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Odd trail experiences!

8K views 63 replies 34 participants last post by  avjudge 
#1 ·
Alright ya'll lets share our odd trail experiences...

My most recent one was a couple of nights ago; I had taken my mare to this really fun area to ride hills, and gallop the trail, and we had been there for probably 40 minutes, and I was working some hills with her. Well we came up the slope at one point, and landed right in front of a coyote!!! Like he was literally no more than 4-5 ft away! :shock: The weird part was that 1) my mare did absolutely NOTHING...no snorting, didn't wig out, just was like it is perfectly normal to encounter a small wolf on a trail! Course she does have to go past several places on our rides that have absolutely BALLISTIC dogs!! Thank god those are fenced! 2) Coyote just stood there like "what the???" His eyes were HUGE! After a brief moment, took off back down the hill I believe he came up. We hung out at the top of the trail just to make sure mr. wiley coyote didn't come back up and try anything sneaky; he did come back out of the bushes, and just stood there and the three of us just stood there watching each other, and finally the coyote wandered off into the gulley, and back up a larger hill way across from Flicka and I. So then we went the opposite way, more towards the 'busy' part of the town she's boarded in.
 
#2 ·
I was riding out of Red's Horse Ranch up Lostine Canyon in Oregon with my Grandpa and his cousin as a kid. I was the lead horse on a beautiful Appy named Tamber. We were moseying along and up comes a bear cub with a big ol' fish in his mouth. He stops on the trail because we had surprised him.

Tamber looks at him with indifference and the cub took off at a run up the hill. Tamber watched for a bit then walked on like nothing had happened.

I however about pooped my pants.
 
#3 ·
Yeah, it kind of took my breath away, even though I know that it is highly unlikely for a coyote to try and attack a horse, let alone a horse with a rider, but you never know right?

Never encountered a bear on a trail, before...yikes!
 
#4 ·
Oh my goodness, I never thought of that; that a horse would not react to a coyote because of their experience with dogs. Kind of spooky. If it was a mean coyote who was hungry I would want my horse to react. lol

So this story unfortunately is not mine to claim. It came from a boarder at the barn I work and board at. She came up to the office one day around dusk in quite the panicked state. She explained to me that herself and a friend had been on the trails near the mountains and had encountered a cougar. :shock: How the story goes, truth or fiction I will never know, is that the cougar had crossed their path from the front. He was about to retreat when the horses reacted and bolted. The cougar then pursued them and eventually gave up. Perhaps a game or instinct? The boarders made it safely back to the barn. I called animal control who told me he was simply passing through and was no real threat unless challenged. Whether or not the cougar had actually pursued them remains a mystery :lol:
 
#5 ·
Solon's never reacted to the coyotes that go in the field. None of the horses have. We have a lot of dogs that use our barn for agility classes, so I don't think they see them as anything but dog like.
 
#8 ·
My Dad and I were calling elk years ago and a big bull elk charged us! My Dad said he was so in-awe that he was getting a good view of the elk that it didn't occur to him to be scared but his horse spooked and tried to run so my Dad spun him in circles until he could stop him. My Dad said the horse shook all the way home! (and nobody saw what happened to Mr. Elk but obviously he got wise and ran off).

I still go out and bugle for elk, because I love to see them, have had them get very close, but haven't been charged since. :lol:

Oh, and last winter I was playing around with a cow-elk call and had 2-3 cow elk jump out of the bushes right in front of me. My horse spun and the elk ran off. That was the first time I ever had cow elk respond to a call like that.

Elk are fun! And coyotes we chase! Never saw a bear (while riding) or a mountain lion (alive) but maybe someday. :lol:
 
#9 ·
They are getting worse too. It's only a matter of time before some is killed. We've had several horses killed by cougars in the area I work in southwest Washington (just across the Columbia River from Portland). They are a problem.
 
#11 ·
Cougars are hunted out here, so they are pretty scared of people and there aren't very many of them. I would actually love to see one someday (safely of course).

We were at the game & fish department one day getting our fishing licenses and there was a couple with a HUGE dead cougar in the back of their pick-up truck and a smashed bumper. The truck was brand new and they hit a cougar. What are the odds of that!? I think game & fish let them keep it. It was beautiful and I think the were going to make a rug out of it, but it would have been a real trophy stuffed!
 
