Dances With Wolves

Should You Carry a Sidearm When Hunting? Here’s Why I do…

by Richard Baimbridge

A few years back, I was hunting public lands with a friend of mine. We pulled up at the entrance gate about half an hour before sunrise and made sure to follow all the nitpicky State Park regulations as we walked out, in case we ran into an over-zealous game warden. We’d been on the logging road for about 15 minutes or so when my friend stopped all of a sudden and asked me if I heard something. I paused, perked up my ears, but didn’t hear a thing. So, we kept moving.

There was a light fog on the ground, it was eerily quiet, and still too dark to see much. But I’ve walked out into the pre-dawn woods enough times with this guy to know when something feels off. He’s got an uncommonly keen sense of sounds and smells. Sometimes, we’ll be walking along and he’ll stop and say “deer piss” while sniffing the wind. All I smell is pine trees…  

We reached a T intersection at the end of the logging road and split up in different directions. I took a position at the bottom of a ravine where I’d seen tracks running along the sides of the hills, as he headed deeper into the woods. After sunrise, with no signs of deer yet, I went to grab a granola bar from my backpack, which was sitting just behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of something speeding along the side of the hill. I turned quickly back around and was face-to-face with a coyote.

It was maybe five yards away, completely silent, hair standing up on its neck, and baring its teeth. What I remember most was the look in its eyes -- something I can’t even put into words. It was cold, primal and terrifying… I had my rifle slung over my shoulder and spun it around as quickly as possible, aiming right for his head. I thought about firing, but didn’t want to spoil the hunt by scaring away any deer in the area. So, we both stood there frozen for a moment. Then, just as quickly, he bolted off into the hills.

I sat down for a while, shaking, and sent a text message to my friend. When we met up again, he told me that he felt something had been stalking us ever since the logging road. “Probably when you turned your back, he made a move for you,” he said, asking why I didn’t shoot him? “I woulda blasted him!” he said. “You’re lucky you turned around when you did.”

One thing that surprised me was just how quietly an animal can sneak up on you like that. “That’s millions of years of predator evolution,” my friend said. “Their paws are designed to be silent.” The story might’ve played out very differently if I hadn’t caught a glimpse of him out of my eye. Or if it’d been archery season, as it was just a few weeks earlier. I know of several people who’ve had serious bear, wolf, bobcat, wild boar or coyote encounters while bowhunting.

Some states have laws that prohibit carrying sidearms in archery season. This seems like a classic example of hunting laws designed by people who don’t hunt, and don’t understand that when you enter the woods, you merge with the ecosystem. If an animal is hungry enough, aggressive enough, or feels threatened, it has no qualms with killing you.

I once met a guy who was surrounded by a pack of coyotes after coming down from a tree stand in archery season, and only survived because he was carrying a Glock with a full mag. It’s also estimated that about 180 people have been killed by wild boars in the southern U.S. over past two decades.

Yet there are all kind of rules and regulations, especially on public lands and in National Parks, about how and when you’re allowed to carry and/or use a sidearm — even in cases of self-defense from wild animal attacks.   

And it isn’t just predators you should be worried about. It’s not at all uncommon for hunters to have encounters with poachers. While it’s generally best to let the game warden handle these situations, having a sidearm is a clear signal to them that you mean business, and adds an extra layer of protection.

Just like the rest of life, bad things can happen in the woods, too. Some examples of that include the unsolved Orange Park, Florida murders of two hunters shot at close-rage on public lands in the 1990s, or the 2004 case of six hunters killed over a tree stand dispute in Wisconsin. There’s also a growing problem of meth labs and cannabis fields run by cartels on public lands, spanning from Kentucky to Arizona and California.

For all these reasons, I think it’s smart to carry a sidearm when hunting (so long as it’s permitted by law). I know that can be complicated, especially if you’re dealing with multiple jurisdictions and public lands that might stretch across different counties. But the experience I had was enough to put the fear of God in me. Ever since then, I don’t venture too far out into the woods without being strapped.

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