Great story, bugman!
One of my dad's friends, a big guy about 6'6" and 250lbs and an ironworker, once said he isn't afraid of anything with hips and shoulders!
When we had our lease up near Madison, I decided to hunt a stand we had setup about 1/4 mile from camp. I set out through the planted pines about 5:30 on a warm morning, and had to cross a small meadow to get to the stand. In the middle of the meadow was a small seep spring, surounded by a few small, brushy trees. The trail I was following went right by the spring through the trees. I had one of those headlights on my hat, but it was off as there was enough light to see and I knew the trail. The meadow was covered in fog as I left the pines, but I didn't turn on my light. As I got up to the trees, the fog got really thick, and something made me stop. Just a weird feeling that something wasn't right. I reached up and turned on my headlight, and right there, about 10 inches in front of my face was a HUGE golden silk spider in the middle of her web, which spanned a space about 6 feet wide between two trees. The dew drops hanging from the web with its geometric patterns was kind of cool, but thinking about walking face first into a spider whose leg span is bigger than my hand just didn't appeal to me!
As I walked around the trees, shining my light into them, I saw there wasn't an opening big enough for a mosquito to get through between any of those trees. There must have been 2000 of those big-azz spiders in an area about 100' x 100'!
snakes don't bother me, when I was a kid I had a bunch of them, but. them freakin' bugs give me the willies
Ya me and the wife have a understading I'll take care of the snakes and she has the spiders and scorpion's.
When I walk in to my stand in the dark, I hold my rifle out in front of my face to catch the webs before I walk into them. People say those spiders won't hurt you, I don't want to test them.
I went bear hunting up in Northern Quebec a while back. The year I went just happened to be the same year they were infested with caterpillers. Imagine sitting in a tree stand covered with those fuzzy buggers, and, I don't care what people tell you, they DO bite.
The silk spiders are really bad in archery season. I always pick up a limb and "clear a path" on the way to my stand
have you ever been bit ?