#13 ·
They are hunted in Oregon and Washington as well. But when a bunch of yahoos got the baiting and hound hunting eliminated, the populations exploded. Cougars aren't afraid of people around here anymore. That's why there are so many problems. Same with the bears.
 
#22 ·
There are a lot of people that hunt! It's just not as easy to hunt them without dogs. Almost all of my co workers hunt them every year. Not ONE has gotten them. It's not that hard to get a cougar tag. You just go buy one. A little bit harder to hunt them without use of dogs.
 
#17 ·
We have always had seldom cougars here. Normally, they are too scared to bother with people. They don't mess with livestock unless food is short. We have deers by the dozen, rabbits, coyotes, whatever else they eat.

My old mare was being kept at a friend's pasture with a weaned foal. Sadly, a mountain lion did attack the foal and kill it. As normal citizens however, we are NOT allowed to kill these cats. If they are a proven threat to livestock, like in this case, the sheriff's department comes in and baits a trap, and they get relocated. It's illegal here to hunt and kill them.

But the cats patrol a radius of up to 12 miles they say. So, normally after they kill something, they leave off somewhere esle, as they never caught the cat who got the foal. (sorry, off topic)

Back to the PO original post:
I was riding an old mare appy and my friend was riding her younger appaloosa. We were calmy walking along, rustling branches, running water, nothing bothered this old horse. Then, my friend's mare sneezed and farted at the same time.

I guess ol Magic thought the world was going to end. She lunged forward, scared to death, now, of course, my friend's horse wasn't scared becuase, well, she was the one that did it. But, when my mare took off, you better believe that she thought something was about to eat her alive.

After everything was clamed down, we all shared a good laugh about Magic, and how that was the only thing that got to her on the trails that day.
 
#18 ·
Mine is pretty bogus compared to the moutain lion and bears, but....a field where I regularly ride has about 15 turkeys in it quite often and they scared the poo out of Sista one day. :lol:
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#53 ·
Mine is pretty bogus compared to the moutain lion and bears, but....a field where I regularly ride has about 15 turkeys in it quite often and they scared the poo out of Sista one day. :lol:
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Hahaha when I was at my old barn we had a ride we called the Turkey Run because we had to pass a Turkey farm and sometimes it took quite a while as my friend would do her Turkey call (which was hilarious) and all the Turkeys would come running and the horses would freak out.
 
#19 ·
Boy, for a horse that has never seen them, turkey might as well be a large group of satan's little minions:lol:. We do have some of the larger predators around here like cougars and bobcats but they are so few and far between that it has been years since I saw one. We do have a few billion deer that are really good at spooking horses though. Gotta love when a deer jumps out of the plum thickets or the group of trees you're riding past.

My favorite though is my first summer riding Dobe. I was loping him across a pasture and all of a sudden, a coyote jumped out from between his front feet. I just knew that he was going to dodge and dump me but he never even batted an eyelash.
 
#20 ·
We come across elk, deer, coyote, foxes and moose, bears and wolves. The coyote, foxes don't seem to bother them, they get the head up ears forward for the elk, deer, but the moose, bears and wolves , they will stop dead and go no further.
Someone posted about why the BLM doesn't go after the mountain lions, etc that are reeking havoc??? Too many humaniacs involved politically now and they don't want the sweet little creatures to be killed. We now have a huge wolf problem outside Yellowstone and states around us decided to start a hunt for them. Idaho and Wyoming hunted the wolves as big game. But a judge in Montana managed to put a stop to all the wolf hunting and now the problem has gotten worse. Funny how a judge in another state can stop what other states want, but it was done. Humaniacs are getting to involved, they don't care that the wolves are killing cattle, sheep and horses, they just want to save them. Too bad when they turned them loose in Yellowstone, they didn't train them to stay there.
 
#21 ·
I had an odd trail experience today actually...

