to sleep when I hear a truck come up. I find a reason to come out (use the restroom) so I can get a look and maybe even ask for some good places to spot turkey.

It’s a dude and his girlfriend drinking beers and going for a ride. They are super nice but they mentioned after our chat and before leaving “watch yourself out here.. lots of meth heads and they won’t stop for bird shot. Want a slug? I probably have a few in my tool kit.” I did not sleep at all that night.”

11. Get out of there

“I walked up on a meth lab while scouting for a hunting spot. I noped the hell out of there immediately. I had never encountered such a thing before, and in hindsight the smell should have been a dead giveaway. It wasn’t until I was standing there looking at what looked like a bunch of garbage under camo tarps and such that I realized what I was looking at.

Edit: I walked back to where I had cell service, called the sheriff and showed him on a map where it was. Bunch of them went in (found nobody), and made me wait with another officer for over an hour by the cruisers.”

12. A suitcase

“My family owns a couple hundred acres of forest in eastern NC. No one lives on the property anymore, and hasn’t for the last six or seven years.

We went down there to do some target shooting in October of 2017, and I decided to go walk through the outskirts of the woods to locate a good limb for our range marker. As I’m walking, literally and proverbially kicking rocks I come across a fairly nice, but practically brand new looking suitcase, full of clothes and other personal effects. No ID, nothing with any sort of identifying markers on them. But seemed to be clothes for four people; two kids and two adults, one male and one female. Had some food, coloring books, etc. there was a makeshift lean-to about 100 yards farther into the woods.

Set up a trail camera and left it there for three weeks, never saw anyone.

For reference, this is 35 miles from any sizable town or city.”

13. SMACK

“Went on a camping trip maybe 10 years ago and in the middle of the night we heard this incredibly loud “SMACK” way out on the water. Water carries sound really well, so it woke us all right the fuck up. My first though was some drunk/deranged motherfucker with a gun was shooting out over the lake and the sound was a bullet skimming off the surface.

Turns out it was a beaver that smacked the shit out of the water before diving under. It happened again in the early morning and we laughed it off, but the notion of being out in the middle of nowhere with some homicidal prick taking potshots at you creeped me out pretty good.”

14. Learned your lesson

“Copperheads.. Bow season in KY starts early enough that you can run into a ton of them. I learned my lesson years ago to wait until at least mid November before venturing out too deep.”

15. Don’t get off the boat

“Couple of years ago I was in northern British Columbia on a fishing trip with my dad, uncle and cousins. The lake and river was a two hour drive from the nearest city. We were drifting down the river when I needed to go to the bathroom, so I got out of the boat.

As I’m doing my business, I look over and see what seems to be the top of a building. I turned to the people in the boat and told them what I saw. Walked towards the building, and realized it wasn’t alone. Multiple homes, buildings in the middle of the forest. It was a very small and isolated Native American tribe, and we backed away. Not super creepy but didn’t want to cause any trouble. We continued on without any contact.”