Run-ins with animals? ...literally

**newlease** · 10-31-2010, 23:37

My very first night in a hammock I got to camp later than I expected and was rushing to finish setting up camp in the waning daylight. I noticed too late that my hammock was hung really low, but decided to leave it rather than fiddle in the dark. I was only inches from the ground when I got in, but as long as I'm not scraping anything, I thought, so what?

Sometime in the wee hours I was awoken by a thud/bump straight into my butt, the lowest point. It scared both of us, I think, thumper and thumpee, because whatever it was paused for a moment then took off - stuck underneath for a second. It was hard enough to send me rocking back and forth a few times when it left. After I recovered from the shock I started laughing - what the heck had just run into me? And why didn't it sense my presence at all? Didn't it smell my sweat-stained clothes a few yards away? Does this sort of thing happen a lot? And with bigger creatures?

**fred1diver** · 11-01-2010, 00:38

Too funny, at least your not harmed

**Bradley** · 11-01-2010, 06:47

At that height a moose would have stepped right over you . . . maybe

. . . and you may not have noticed . . . maybe . . .

**Lonely Raven** · 11-01-2010, 07:26

First night I took my WBBB out, something chewed on my bungie tie outs for the "wings" of the Blackbird.

Beyond that, the only run-ins I've had is when the Pit Bull realizes I'm in the hammock, and she comes jumping in when I'm least expecting it.

**spinkid** · 11-01-2010, 07:34

I was out this summer and heard something scratching under me and was too tired to bother looking. When I woke up my buddy (tent guy) said he heard the scratching and poked his head out to see a fox poking around under my hammock. The joys of the outdoors.

**Knotty** · 11-01-2010, 08:47

Good it wasn't a porcupine newlease!

**eflat7** · 11-01-2010, 11:06

I had something bump into me once this summer. I was wide awake. I never heard it, it never saw me either. Still don't know what it was. Scared me pretty good at first though! Wasn't big. I'm guessing a coon or a possum. I was hanging really low to the ground that night.

**SNIPERFX** · 11-01-2010, 11:34

did first hang last week... deer came thru camp at like 3am a blazin!!!! scared us to death, but was still funny...

**Wise Old Owl** · 11-01-2010, 12:40

Skunk, Raccoon, opossum... you might want to compensate and pitch higher, the first few times I found myself on the ground due to streach.

Rugby my Lab, likes that spot a lot. Everytime he hears something I get "bopped" by his head looking up.

**LaVista** · 11-01-2010, 13:25

On my hike along the A.T. and down into NYC (NOBO from harpers ferry to Harrimon state park in NY, make a right onto the NY Long path ending up on Broadway in the bronx a few days later), , I had a few animal encounters, but only one "Run-in"

My hiking buddy and I had setup our hammocks in a nice spot adjacent to a campsite. This was somewhere in Pennsylvania, IIRC. We hung our food on the bear-pole and went to sleep. Around dark-o-clock I heard something brush against my tarp, and sniff me right in the butt. I had a pretty typical hang so my *** was about a foot or 18" off the ground, and whatever bumped me did so with enough force to rock my hammock a couple of inches.

I quietly but assertively made some noise along the lines of "Whatever is poking its head into my hammock might wind up as a RUG in my HOUSE" and it promptly beat feet back into the brush.

When I woke up that morning there was a lot of rooting around in the dirt adjacent to our camp area so I'm leaning towards the possibility that it was a small pig or several. I consider myself to be pretty lucky, as I am much more worried about feral pigs then I am bears!