Was not sure which forum this belongs in, so..............

We all have seen posts about "woods walking" and self defense against this and that. Most every post of this nature mentions self defense against the "two legged predators". Has anyone here actually had to defend themselves against
the "two legged preadator" variety?

Are you talking about the dreaded carnivorous Australian Kangaroo or what?

Yeah, because the internet is where I'd want to talk about it . . .

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Now go make God proud...

I posted to a thread on this forum a few days ago that pertained to "woods guns".....I own rural property, that has a woods and a pond on it. Over the years I have been "challenged" several times by people who were trespassing on my property......I had a fellow ride down on a horse once and try and run me off from my pond, when I was in a boat fishing ( that was entertaining).....I encounter armed trespassers every hunting season.....my land is fenced & heavily posted.....but some folk's today don't think those impediments pertain to them, or they simply think they have a right to my property...I spent 34 years "on the job" dealing daily with people who had the same opinions abt robbery, dealing drugs, rape, murder & mayhem.....Having been a "use of force" instructor for three decades, I instructed a "use of force model" with....interpersonal communication skills being one of the first levels of defense.....so have I "defended" myself when encountering trespassers, "yes"( I consider any trespasser a potential threat - especially when there are several of them and they are armed)....have I had to draw down on them? No. Did they know I was armed? Sometimes - cause it is hard to conceal an M-4 or an 870 shotgun.....years ago you didn't have to worry abt being victimized in the rural areas, but those days are long gone. And those of us who live out "in the sticks" act accordingly.

Curious. Are asking about, hypothetically:

Hiking along with your sweetie and someone leaps out of the bushes and grabs said sweetie, and you draw your equalizer and put large holes in the miscreant, and then you and said sweetie beat feet and never look back?

or more

You are lying in your sleeping bag, in the tent, and hear noises like someone is roaming around outside the tent, and picking you your OM Blackhawk you draw back the hammer with its distinctive click-click-click-CLICK, and the noise stops, and then starts again, moving quickly away from your camp?

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I always take precautions

I would think the same criteria as walking in the city would apply. Same predator.
Only difference might be if you are in bear country and then bigger is better.
Answer to your last question is thank God no

I've run into poachers on my friends property in the country. Everyone was armed and the poachers would invariably leave when the error of their ways were pointed out. It can be an intense situation. When I go into the woods I go with hunting guns not with the expectation of getting into a people confrontation. If need be a hunting gun can become a self defense gun in the blink of an eye.

I have had many an instance where I feel if I didn't have the hog leg on me I would have been in for trouble. I have run into many questionable individuals in my desert travels.

I was also shot at white on an ATV down by the border, but didn't stick around to become a statistic by living out some call of duty wet dream firefight. I drove away and fast then reported it to the county sheriff.

Shot at once while deer hunting. Someone wanting to drive me away from his stand, I expect--it was public land. I was standing in the open on a logging road, wearing the requisite blaze orange. The invisible shooter wasn't very far away. The bullet passed not far over my head.

Hell yes I beat feet! A couple of idiots of my acquaintance said, "Damn, son, why didn't you shoot back? I would have!"

Unfortunately I believed them.

No, I haven't had such an encounter with someone I could see. I agree that the SOP would be the same as on the street.

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Oh well, what the hell.

I have been asked to leave by the landowner (His posting signs did not go all around the property as required.) I told him I was hunting with my brother and requested permission to tell my brother we had to leave and was granted that. My brother later got permission for him (only) to hunt there.

This is a second hand story which was relayed as true. The man telling the story was hunting with his father and his father bagged a deer and was just inside the treeline dressing the deer. This fellow was exposed in a powerline cut. Suddenly bullets started tearing up the ground on either side of him. His father said "don't shoot so close" and he replied "someone is shooting at me". His father said "have you fired back?" He looked to the other side of a small valley and there was a speck there. He raised his lever action with iron sights and fired five quick shots. The shooting then stopped. I always assumed someone had a rifle with a powerful scope and decided to "scare" someone.

