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I have another story to tell

  • Thread starter Ozzy
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Ozzy

SirKristoff is a poopiehead
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Most of you have probably read the story and seen the pics of the canebrake rattlesnake I posted yesterday. I forgot my camera there and I had to drive back to get it yesterday. This happened on the way back home. I had decided not to post this story but I changed my mind because it has really been bugging me since it happened. I haven't said a word about this to anybody else at all, this is the first time I have even spoke about it.

A few weeks ago I was on my way to a snake demostration and I passed an area that looked perfect to have cp's. I was in a hurry so I couldn't stop. I haven't been able to get back to that area because it is about 30 miles from where I live. Yeserday I had to pass right by it to get my camera, so I decided that I would stop on the way back and see what I found. I stopped, got out and since this area was right beside the road so I didn't take anything with me except my snake tongs. I started looking around. The only thing I found was what looked like raccoon tracks in the mud. I was only there for about 2 minutes when I heard a sound I had never heard before. Most people that knows me says that I don't have any fears at all, which is mostly true. But this sound terrified me. It was like a low growl. There was a stand of young pine trees about 8 to 10 ft tall, and this sound seemed to be coming from right past those trees. My first thought was that it was a bear, so I turned around and ran to my van which was about 100 ft away. I opened the door and jumped right in. Since nothing came from out of those trees, I got my camera and got back out. I could hear the growling sound just as I had heard it before. It seemed to be about the same distance away from me as it was when I was by those trees. Since I can take movies with sound with my camera, I started recording. I didn't have much memory left because I took a number of movies of race cars at Lowe's Motor Speedway the day before. I then ran out of memory. A car passed by and after the car had passed, I listened but the sound was gone and there was no way I was going to go look for it. I decided to leave. I downloaded the movie but my camera didn't pick up the noise.
Anybody have any idea what it could have been?
 
You were really hungry.....
 
Dang, That must have been it.
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Alligator?

A long time ago my cousin and I struggled through dense underbrush to fish a promising looking little pond near our grandparents' house in Florida.  We started hearing a low roaring sound but couldn't tell if it was near or far.  Casting was tough anyway and we decided there were better places to be.  We told our grandfather and he chewed us out because he said he had told us years before that a big alligator was back there.  I guess it was breeding season and the big guy (alligator, not grandfather) didn't want us in his hood.
 
In school I had a sound design class and I was told about a project some other people were working on. They went out to get a recording of an alligator... and when you listened to it it went something like this:

"(footsteps) splash... splash... splash... splash... splash... splash... splash... rrraaaaaAAWWWRRR... SPLASHSPLASHSPLASHSPLASHSPLASHSPLASHSPLASH"
 
Well it could have been an alligator.
 
Isn't North Carolina too far north for gators? Maybe it was a bobcat or something.
 
No there are plenty of gators here.
I would think a bobcat would have a higher pitched growl. The sound I heard was extremly low.
 
Skunk ape.....definitely skunk ape. Or is it too far north for that?
 
  • #10
Skunk ape huh, maybe that explains this pic on my camera. I couldn't figure out where it came from.

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There are reports of skunk apes up into Virginia.
 
  • #11
More local fauna in my area I never get to see... great...
 
  • #12
bear, gator, cougar. a bobcat should probably sound more or less like a house cat but ive heard some house cats with pretty deep voices too. a badger can make a pretty scary sound but then again if you get close enough to hear them they generally rush yah. dont know Ozzy, thats why i pack a gun out walking cause i aint bright enough to back off when i hear an intereting noise.
 
  • #13
A few years ago in the middle of the night i heard a large chorus of weird, high-pitched sounds over the field behind my house. There was many sources of the sound and i had never heard it before. The sound was LOUD and all the sources were moving fast across the field. It was a creepy, unearthly sound and it faded into this distance.

This year, by chance, was listening to random bird recordings. I now know what it was.

It was a flock of Red-necked Phalaropes migrating at night from their arctic breeding grounds and using a contact call to keep the flock together.

Many generally silent shorebirds can make weird sounds during migration and atleast two may make a growling noise if disturbed while roosting.
 
  • #14
Ozzy,

Maybe it was the Jersey Devil! I heard he's got a condo in Myrtle Beach, so maybe he was takin a walk in the swamp.
Seriously though, without knowing all the details as to how much water was near by, the amplitude of the growl it's hard to say what kind of critter it was. Could have been a male gator, black bear(I've had them growl and click their teeth at me), or even a wild boar. Sightings of bears and the wild boars are becoming more frequent as their wild habitat is encroached upon. Either way I'd be packin my 357 if I went back there. And I'd definitely go back, I'd have to look for prints or a nest /den anything. I never said I was smart!
 
  • #15
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Either way I'd be packin my 357 if I went back there. And I'd definitely go back, I'd have to look for prints or a nest /den anything. I never said I was smart!

what? you just looking to tick it off a lil befor eit eats you?
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pack a 44 or my personal favorite a nice handy Marlin lever gun in 45/70 with an 18 inch barrel. its really handy for unruly chipmunks
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  • #16
Oh I plan on going back. I almost always have my .45 with me. But since I didn't plan on going very far into the woods I left it in the van. I thought about getting it and going in to see what it was but I decided it was best to just leave it alone.
I don't think there are boars or badgers here. I've never heard a badger but it wasn't a boar. The closest thing I can think it would have been was a gator. But it really didn't sound like one. I don't know if this will make sense, but it wasn't a threatening growl. It sounded more like it was just mumbling. But maybe since I've never heard that before and since I couldn't see what it was, it made the hair on my neck crawl and chills go up my spine. It wasn't really that loud, just a low mumbling growl.
 
  • #17
cool let us know what it is, how many rounds it absorbed or how fast you do the 100 yard dash and/or mow much blood and how many body parts you loose. wish i was down your way, id join yah. nothing much over here other than feral dogs and cats, bobcats, 'yotes and the odd cougar to give me any excitement. good luck and ill hope for some straight shooting
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  • #18
I'm sure that when I go back I'll find nothing. And I'll only shoot it if I have too. And by have to I mean if I can get a clear shot.
 
  • #20
[b said:
Quote[/b] (0zzy @ Sep. 06 2005,6:15)]I'm sure that when I go back I'll find nothing. And I'll only shoot it if I have too. And by have to I mean if I can get a clear shot.
hmmmm sounds as if you need a bigger gun. hence the reason i usually carry my 45/70, if i cant win the fight with it i shouldnt have picked the fight, plus 405 grains of lead at 1900 feet per second can center punch most 6 inch trees on its way to the target.

yah know there is another option, take a buddy. thatway you dont have to out run the critter, just your buddy. thats why i generally let my lil brother tag along on my expiditions.
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he is getting quite good a skinnying up a tree(or jumping on the hood of my jeep when the first shot isnt right and you just torque off the badger, those beasts are mean even without a bit of lead to help them along.
 
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