I was walking along this trail near where I board my horse and it's a fairly narrow, rocky trail with branches across it. Big enough for an ATV but I've never seen anything on it. I heard a low rumble coming down the trail and thought "hmm that sounds nothing like an ATV"...there was not a place yet to get out of the way and I see a TRUCK come around the corner.....a TRUCK! haha....so I waved madly at them and they stopped so I could find a way around them. Next step if they didn't stop was to dive between trees I guess. I talked to my BO about it and apparently they don't have license to drive on the road so they use the trails to visit people....oh dear....
 
#24 ·
Yikes, cougar would be the one thing I would really NEVER want to encounter on the trail...I also like to hike, so that thought is never far from my mind! I always try to go with more than one person, and when I had dogs, always took them with me. Unfortunately for the dogs, they would likely be the first target, allowing me and the horse, or other folks to get away; unless I were carrying a gun (eventually I will), there is no way I would take on a wild animal...I hate to put it that way, don't get me wrong, and I really would hope everyone would get out safely.
 
#25 ·
I was not on a horse at the time, but I do have a really odd trail story. My husband and I were hiking with the dogs in the adirondacks, and we came around a corner and here was this guy bent over in the bushes about 50 feet ahead with no pants on. My first thought was that we came across someone doing his business in the bushes, and a little embarrassed we turned around and went back around the corner and waited for him to leave. So we continue on after he walks off, and not even 20 minutes later we catch up with him again. He is leaning over the trail, looking like he is picking things up... and guess what, still no pants on. Now we are a little worried something is wrong with this guy and go back on the trail a bit out of site and wait wondering what we should do. This time my pitbull was really agitated in seeing him and had her hackles up, growling real low. So after waiting about 10 minutes and him not leaving, we start egging her on until shes barking and growling really loud. The barking must have started the guy and he stops whatever he is doing and goes walking down the trail.. still pantless. We got back to the parking area without seeing the guy again.
 
#27 · (Edited)
I hunt a lot and have spent a LOT of time in the mountains these past 3 weeks hunting elk. One evening we were sitting in the treeline watching a water hole in the meadow. I see a cougar slinking along the edge of the meadow across from me. In and out of the trees around the rim the meadow. I can see that his path will bring him around the meadow and up behind me. The wind is blowing into my face, So I hope he will catch my scent when he gets around behind me and just go away. But I keep one eye on the water hole hoping for an elk and the other eye watching the forest behind me.

About a half hour later this cougar sneeks up behind me. Sits down about 15 yards away and is watching. I nudge my buddy and say, Look at that. He jumps up, screaming loudly and runs at the cougar. Which of course lites out of there like the devil himself is chasing it.

A couple of nights later, we were watching another water hole. Somebody had shot an elk there a few days earlier and there was a gut pile in the meadow. As we watched a coyote came walking by, I assume heading out to get his share of the gut pile for his dinner. He was also about 15 yards away when I nudged my buddy for him to wake up and look. The coyote saw my movements and froze. He stood still for a few minutes trying to figure out what we were. In our camo cloths I think they have a hard time seeing what we are and it's a few moments for either one of use to move or our scent to drift over to him, Then he trotted back the way he came from. Stopping a couple of times to look back at us.

Sunday afternoon we bugled and a elk answered. Out of the trees 300 yards away came two cows and 6 point bull. I glassed him over good and decided he was a nice bull, but not trophy material. So I was going to pass on him. He came running down to the creek where we were sitting. Stopped 20 feet away and put his head down to drink. I slowly set my rifle down and took my camera out of my pocket. I pushed the on button and the camera made a soft beep beep sound as it turned on. The bull jumped up and ran off 150 feet and stopped to look at us.

A few years ago, I was breaking a young gelding. We were out too late one evening and coming up the trail in the dusk. Up jumps a young moose. I'd seen him a few times. He had broken off his right antler rubbing on trees, So I called him "lefty" He jumped up and started trotting up the trail trying to get away from us. My young gelding, lacking in self confidenceand looking for a herd, figured he better keep up and started after him. It was late in the ride and the gelding had been dogging it on the way back to the trailer, So I was glad to have some spring in his step, So I allowed him to speed up and keep up with the moose. For about 200 yards the moose trotted up the trail, before he decided he had enough of us and took off through the brush. Not wanting to get scratched up. I kept my gelding on the trail.
 
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