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Luke 22:36

When in wilderness country you are supposed to dodge behind a rock and trade shots until reinforcements arrive or the bushwhacker runs off.

Okay, Black Bart, now you get yours....

Btw, that's a reason that I like Virginia's policy of allowing ccw while hunting. Used to be you couldn't carry concealed when deer hunting.

As pointed out in post #4....I taught "use of force" professionally for several decade to people who went into harm's way everyday....lethal force may be utilized if:
A. You are convinced that you are in imminent danger and that your life is at risk or you face grevious bodily harm by the imminent threat.
B. The "threat" must have the means, ability and INTENT to take your life or your loved one's. It will be up to you to prove these factors.
There is a whole slew of factors that will be examined when you go to court, and the burden of proof will rest on you.....it will be up to you to convince that jury of your peers, the media, the bereaved loved one's of the deceased and the judge that you acted properly.
Viewpoints ( from law enforcement & the courts) on armed self defense vary from locale to locale and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction..(my local constabularly have different viewpoints than the police in DC - for example)...it is up to the armed citizen to know the local laws and how your local judiciary views the use of lethal force by citizens.
These scenario's of "what if this or what if that" only lead to more "what if this and what if that?" Having seen a whole lot of folk's get ground up in the "wheels of justice", both LEO's and citizens because of use of force issues, your best bet IMO opinion is to go out of your way to avoid such encounters and then go out of your way to see that you are properly educated and trained to deal with them according to the jurisdiction that you are going to be operating in if you go about armed.

Jessie, what is the perceived advantage of carrying concealed, while hunting?

Except for "I got my gun in a shoulder holster under my coat, so it's out of the rain and snow", I don't see it. Open is, generally, both more comfortable and quicker to access.

I can't see it would be, "If he doesn't know I have a gun, he won't just shoot me from ambush before robbing me", because, heck, if you're hunting you're carrying a rifle or shotgun, ain'tcha?

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I always take precautions

I went hunting on a thousand acre chunk in Michigan's UP we had a membership in along with a dozen or so other hunters. My first opportunity to hunt there and found a vacant spot first day of rifle hunting along with my cousin who'd been there a few days. About a foot of snow the night before and no tracks anywhere. I settled in and passed on a legal spike wanting something bigger.
About noon I heard a ruckus and watched two guys on a quad stop about a hundred yards away and approach me yelling and screaming I was in their spot and waving a machete all about. One older guy was really wild and I thought to myself I'm going to have to kill this guy. My rifle was leaning against a tree but my Ruger SBH was at my feet and figured I'd have to pick it up and shoot this guy he was so wild. I told them sorry I didn't know this was their spot and offered to leave. Seemed to relieve the wild one and they backed off with the other guy seeming to understand I was the one with guns. I left and that was that. Later the calmer one found my cousin and apologized for the other guy but not to me.
The guy that managed the lease soon kicked them both off the property. I really thought I was going to have to shoot the idiot.

Lot of good bird shot will do you.....

Basically, I like to have an ace in the hole I guess. That statement came from the law about carrying concealed( needing the license) and also having a pistol during rifle season.
I don't care to advertise the fact that I may be carrying a pistol. Nobody really needs to know that fact other than an LEO who asks.

When I hunted as a PA resident I had a CCW and I used a shoulder holster under my coat. I was carrying a Model 27-2 8 3/8". The gun stays warm and dry and I have both hands to negotiate the forest in case I need them.

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Luke 22:36

Also, if you're carrying that rifle or shotgun, and if you do ever run into trouble( far fetched ill admit) what do you think the first thing is you'll be told? Maybe " drop the gun"?
Don't think that just because you're in the " outdoors" that everyone is a sportsman. Unfortunately, low life's have shown up there also.

Yup,
The four clicks of a Colt SAA....
A 1st or 2nd generation gets em moving off'n the beddin' grounds every time.


