What's the riskiest stunt you've ever pulled?

There were plenty that didn’t make the cut here.

2010 some adventures in Jordan on an archeological dig. Local drivers were bringing me and some kids back from Irbid and “got lost” and there was a lot of suspicious stuff that made it feel like a kidnapping was taking place. We started arming ourselves with broken pottery shards (Roman era) from the dig but were able to bribe/cajole things back to camp

2012 Got dragged by coworkers to go dancing at a euro-style club in São Paulo. Dark, strobe lights, chemicals. Bumped into a gorgeous girl and we danced together for quite a bit. Broken English, frisky. Then the lights halfway came on and I noticed a bulge that shouldn’t be there and an Adam’s apple that was a bit too large. Tough scene to forget.

2013 Got roofied in Tokyo at a bar and robbed by a bunch of Nigerian hustlers.

2014 - crossing a crocodile infested river (literally eyes everywhere) in Vietnam on a leaky mokoro-type dugout

2018? December Wisconsin, solo deer hunting, went to a large forested area, hadn’t been there before …super snowy, -10. Phone battery died from the cold as it got dark, snow had covered all tracks. Got turned around…Nearly had to overnight it.

2021 Did a float hunt for bison on the Copper River in Alaska (buddy drew the tag). Got it done the first day. Nearly capsized the boat twice in some strong eddies. That one still gives me shivers.

2022 Montana bowhunting elk solo, met some dudes, starting chatting. Elk hunting was slow, they shared some shrooms…minimal impact at first so I tripled down. Best day ever. Saw a bear. Time space continuum opening up. Forgave my past self and lost all anxiety for future self. Good times…just added that one for kicks

2023 Manitoba Saw a big black bear across a river 300 yards away right after I shot a moose. Squalled at him on an elk diaphragm and he swam across and wouldn’t be deterred at first even when I made noises. Fortunately I was armed. Hunter from Switzerland later shot him off a moose gut pile.

2024 Got cliffed out and ran out of water mule deer hunting in Wyoming solo. Tough day.

2025 Namibia: elephant bull bluff charge

2026: more to come Wyoming/Colorado and in 2027 Cape buff

This thread got me thinking....
Nothing to report.

My life must be totally boring and dull.
I have never done anything crazy.

But then, we need to define ,"stunt"?
What me, or all of us do, in our spare time this is not average.

Chasing wild - sometimes dangerous animals, all over the globe, in the middle of nowhere, in the remotest places on earth, which are hard to find on a map.

Spend money, just to go where normal man would never want to be.

For average people, this is crazy.

But in my life, I have done practically everything I ever wanted to do, in boating, fishing, diving, hunting, shooting. My attitude was always like this: Am I interested in something to do, or to try?
If yes, I made sure I did it.

Am I missing something in my life?
Yes, I miss more safaris, but I am working on it.

And when my activity in the past was on a moment a bit risky, my actions were always calculated, and within reasonable risk control measures.

So, I never pulled a stunt.

Imagine going after three man eating Royal Bengal tigers with a 7x57mm Mauser and a single barreled 12 gauge shotgun (with a faulty extractor). And somehow managing to get away with it completely unscathed. Ah, to be young and stupid.

fourfive8 said:

Driving 70 mph down a dirt road, pitch black night w/o starlight goggles using only a slit beam, hooded black out light.

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Driving 70 mph down a dirt road…

You just reminded of when I did that on the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico while elk hunting one February. I was hauling ass back toward town, going well over 70 on a dirt road at about 11:00 PM under a big full moon and as I came streaking past the only couple trees for miles, a cow ran out from behind those trees. I literally saw that f*cking cow fly! And I was totally sober.

I was hunting kudu on our game farm late afternoon in the hills......was 12 years old.
Saw a big snake entering a hole.....ran to it and started pulling it back out.
While trying to get it out I realised 2 things......one, the snake was bloody strong and two, it was most definitely not a python as I initially suspected.
Blame it on the poor light.
I realised too late it was a massive black mamba .....as the snake pulled free I jumped up and hid behind the nearest marula tree.
Needless to say the mamba was more than slightly agitated and went around raised up looking for the cause of his annoyance.
I did not fancy taking a shot at a moving and agitated mamba at 5 yards so stood still and eventually it lowered itself and dissapeared down the hole.
I seem to have a thing with mambas...

Following a wounded Leopard with a tracker holding a Mag Lite that holds 2x AA Batteries.

mark-hunter said:

This thread got me thinking....
Nothing to report.

My life must be totally boring and dull.
I have never done anything crazy.

