Fun with Misidentified Critters

[Weed Shark]

There is plenty of discussion over misidentified cougars on other threads. I usually try to take people’s word. However not everyone, bless their hearts, is comfortable wearing birch bark pants. Let’s hear your misidentified critter stories. Here is a starter:

It seemed peculiar to me when a "home alone" overnight houseguest commented, "You sure have large pheasants around here." The next day after she left, I saw a turkey out back.

[Cooter]

The finned variety of critters but you'd be surprised how many thousands of 'muskies' people see jumping around here!

[DonBo]

My sister (kind of a city person) was staying at our deer camp in my folks trailer. She got up early one morning for a smoke and was scared to go outside because some kind of creature was making a "horribe noise" right outside. Turns out it was sandhill cranes flying overhead.

We still give her a hard time about that.

[so haaad]

A comment from a non-fishing friend:

"We were walking down along Minnehaha Creek below the falls last weekend. There were huge golden colored fish spawning in the creek. A group of strangers asked me what kind of fish they were and I told them they were salmon."

[tracker x-2]

Not really a mis ided critter, but when I took my buddy goose hunting for his first time he asked how the call makes that noise I replied "there is a small diaphram box in a goose's throat they take that out of the gesse they kill and place it in the call." Then I proced to show him the reeds. lol

[jparrucci]

My dad told me a story about fishing with his father and older brother in a small boat on a small river when he was a kid. As they turned a bend... my grandfather at the time apparently did not have the best eye sight and exclaimed from the stern of the boat "what is that farmer doing with his team of oxen" My father (in the bow) turned and was looking right at a large bull moose just a few feet away. My uncle was trying to convince my grandfather to get closer, all while my dad is about to break out in tears. The same uncle once followed a bull moose on video, trying to get some close ups. He got, way way too close and was lucky to get out of there alive.

[titelines]

I was driving with my wife around the outskirts of Grand Marais a few years back. I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye and saw something black moving into the trees.

"Bear - Right There!", I said.

All of a sudden, the thing reversed course and came out of the woods...it was a cow.

[Dave S]

I returned home from work one day to have my son tell me the neighbors called about a wolverine in the yard. I laughed instantly. I went over to check it out and one of the neighbor's kids met me in the yard and asked if I had seen the badger.

Turns out it was a woodchuck sitting in a tree. Funny how things can be 3 different animals in one.

[B. Amish]

someone i know thought a sandhill crane was an albino deer.

[Musky Buck]

Mom last summer saw a wild turkey dusting itself in a dirt bowl kind of an area and she was yelling get the gun, there's a badger digging by the shed.

[Code-Man]

Person I know kept hearing someone knocking on the door. Checked the door no one around well after an hour she called the sheriff. Sheriff looked around and here a turkey was fighting another "turkey" it was seeing it's reflection in the glass and was fighting it. She was hearing the turkey strike the glass on the patio not the door...

[Archerysniper]

Had my brother in law call me frantically while i was at work wanted to know were I put his bow because the biggest non typical he had ever saw was standing behind my barn get a call a few minutes later it was the wife asking me wich nieghbor had fallow deer because it was in the horse pasture eating hay with the horse I laughed so hard I wet myself alittle

[slabchaser]

When I was in H.S. a buddy and his dad had talked to a couple of first year phesant hunters who traveled from the metro and came to SC MN. They gave them a few public spots to check for Phesants since they werent having much luck. Three hours later they saw the same truck at the bar so they stopped in and asked them how they did. The two men were half in the bag and said they shot all four birds at the first spot they went to. They went and looked at their birds and then made a phone call to explain to a farmer why four of his chickens would be missing.

[DonBo]

Funny stories guys.

My first time turkey hunting in Missouri we ran into an OLD timer who was all excited about filling his first turkey tag in years. He just kept going on and on about how the thing was sitting in the ditch and how he snuck up on it. We looked in the back of his truck and there was a turkey vulture.

[Code-Man]

a guy around DL asked to hunt a farmers field many years ago. He went out and was told where they would usually come out at. Well the farmer was in the yard and started hearing gun shots. Well after about an hour or so the hunter came back all excited and the guy said he got 3 or 4 and would need help getting them into his truck. Farmer all excited for the hunter got the tractor to help lift. Get out to the spot and there were dead cows. Farmer was not happy because not only were they cows but they were his award winning SHOW COWS. Sued him for what they were worth before being shot. He won.

[FishGUY]

I have one that is not really hunting related, but a good one none the less. My parents have a place on Lake Sakakaea in North Dakota. One night sitting around the fire my mom tells my dad to turn the sprinkler off. My dad asks what she is talking about and goes on to tell her they were not on. Every time she went to the deck she heard this sound that sounded just like the sprinkler, turns out there was a rattle snake sitting right next to the stairs of the deck and my mom walked by it a few times before telling my dad. She is a little more careful now.

[DonBo]

Yikes!

[minnfish89]

Once when I took my cousin hunting he brought along a friend that was new to the country side...drove past a turkey barn with the doors open and the guys eyes get big and he says "what are all those snow geese doing in that shed"

[mrklean]

well with bigfoot out there you never know, we have the proof now!!!

[bak2MN]

When a buddy and I first started hunting we met some guys that were hunting the same land as us and there were ducks all over. We shot the heck out of them and the guys had a shack they invited us to after the hunt. We went and had some beers and drinks with them and we got to looking at the birds, trying to identify some. There was one we could not figure out what it was. And after a few more drinks one of the guys came up that it was a "Brown winged moose elk". We laughed our butts off.

[JayinMN]

A neighbor called once to warn me about a bobcat was on the loose in our neighborhood. A few days later I came home to find a little tabby colored kitten with no tail playing under the street light. Maybe weighed two pounds. The bobcat mystery was solved.

A different neighbor was telling me how bad the wolves were around here and one was coming onto his deck at night. This is when I lived in town. Turns out that wolf had a blue collar on and was a friendly husky. I saw it under his motion light and said here wolfy wolfy and it came to me.

Me and a buddy were on the way to the lake. A pair of huskies, a white one and gray one were standing on the side of the road and to this day he still thinks they were wolves.

A wolverine was trying to kill the neighbors cats at our cabin, it was really a fisher.

One of the funniest things I ever responded to was the report of a pit bull that had a family locked in their house. If they opened the door it would growl at them. I get there and its a chihuahua with an attitude problem.

When I had guinea fowl people would always stop to tell me my turkeys were loose.

Last summer while driving down stoney river road my friend gets all excited and starts yelling there is a cow moose with a calf ahead. It was 2 pine trees.

Those are just a few off the top of my head.

[NoWiser]

"Look, a sheep!!"

It was a jackrabbit.

[DonBo]

First time I ever saw wild turkeys was in the black hills many years ago. One guy in our hunting party came back to camp babbling about the "whatarethemtherewhatacallit ostriches!"

[Ralph Wiggum]

One of the funniest things I ever responded to was the report of a pit bull that had a family locked in their house. If they opened the door it would growl at them. I get there and its a chihuahua with an attitude problem.

LOL, the guy that mows for my mother-in-law was telling everyone about "the pitbull that Kathy got". Although he can be a bit snarly, my sister-in-law's Boston terrier is a far cry from a pit bull

[Ralph Wiggum]

My wife was walking our Great Dane one morning and a school bus pulled over. Apparently, the driver though she was walking a deer and was telling the other drivers about it.