.

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"IN GOD WE TRUST"

Those clicks spell "c-o- l-t" Always liked that

The thought of dropping my gun is something people that watch movies to learn marksmanship make up.

Why carry concealed? Because I want to? I need a reason? Is this Chicago, NYC, or communist China?

when i was about 17 i was canoeing with my girl friend. i used to smoke cigarettes back then and that day i had lost or forgotten my lighter. canoeing toward an island i saw some men and paddled in to see if i could get a light, i remember my girl friend was a little hesitant about approaching strangers, but i wanted a light!
well i grounded the canoe and before introductions were even made one of the men,all of whom were drinking, made a rude comment about my girl friend, followed by another man. some words were exchanged and i wanted to fight but i also NEEDED to get jill out of there .i was scared ,wondering how i could fight 4 drunk adult men and protect her, when i realized i sort of recognized one of the men. i didnt know his name but knew who he knew, i dropped his friends name and the guys got a little nervous i used the momentary indecision to get jill into the canoe and paddled the heck out of there!
this is one of the reasons i support wilderness carry, that situation was seconds from turning into a horror story.

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the rules? there are no rules

Yes.

Wee hours of the night, camping in the middle of nowhere.

Two wrong numbers thought they'd do... whatever.. to us.

Introduced them to the business end of a .45acp, never said a word to them, didn't figure I needed to - and I was correct.

They beat feet.

2:30 in the morning isn't a good time to go into someone's camp site.

Where I come from, you don't enter someone's camp site unannounced. Good way to get shot.

When I hike or camp I carry two guns. A Smith 357 and usually a high cap semi auto. Sometimes there is a long gun in the car.

Why? I have come up against two and four legged critters more than once. Some of our National Forests are host to meth cooking and marijuana growing operations.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Whenever I meet some one in the way back woods I start humming "Dueling Banjos" and sharpening my Randall. Works every time.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

You would be amazed at the number of clandestine labs on US land. Back in the early 90's I was talking to the chief ranger at Joshua Tree National Park (Monument then?). He showed me the locations of 27 meth labs he knew about, the several body dumping sights...and the clandestine airstrip on the property. If you can, carry when you are out and about in the back country.

I have been shot at while deer hunting. Some guy wanted my spot more then I did. Yes I did draw down on him. He was about 75 yds. away the cross hair of my scope was on his chest and the safety was off. Was I scared, yes I was. I was scared for the guy because I came to close to killing him. The people here that have been in an armed confrontation know about automatic responds.

I do carry in the woods, yes; not so much for animals but for humans predator's

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Carpriver.

When I was younger my buddy and I were deer hunting. It started pouring and we decided to head in. The quickest route took us over a hardball road.

We had to unload to walk along the road. A truck pulled up and a guy pointing what looked like a .22 rifle, but could have been a BB gun, said he was going to take our shotguns. I talked him into leaving the area real quick by taking out my 686 and he was about to make Mr. Smith & Mr. Wesson real angry. We were so stunned that we never thought to get the plate number.

Chai Vang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I got a early start. On my first deer hunt at 12 years old it was the last day and hour of the season. Dad put me on a stand on the edge of a marsh and I was sitting in some willows/brush. The road was about 150 yards away. A few cars were parked. I seen a hunter walking towards his car. He stopped, shaded his eyes looking towards me. Then his rifle come up, he shot and I heard the bullet whistle past my head! Being a raw kid and him a adult I froze thinking he must be shooting at a deer behind me. He kept shooting a lever gun maybe six or seven shots and the bullets kept whizzing and hitting all around me. All I had was a single barrel 20 guage with a slug. Finaly he levered again and snapped on empty. I had been crouching in the willows and stood up. The guy seen me stand and sprinted to his car, threw his rifle in and scratched out! In wisconsin at that time you had to case your gun while driving.
I had a number of events through the years after that but that was my first and potentialy the most dangerous. The idiot shot like six times at me thinking I was a deer! I never shot back but froze.

