Almost a limit

[MOPanfisher]

An apparently dead squirrel in a game vest that comes back to life is a very big surprise when you are a kid.  Amazing how much commotion it can cause in a short amount of time.  A recently rerurned to consciousness squirrel can really hang onto your pants leg and a tree trunk.  Still my favorite critter to hunt.

[Johnsfolly]

3 minutes ago, MOPanfisher said:

An apparently dead squirrel in a game vest that comes back to life is a very big surprise when you are a kid.  Amazing how much commotion it can cause in a short amount of time.  A recently rerurned to consciousness squirrel can really hang onto your pants leg and a tree trunk.  Still my favorite critter to hunt.

I have heard stories of deer coming back to life and running off. I read an outdoor life story that the hunter put his gun in the deer rack for a photo when the deer recovered and ran off with his gun in its rack. 

A friend from grad school had an uncle do something similar. Must have hit it's antler and knocked it unconcious because the deer got up and ran off just as he was going to field dress it. He keft a piece of antler.

[tjm]

Deer story, when I was kid in Idaho, the whole village set up an ambush with old men, the women and some kids sat along a canyon and younger able men horse backing hunted the mountain and basically drove the deer down the canyon; Dad was horse back and shot a buck that took off the skull cap and antlers and a doe at the same time. When he rode up to them he first cut  the does throat thinking the open brain cavity meant the buck was fully dead, well, that buck woke up, knocked Dad over and ran down canyon where it was knocked down three times by other hunters before it stayed dead. All but Dad's shots were heart/lung shots too. Dad mounted those horns.

Squirrel story, in my late twenties in RI, I got a Welsh Springer that loved to hunt, but never barked, so one day in the woods behind an industrial park she took after a grey squirrel and as I stood there waiting for her to tree or something all at once something grabbed one leg and then my back and head- that squirrel had circled and thought I was a tree I guess, it made a circle around my head and leaped over to a bush and from there to a real tree. I fully understand MOPanfisher's surprise.  I didn't wet my pants but I lost enthusiasm for the hunt that day.

[Johnsfolly]

I have been accosted by squirrels only during spring turkey hunts. I always carry a turkey call when hunting squirrels because I often have them come down trees to see what's up when I hen call. Twice I have had squirrels run up my back when turkey hunting 😌.

[MOPanfisher]

I was always a throat cutter on deer.  A couple if them spurted blood a long way, obviously not yet dead.  One I examined the neck wound on and have no doubt she would gotten up.  Both were neck shots that weren't perfect.  Squirrels have an amazing grip on trees even if only half alive.