But then, we need to define ,"stunt"?
What me, or all of us do, in our spare time this is not average.

Chasing wild - sometimes dangerous animals, all over the globe, in the middle of nowhere, in the remotest places on earth, which are hard to find on a map.

Spend money, just to go where normal man would never want to be.

For average people, this is crazy.

But in my life, I have done practically everything I ever wanted to do, in boating, fishing, diving, hunting, shooting. My attitude was always like this: Am I interested in something to do, or to try?
If yes, I made sure I did it.

Am I missing something in my life?
Yes, I miss more safaris, but I am working on it.

And when my activity in the past was on a moment a bit risky, my actions were always calculated, and within reasonable risk control measures.

So, I never pulled a stunt.

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I fell asleep, writing this, not getting to the point.

Let me tell you the short story.

So, one lobster 5 pounds was in my left hand, another lobster, 5 pounds was in my right hand.

I was kneeling on sea bed, trying to hook my spear gun with small finger on my right hand, while other 4 fingers were holding that lobster.

While I was trying to do this, that lobster grabbed my mask (like alien in the movie), and in an instant I did not see anything through the glass.

I really hated that situation. This was not exactly what I planned for.

Holding that lobster with full grip, I pulled him down, and stripped of the mask and regulator from my face.

Now I had new situation:
No seeing, no breathing now.

It was 36 meters depth, and I decided for free ascent to surface.

And very next moment, I was on my way up.

I broke the surface, swum to the boat, and dumped the lobsters in a boat.
Then I divided down along the anchor line, to 3 meters depth, and made decompression procedure. I blew entire tank at three meters, and went home. (with lobsters, to be sold same afternoon)

Everybody in diving would tell me it was idiotic.
I was supposed to dump one lobster away, take air regulator in my hand, start breathing, put back the mask, empty the water from mask and continue dive. Not to mention, taht I was not supposed to collect lobsters while diving in a first place.

But it was all calculated.

At that time, I was already senior in diving category, dive master or instructor.
I had hundreds of hours under the water, free diving, or SCUBA
In all seasons of the year, in all weather conditions, day and night.

All my life I was diving alone, since the age I could load a spear gun (around age of 12 or 13).

At that moment with two lobsters in hand, my bottom time was 5 minutes, and I did not get yet into decompression curve as per US NAVY decompression tables.

I was selling fish for a decade by then.

Then, in those years, I could make a free dive (without SCUBA) to 40 meters.
I was spearfishing on free dive, up to 30 meters depth. Getting fish on seabed under the rock, pulling it out, and getting to surface

Overall, free ascent, from 36 meters for me, then, was a piece of cake.
I did it with ease, and in a calculated manner.

I admit, this is not for beginners. (So, gents, dont try that at home)
But my standard then was different.
All in a days work.

So, boys, you tell me, you shoot elephants, buffalos, and charging hippos, at a place nobody ever heard of, in the heart of Africa.

For average man, this is not normal. There are more than 8 billion people in the world, and only some thousands do that.

For others DG hunting is a stunt.

It is just that your standard, motivation, and set of skills is different, and you have different definition of "normal".

in a group of average people acquaintances of mine, (especially if they are accompanied with their wives), if I mention buffalo or elephant hunt, in a landlocked part of subsaharan Africa, they look at me in disbelief.

I love that look!

Yup, I shot the elephant in the brain! You should try that sometimes!

If they manage a question, (because even for a question, you need to know something), in best case is: is that legal?

The point being, for average urban men, hunting ele and buffalo is pulling the stunt.
For us, we call it differently. We live different lives. Cave men.

Those are the moments that make our lives.

Well..driving at 148mph on the Autobahn with an old BMW, scuba dive alone beyond 50m looking for a wreck (I decrompressed), hunt elephant at night, running out of air at 15m depth in the Red Sea, swimming with sharks, almost swept off a navy frigate in rough seas, etc.

Bought 3 double rifles from an estate..without informing her..

Pondoro said:

scuba dive alone beyond 50m looking for a wreck (I decrompressed),

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My deepest dive was 53 meters at night, looking for a 6 kilo snapper.

mark-hunter said:

My deepest dive was 53 meters at night, looking for a 6 kilo snapper.

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Yep..beyond 50m is pushing it.. 40 years ago we dived with single regulators and purely on air, no NITROX.