We had a gun fight during hunting season on FT Hood some years ago. During deer season we would shoot any dogs or coyotes on the spot. The local community would just dump them and they would run wild.

A deer hunter in a stand saw a dog come around a tree and dropped in dead. The bird hunter who was trepassing took a shot at the deer hunter because he just killed his bird dog!! The deer hunter shot off a warning shot with his rifle(missed close on purpose) and called the MP's. As soon as we heard shotgun going off, we knew something was wrong!

Anyway deer hunter turned out to be in the right, bird hunter was banned for life from hunting on FT Hood, and the army pressed criminal charges against the bird hunter as well.

if somebody ever hurt my dog...i hope that id not be armed at that moment.
im always concerned some jack wagon will take him for a coyote.

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the rules? there are no rules

Darn! After hearing all these close calls, I think I'm also gonna start packing a BUG in addition to my concealed one!!

They have a hunting season on dogs, in Texas? That deer hunter had a dog-tag for his license, maybe?

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I always take precautions

Stupidity is alive and well! Was the brid hunter legal hunting there that day?
I am going to tell this one on myself. I feel bad about it to this day! Again, I was about 13 years old. I went pheasant hunting with our preacher and a older cousin of mine. I still remember I had just read a article in outdoor life or field and stream about "Killer cats". It was about house cats that would kill pheasants etc.
We were spread out walking through a field. A cat took off running and I shot the cat, probley souley from reading that article. My cousin almost cried and said I probley shot someones pet cat, probley on the persons land that let us hunt that day! I do remember our preacher kind of laughing. I felt bad. Now we have two cats. I love both.
I worked several years for the wisconsin conservation department and several national parks in the early 1960s. I was raised hunting and fishing. Both my ex wife and wife wont eat bambi. I quit hunting. Frankly since they wont eat wild meat it dawned on me I no longer have anything to prove. If I can knock a can over at two hundred yards it could have been a deer or rabbit just as well. In my waneing years I have come to respect life more. I have killed my share of game long ago. I will still eat steak and pork. I would still hunt if theresa would eat deer and elk. I dont begrudge others that hunt AND eat what they shoot. I am not a varmint hunter either, (except for snakes and rats if one cross`s my path. Now I can understand ranchers wanting ground hogs cleaned up so there horses dont break a leg etc. I just never got a kick out of taking even a animals life. And I have done it.

I read a news story years ago about a turkey hunter who was wearing full camo and sitting on the ground with his legs straight out in front of him. Some fool got a glimpse of one of the guy's boot soles and put a 12 gauge slug through his foot. The shooter said he thought the sole was a bear's ear.

I learned a very long time never to carry a white handkerchief in the woods, lest some cretin mistake it for a whitetail's flag.

All manner of halfwits out there, quite apart from troublemakers.

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Oh well, what the hell.

One time up on an NW Indiana public hunting location I had a dude cut down in my direction with a 12 gauge. He was shooting at a running pheasant which was running down a ditch bank. I raised the Collar on my old school hunting coat and turned my back. Got shot from mid back to ankles. No penetration. Their were 2 of them and 1 of me. I did of course mention how unsafe it is to shoot directly at someone. They were not that impressed.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

No, there is no "Dog Season" in Texas. I believe the hunter was wrong for shooting the guy's dog. AFAIK, you can't legally shoot stray dogs in Texas unless they are causing harm to pets or livestock or yourself. Maybe it's a county thing.

Feral cats take a heavy toll on ground nesting birds. And sometimes climb trees. Down South where I am from, we go 'bird' hunting which of course means Quail hunting. The general rule is you don't hunt -shoot close to anybody's house. So any cats you see are far from home. Lots of them get shot. They are either full feral cats or domestic felines who go feral and hunt part time.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

i wouldnt shoot a dog unless i had to.
lots of guys say theyll shoot a dog for running stock or game , i dont know for sure how i feel about it. what if it were my stock? or my dog? the game doesnt need to be harried either ,ive heard that a deer can run its fat reserves off in a hurry leaving it potentially unprepared for winter. dont know this to be true, but if it is , it doesnt seem fair.

