Lets see, once I stepped directly on a 5 foot rattle snake while hunting at the tender age of 5. Another time I was charged by an angry sow but I shot it at 11 yards and it fell at my feet. Another time I was confronted by HUGE sow with twins who got frightened and climbed up the tree I was sitting under with the mother watching 10 yards away from the tree. It was shot. Ive had to wade after dead ducks in 30 degree temps without waders. Being caught in a blizzard in the negatives for not fun either since I was standing there for hours. Yep, Ive been in a lot of sticky situations. No Joke!

Just last season a big Buck caught me when I was stalking in to look for him in the early hours. I figured that he was on his way to find his does, so over the next few hours I tried to get in front of him. I was paying so much attention to where he was going that I walked right in to a bunch of does that were eating. It was snowing hard ant they didn't pay attention to me, until out of nowhere (as always) a huge doe, bigger than the buck came charging at me and stopped about 10 feet away. Up here in Nova Scotia there is a Doe lottery and I had a doe tag... for the other side of the highway so I couldn't take her. She got a few feet closer and was stomping her front legs the whole time, even starting to get up on her back legs. I didn't take the rifle off her the whole time and we had a stare down for over 1/2 an hour. I didn't dare take her - unless she charged again, because all I could think of was scaring the buck off. In the end she took off and I never got the buck, maybe next year.

When I was bow hunting in a climber and the climber gave way and fell about 20 feet to the ground. Just move to the next tree then later change my shorts!!!!!! LOL

Negligent discharge by a shooting companion behind me came too close to parting my hair. Haven't hunted with him since.

Deflected bullets from a lost hunter trying to signal someone that went whizzing past my dad and me as we were sitting on the ground overlooking the swamp the person was wandering around in.

For decades we have had a sort of feud with the neighboring land owner about driving rights and property lines and so forth. Well one year it got a little out of hand and the ladder to my grandfathers tree stand was partially sawn through. Not all the way through, as in an attempt to destroy the stand, but half way through as in an attempt to have it break while he was climbing and to injure him. Thankfully my grandfather is the kind of observant person who notices that sort of thing, had he not, it could have been very bad.

I was late getting to my tree stand because of work and was in afoul mood anyways.I got to the stand, looked up and someone was sitting there. This is private land,mine,and I know personally all the guys who hunt here and none of us would ever use anothers stand without a call to o.k. it. As quietly as I could I got the guys attention and pointed to the stand and then to me. It was then that I noticed that he had a single bbl. shotgun and this was archery season. I motioned for him to come down and reluctantly he did. He walked over to me and said in a pretty low voice that I was ruining his hunting time. This is where I lost control by being a smart ass. I said "do you have permission to hunt here?" His answer was yes. I asked for his written permission, and I could see that he was very uncomfortable with the situation and that he was getting angry. Anybody with a brain would have just said, "this is my stand and my land please leave". Not me. I asked what he was hunting with a gun in archery season. He stepped back about 2 more feet and rotated the shotgun up in his right hand until the muzzle was at my waist level. He calmly said "I'll hunt any place that I xxxxxx want to hunt!" My bow felt like a canoe paddle. I said "your right. I should have left you alone and let you hunt. I'll find another spot." I turned and walk back down the path that I'd taken in. We didn't have cell phones then so as soon as I could get back to the homestead I called the local warden. He was on a call but would respond as soon as dispatch could get him. I waited about 40 minutes and two wardens showed up within minutes of each other. We walked back to the spot, but the guy was gone. I described him very well, I'd gotten a good look, but I never saw this man again. I'm trying to recall the year and it's around 84-85. I still feel like a fool for the way that I dealt with this guy.

It may not seem like much, buy it sure worried me. I was rabbit hunting with a friend. He had crossed a fence, and having heavy clothing on, I decided to walk on down the line. Trouble was there was a slight slough from a pond right up to the fence. It was shallow enough, and with water proof boots I was wading one second, and up to my crouch in mud the next! I thought I would never get out. I yelled to my friend, and all he could do was laugh his a** off. Every step I tried to take sank me deeper in the muck. I finally got out by crawling on my belly. My rifle and I were one mud caked mess. My friend is still laughing.

To meagel: No offense, but I ani'nt NEVER hunting with you ! (lol).

Nearly stepped on a 5 ft Eastern Diamonback while hunting in Florida's Ocala National Forest back in about 1966.

I had another one... I was stomping an 8 foot tall weed patch flushing pheasants. As I got about five yards from the end, a cottontail jumped and ran out in front of me straight for my brother who was blocking about 20 yards out in a cut bean field. The rabbit saw him, threw on the brakes and cut back into the weed patch running full blast right between my legs. I looked up into the barrel of my brother's 12 guage. To my surprise it went off, I recall seeing weeds fly and the blast from his full choke 4 magnums hit me right in the chest. It felt like someone had hit me in the chest with a baseball bat on a homerun swing. It picked me up off my feet and knocked me on my back. I thought I was done for for sure. I couldn't breath (lungs collapsed). I put my hand on my chest and it felt like ground bones (fortunately time would show it was just a lot of #4 BBs stuck in my sweat shirt). I held my hand up to look and it was glistening with that bright red blood you see in lung shots. I thought I was a goner. I kept gasping and then suddenly one lung inflated... then the other and I could breath again. Come to find out, my jacket and sweat shirts had stopped all the BBs except for one stray. That one went clean throuh my neck and poked a hole in an artery that was spashing blood on my chest. I was fine after all but it scared my brother real bad and it took him weeks to get over it.

When I was back in my thirties, my passion was fox hunting and I'd had a great teacher. He taught me everything about this hunting activity and one of the items he told me about 500 times was about the harness on my snow shoes. They should never be fixed on the back and you should be able to free yourself from the shoe with one hand in case you fell through the ice. My shoes were always set up with a screen door spring on the back strap as my old friend suggested.
I was hunting on a bitter cold day in February and had shot one fox that I was holding on to by the rear legs as I crossed a small 5-6 acre isolated pond. My rifle was a Sako vixen in .243 with a Redfield 4x scope. The snow was quite deep but I knew the pond well and was sure of the location of the outlet. The outlet to this pond was to be avoided because it never froze up properly. I was stomping my way across when the snow under me gave away.I was way to close to the damn outlet! I went through like a stone and my snowshoes hit the bottom with only the top of my head out of the water. For some reason that escapes me now, I didn't panic. I bend down into the water and put my still gloved hand under the spring on the back of my left shoe and kicked it free. I had to go up to get more air and then did the same to the right side shoe. My rifle was hanging on the edge of the snow hole. I put my hands in the middle of the rifle and kept driving it down in the snow as hard as I could and finally I worked my way out of the water. At that point I don't remember being cold. I ran as hard as I could toward the only close road about 1 mile away. I knew a family that lived on this road and I took a path that I thought would get me there. About half way there I was totally frozen. I can never remember being colder. I forced myself to keep going and finally I came out to the road only about 70 yards from the farmhouse. I didn't think that I could make the buildings. I could hardly make my legs move! I did make the house and the farmer got me out of the clothes and up against the wood stove. He started rubbing my legs as hard as he could while I sat by the stove with a big wool blanket over me. My old friend had saved my life with his sound advice. I still wear the old knife that he gave me all those years ago.