R eight said:

I've bought all of mine the same way My wife is very forgiving .....thankfully

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we’ve done well - they are definitely keepers

…

the wives and the Rigbys

walked along a road for about 500 metres in the Zambezi valley in pitch darkness before the sun rose into a hyena blind, with Elephants on both sides of the road. There were 5 of us in total, the gap between us at the start was at least couple metres, when we heard the elephants moving, the gap reduced considerably... it wouldn't have been so bad if we heard Eles on one side of the road, but when we heard them on both sides, then we puckered... we were fairly close to the blind and the Ele's were relaxed so we pushed on, luckily the Ele's moved off.

Hunting stories I have a few, and I’ve done my share of all the dumb things, but I have a few that are rather unique.

Was storm chasing in Nebraska. Many moons ago before it was trendy I used to come to the states for this reason (nowadays it’s part of my work). My first trip, was still getting my head around the road network and decided it was a good idea to chase a storm in the Sandhills. We ended up having this thing get very very gnarly and I didn’t realize there was no potential for cell service, so had to play it by eye. With only one road and north being in the option, we had the choice of baseballs and 80mph winds (that started to bounce off the side of the vehicle), and I decided that the only option was to punch out to the north, into what chasers call the bear cage. Well…the bear was home, we pop out of blinding rain and see a tornado within 50m ripping up trees. Well managed to just skirt it and get the hell out of there, but was a near run thing and we had some vegetation driven into weird places. Haven’t chased in the Sandhills since.

I’ll add a bonus as I’ve spent more time around these things than most people on the planet. On a big outbreak day we ended up out of position and decided it was a good idea to slice through the back of a previously F5 producing storm to get ahead of the next one. I should’ve known better, especially when the debris started fall, insulation, then slightly larger stuff then your seeing two by fours on the ground, and this is way out of the track. We see rain curtains ahead and I still didn’t stop us, we get in there and see sheets of rain moving in wind at huge velocities, in both directions and have the oh hell revelation. We managed to get turned around and drove out of there as fast as we could. We had a local guy next to us reversing at 60mph after he saw us whip around. The key lesson was reminding myself that just because a radar might show a tornado weakening, but that process doesn’t tend to be as quick as you think. Not far from where we had turned around surveyed this damage track and saw things that were scarcely believable…bare slabs with anchors ripped out, plumbing ripped from concrete and trees debarked and stubbed. I’ve pulled people out of houses and cars since, but that image of how close I came to being a statistic hasn’t faded.

A couple of Africa Darwin Award contenders.

I tagged along with my father and his friend ele hunting. I sat in the back with the trackers in this old open top 109 Landy with super stiff suspension. Then someone saw this rhino minding its own business so, as was customary at the time we thought we should pay it a «visit» to check out its mood and whatnot and maybe have an African rodeo. That was always fun. These guys knew exactly what buttons to push to provoke a charge and executed perfectly. What we did not know was that the Landy was pointing into really bumpy terrain so when the rhino charged and pedal was slammed to the metal we caught air..lots of it.. we could not drive that fast so the rhino caught us absolutely hammering the back of the Landy were I was. At one point one of the trackers and me were thrown several feet in the air and I recall my head only being 1-2 ft away from the rhinos horn. I was really happy when it broke off and we could stop and inspect the damages. There was some..

Also in Kenya a Saturday or Sunday morning I was playing soccer in our garden behind our house. This was the time of year when there was lots of snake movement in particular mambas.. I shot a hard ball at our concrete wall and it bounced back way over me and over our fence. I was not thinking at all, we had like corral snake and green mambas in abundance in the bush surrounding our house so I definitely should know better.. Anyways, I sprinted after the ball, jumped over the fence. Mid air I hear clear sounds of movement in front of me and maybe some hissing sound.. then I look straight in the eyes of a black mamba..less than 2 yards away, it was not happy, the ball had probably hit it. Panic mode,,I turned mid air, dived over the fence, sprinted as fast as I could, never looking back, over our garden, out our drive way, out on the road. Passing our English neighbour standing on the porch having a cig, probably with a serious hangover shouted «pranked the houseboy again now have yah…,&’@@«. I replyed MAMBA..BLACK MAMBA! I can promise you the guy kicked into action, calling in the dogs and I heared doors being closed. That episode have caused some nightmares.

In Zim I stalked an ele standing in the middle of a barbwire fenced in corn field at night.
There where several more ele on this field which I knew and I positioned somewhat dangerously.
Shooting this ele caused a stampede and I was partly blocking the only exit. Sorta exiting seeing in the flashlight a stampeding herd thundering closer and closer.. 50 yards…45…40…35…30…holy $&!!£..and then broke of at about 25 yards. Mother of all adrenaline rushes.. Cudos to the tracker standing behind me with a torch.