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the rules? there are no rules

This aint new. I have a autobiography of Luther "yellowstone" Kelly. He was the subject of the movie "Yellowstone kelly" that stared clint walker. Anyway kelly joined the army right in the last days of the civil war and they sent him to the northwest and he stayed and explored. He told of once shooting at what he thought was a jackrabbit but it was a old indian sitting on the ground mending a torn moccasin! Fortunatly kelley missed. The indian had several feathers that were wiggiling around just above the bush as he worked on the moccasin and kelley thought they were a jack rabbits ears! The old man demanded some present every time encoutered kelly after that! If you get a chance to buy that book, do! Its a first hand account of the west in the 1860s and on.
Years ago my dad had a close friend that got shot through the arm deer hunting. Pa told him he was lucky. He told dad "I could have been luckier and got missed!"
I knew a old man when I was a boy that carried a scar on the side of his head that he told me he was shot deer hunting way back around in the 19 teens.
I come from a huge family and probley have about 50 cousins. Two of them got shot on the same day! It was back in the 1980s. One of them had just hired in as a rep in to a large company. The president of the company invited him and his dad and another uncle of mine to hunt on some private reserve. The president shot at a low flying birdand hit my cousin bill square in the face! Bill was in bad shape as a pellet or several went through a eye and in his brain! He pulled through but lost a eye. His shooting eye! He still is a very avid hunter but had to learn to shoot with the opposite eye.
That very same day several states away my cousin fritz was taking his fiance`s son with him on a antelope hunt in wyoming. Somehow the kid shot him along side the head with a .270 winchester! It just grazzed him too but left quite a scar. My cousin is now retired but was a financial guru that headed up some mutual funds outfit. He still lives to hunt too.

Here is another story that might not be true but knowing the guy I rather think it is. I knew this "character" that worked for the company thaqt I was a guard at. He had a hair trigger temper and caused trouble at work with his co workers that I had to handle several times. It was one of those deals that he seemed to like me probley because I handled things in a manner that didnt get him fired. He was a outlaw and I probley shouldnt have protected him but I am a soft guy.
Anyway he told me a story that happened some many years prior. He was hunting in northern california and claimed some guy took a shot at him from a long ways off. He said he shot back at the guy and dropped him! He left the area and says he later read a body was found there!

We have a problem with homeless people camping in open space areas around town. I‘ve had a run in or two with them but nothing that would justify an armed response (yet)

a friend in williams lake got shot through the hand with a high velocity rifle while he gripped his bow. made a mess as you would imagine ,kept his hand though,apparently the shooter thought the bow was a set of antlers. i guess camouflage isnt always your friend. dont know if the shooter was charged etc.

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the rules? there are no rules

First of all the bird dog should have been wearing a collar. Anyone shooting a dog with a collar is taking a very big risk in Texas. There is a huge difference between a wild dog, a coyote, and some ones hunting dog or someone’s pet. If you can’t tell the difference then you should not be shooting at any dog type animal.

I live on 170 acres of prime hunting land. My dog is out and about ever so often on my place as she loves to chase rabbits squirrels and any other animal that will run from her, but is inside the house or in the fenced back yard 98% of the time. There is no one authorized to hunt my land but my brother and myself. The property is well and clearly posted.

My dog wears a easily seen distinctive collar at all times. God help the poacher that shoots my dog is all I can say.

As much as I love my dogs I have to ask, you'd really kill a human being over an animal?

he didnt say hed kill the human, he said theyd require assitance from god.
maybe being beaten within an inch...that i might do , that and maybe execute their truck and leave them afoot.

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the rules? there are no rules