anyone been charged by a moose and had to play "hide and go seek" behind trees while one charged while hunting? what about having a goshawk or bear attack while marking timber (im a forester and was marking trees fo these)? these are the reason i want a handgun!

Only two attacks in over 50 years of venturing into the woods.
A red squirrel,without any provocation,ran down a hemlock tree,and landed on my head.then jumped in my lap.I swiped him away,before he bit me.(thank God)
A 42 inch rattlesnake came out of his den,while I was sitting at the range with a 69 caliber MZL.He came right at ME,for some reason.I stood up and retreated,hastily.There were three of us,all armed with Revolutionary War rifles.Luckily,One fellow grabbed his Son's semi auto 22RF,and riddled the snake.I made a forked stick and cut his head off.
Frank

Closest I've come to being charged was by a cow moose in the springtime, with a calf. Had a "moose magnet" (black lab) with me, and she (the moose) laid back her ears and was one synapse firing away from giving chase to us. We retreated just in the nick of time.

I had a moose step on me one night while camping. I was sleeping in a sleeping bag with a piece of plastic tarp over me in cases it rained. Boy it hurt and left a six inch round bruise on my leg for weeks.

It woke me up out of a sound sleep and must have jumped 20 feet when I yelled as it stepped on me. Scared the crap out of me as all I could think of in the dark was a bear. My buddy and I were camped at a lake up on the Idaho Montana border.

My oldest son is a timber cruiser in northern Idaho. A couple of months ago he was out on foot when he came upon a big honkin' moose who was not at all friendly. Jeff made it back to his pickup just a few steps ahead of the critter. He carries a super blackhawk, he had it unholstered but luckily he did not have to use it.

v/r Dave

One of our mods, Coldfingers, related that he had to dispatch an irate moose with a .22 magnum rifle.

Not my idea of fun and I'd have sure needed clean underwear by the end of it!!!!!!! :eek:

I know a cellular radio technician that was chased back into a cell site building by a large Emu. I would have liked to have seen that. Just hearing the tech tell about it had me in tears.

As a kid (about 8th grade) I was chased by a bull moose while riding a bicycle. I'm not sure how serious the moose was, but it was downhill so I went about as fast as you can go on a bike. Not sure if I outran the moose or if it just gave up, but it evidently didn't like that bright yellow bike!

I had a duck attack me when I was a kid as well. Don't know why it picked me, I was with my whole family, but that duck kept waddling after me, quacking, and trying to peck at my ankles. I ended up standing on a picnic table with the duck circling it and giving me the stink-eye; eventually he got distracted and I made a run for it.

That duck story reminded me of a real viscious attack that I suffered from an irate cob.
Newburgh's Downing Park was a beautiful place,back in the 1950's,and there was a swan nesting not far from the pond.
I was there with my two eldest Daughters,and decided to take a picture of the soon to be new mother.Father Swan would have none of it,and bit me on the behind.
That made a big hit with the Kids;I was the talk of the town for a week.
Frank

I was turkey hunting on a military post and you have to come in at noon to draw for the area your going to hunt the next day, this young soldier was standing in line with me and that morning looking rather wide eyed and said he'd had an experince that morning that scaired the crap out of him, said he had gone into the area he'd drawn and set down under a tree before daylight and got set up then hit his call a couple of times and waited to hear if he could locate any turkeys, said he hit it again and was suddenly struck in the top of the head, then across the legs and the next thing he knew he had a bowed up Bobcat squalling at him probably just as scared and shook up as him, thinking it was jumping down on a turkey and finding a man, at that point it was to late for toilet paper, I laughed so hard at him telling that story I cried, the ole sergeant major that runs the hunting there had a really good time with it when he heard the story.

I was sitting in a climbing stand about 30 feet up. Just before the sun came up I noticed a red hawk sitting in a tree across from me. As daylight gradually came on I noticed the hawk again. He had moved about 20 feet closer to me. My attention finally went to the ground as I could see better and started to hunt for any deer coming about. Suddenly my hat was knocked from my head and a trace of blood ran down my temple. I had one quick look as the hawk had hit my cap and flew over my head and shoulder. Ouch......

Many years ago I was hunting with a friend who was taunting several cows in the field by making "mooing" sounds. One of them got mad and came after him. Boy did he run! Obviously, shooting the cow was not an option.

It's interesting to hear the stories about people getting attacked by birds. I wasn't hunting, but when I was in the 7thg grade, I was in the backyard of a friend one evening and we weren't really doing much of anything - just killing time and I decided to climb up in this monstrous weeping willow tree they had - the trunk was close to 3 feet in diameter. I hadn't been in the tree for very long when "whack" - something beaned me in the head, up by my temple. It felt like I got hit with a mid sized rock. I started yelling at my friends, asking them who threw something at me and all I got was a confused "what?" look from them. Since my friend's backyard was surrounded by a privacy fence, I figured that maybe one of our other friends had snuck up in the alley, and had tossed a rock over to scare us and I was busy trying to see if anything was moving on the other side of the fence when the owl swooped at me again, just barely missing this time.

I wasn't even a very big owl, but it was definitely perturbed that I was in its tree! It landed on a branch nearby and proceeded to glare at me so I felt it was in my best interests to get out of the tree. The owl hit me hard enough that it broke the skin and I had to get a tetanus shot because of it.

Going a little off topic by me not on the receiving end of the attack, but a neighbor who lives across the road from one of my pastures got 3 little mutts that decided to come "help" me feed the cattle. I went out in the pasture on foot to drive the cattle into the yard where I have the feed bunks and hay feeders and the 3 dogs followed me. They did alright until they found out the calves would run when they barked at them. The dogs decided it would be fun to chase the calves until the cows started chasing the dogs and snorting at them. Now, only one of the dogs still comes over and hangs around me while feeding, but she is scared to try to chase the cattle since the calves quickly learned to mimic the cows!

sorry, but i had to laugh a little at the hawk story. i was marking timber in the northern part of lower michigan this past summer and had the a goshawk (as mentioned above) dive three times on me. the first time it dove, i saw it when it was about 10 ft away and just fell to the ground. after that i just kind of ran from tree to tree staying behind them until i got into safe territory.

About 12 yrs ago I drew an area 201(trophy area near CO,UT, WY border) ML cow tag was on my way back near dark and was chased by a bull moose through a creek , those antlers looked like realy big saw blades.
slept in my brothers VW pop up camper & the next morning he was standing about 50 yds away just starring at me, I decided that it was time to find a different spot

Must'a been that female lure you were wearing behind your ears, RL! :D

That duck story reminded me of a real viscious attack that I suffered from an irate cob.
Newburgh's Downing Park was a beautiful place,back in the 1950's,and there was a swan nesting not far from the pond.
I was there with my two eldest Daughters,and decided to take a picture of the soon to be new mother.Father Swan would have none of it,and bit me on the behind.
That made a big hit with the Kids;I was the talk of the town for a week.
FrankThat's interesting info I used to work in the Orange County Family Court in Newburgh as a probation officer,married into an early settler family in Middletown,left the area in '68 & moved to S Calif to work as a probation officer now retired.

As a kid living in Maine I was fishing on a backwoods stream . It was quiet and slow fishing so I was daydreaming and not paying attention to anything until a very large nose hovered over my shoulder . It was a curious bull moose . I jumped and he jumped and we stood there eye to eye for a minute then he just walked away . These giants of the woods can be very peaceful when not in rut or with calves .

Bears on the other hand can be very unpredictable , you never know when you might look like the meal of the day .