K-man said:

I once argued with my wife…..

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#metoo ;D

Went on a downhill mountain bike trip when I was in my early 50’s to trestle bike park, winter park Colorado with the commitment that we were to ride all the blue and single black diamonds tracks we could in 2 weeks……I had an equipment failure——my body.

Back in my early days of big game hunting, when I could move like a jungle cat and had reflexes to match, I snuck up on a big black bear sow in British Columbia and poked her in the ass with a stick….pretty sure she was more surprised than I was that I actually did it.

I have been reading this thread and I’m thinking, I need to take a page from the Dr. Fauci playbook on this one, “ on the advice of myself, I plead the 5th”!
Don’t want to write it down and confirm l have judgement errors in the name of fun and excitement.

DLSJR said:

Driving 70 mph down a dirt road…

You just reminded of when I did that on the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico while elk hunting one February. I was hauling ass back toward town, going well over 70 on a dirt road at about 11:00 PM under a big full moon and as I came streaking past the only couple trees for miles, a cow ran out from behind those trees. I literally saw that f*cking cow fly! And I was totally sober.

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Marquez/Seboyeta Road or Water Canyon Road?

fourfive8 said:

Marquez/Seboyeta Road or Water Canyon Road?

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Water Canyon. Trip started off lousy as there were very few elk around, which was weird since it was February. So I wandered off the Pueblo and quite a way up Mt. Taylor, got stuck in the snow with no tools to get unstuck. Took about 4 hours to get dug out and back down to where I belonged.

Day 2 got the flu and spent most of the day puking and diarrhea breaks while trying to find elk. That was no fun. Day 3 found water canyon, a few elk wayback in there, so I hunted on foot till dark. Got back to truck a couple hours after dark and it was a long way back to where I was staying in Grants, a beautiful night with not a cloud in the sky but a big full moon so bright I could have driven out without headlights. But I had a long way to go and short time to get there so it was high beams and high speed. @fourfive8 as you probably know that road is arrow straight, graded and smooth (at least, it was back then) so I was hauling ass, going way too fast when that cow decided to trot out from behind a couple junipers. It wasn’t a question of whether I was gonna hit her, just how hard. I veered to the right with my brakes locked up and fortunately just hit her with my left headlight area and bumper, on her head and neck. She spun past me like a pinwheel. I skidded to a stop, got out to survey the damage then walked back up the road to pick up the pieces of my truck from the road. As I walked past the ‘dead’ cow she suddenly stood up and I froze, sure she was gonna stomp my ass. She was staring at me and just started wobbling, then fell over, truly dead. I put the pieces in my truck and headed to town. I sustained enough damage that I couldn’t turn left, only right; so each left turn was a circle around to the right but I finally got back to my motel.
Next morning I slept in, then found a body shop to pull everything sorta back into place so I could drive normally. Then I loaded up my stuff and headed west, toward home. No elk. Worst elk hunt of my life, total debacle.

I flew into Dar es Salaam and overnighted at a really nice hotel on the beach out on a long bar leading to a lighthouse, I seem to remember. That night, after an absolutely brilliant sea food/pasta dish, I wandered out onto a big concrete veranda and saw a staircase leading down to the ocean. Being a balmy Moonlite night, descended, but before walking very far, I had a feeling of impending doom and raced back up the stairs. The management saw me and went bonkers. They said--see those complementary robes hanging there--they are for people who come back from the beach at night stark naked! The people who WILL mug you will rob you down to your birthday suit.

Same hunt, after I arrived at Kilombero, we daily entered long grass over our heads. One soon learned to distinguish the sound of Puku leaping, elephants "swishing" past unseen, or the distinctive sound of buffalo, which we were after. Two things: once, we set fires (it was the burning season) at the advice of the trackers that a row of mattetti cane was the river--it was not, it was a lagoon. And setting fire darn near cut us off from returning to the river. (BTW, a gargantuan buff stuck his head out of the smoke, saw us, and just as rapidly backed back into the smoke, never to be seen again) Second incident--I was walking along, trying to see a herd of buffalo way ahead of us, WHEN I STEPPED ON THE RUMP OF A SLEEPING HIPPO, out in the grass near a small pool. He was tucked up under some overhanging grass for shade. Felt like an avalanche moved ahead of me. Lucky he was pointed in the right direction.

Oops, forgot to mention when the swamp buggy broke down and we had to ride in a dugout over 15 miles as the crow flies through hippo infested waters, and it was the breeding season....