Remembered one
When i was 16 I went hunting in Africa with my Dad, older brother and granddad. We stayed at one camp for a week and we'd just changed to a new camp a few hours away. It was on the banks of the Sabi River in Zimbabwe. Where we were the banks of the river were about 20ft above the river and the bank was sheer so we were protected from crocodiles and whatnot.
Anyway, in the middle of the day you generally don't hunt because animals aren't moving (thus you can't find their tracks as easily) so we were back at camp, had just eaten lunch and usually you take a nap for a few hours (because you get up at bumblefuck in the AM). For whatever reason I couldn't sleep and was stirring (there isn't much occupy your time in the african bush when everyone else is asleep.)
Anyway, I decide to go for a little walk. there is a "road" (really I should say a 20ft wide clearing) that run parallel to the river with a thin strip of 15/20ft tall brush between it and the river bank and similar (but thicker) brush on the other side. It is africa so I take a gun and I tell the PH (professional hunter) that I'm going to walk around. He gives me his side arm as well (just in case). It is Africa, so it's inherentely more dangerouse than walking around some trail in the US, but I'm not going far, I'm pretty well strapped (at this point, .375 rifle and a .45 handgun) and just because to the layout of where I'm walking I'm pretty safe (river with high sheer bank on one side, thick brush on the other, wide straight clearing to walk through). I walk for some time, can't remember how far, but far enough and I see a troop of baboons that look like they are coming out of the river and crossing the path. They see me, but I'm at least 200 yards away so they don't pay much mind. I keep walking towards them and they gradually back up (at this point most are still crossing but a few bigger males have stopped to stare at me) but I'm taking two steps towards them and they're probably only taking 1 step back. Eventually I get to about 75 yards and the big males start making noise and occasionally jumping around then staring at me again. Yet I still walk towards them and they ease back, but I'm still getting closer. I'm at 50 yards and they start throwing something at me as I get closer I realize it's their own shit (which tickles me to no end). The entire time I'm really only fixated with the big males that have stopped in the road, but I'd guess at least 100 or maybe even 200 baboons have crossed the road into the brush.
***As an aside, baboons, especially big males, are vicious animals, mouth of a dog, like most primates, they are quite smart and extrodinarily strong. Adult females can be very small, say 40lbs, while adult males can be as large as 300lbs****
Again, I'm only really paying attention to the big males of the troop because they are the ones that stopped in the road and they are the ones jumping around and throwing shit at me. I get to about 25 yards (tops) from the males and at this point their actions are starting to transition from grandiose acts of intimidation to a more subtle (but more threatening) aggression so at that point I decide I've gotten close enough and start back off.
Now when I first saw the baboons I say they were probably 200 yards away, but between that point and where I am now I probably walked at least 400 yards, so I'm well past the spot where the baboons were originally crossing.
So at at the point where I'm starting to feel like I've gone far enough, but I'm not really worried at this point because, 1) I'm strapped 2) I (think) I'm only dealing with 5 or 6 baboons and they are right infront of me 3) I'm fucking 16 and invincible.
I start to back off slowly and the males start to move towards me (at about the same pace I'm moving away). This troubles me, but not too badly as I can easily dispatch of them if the shit hits the fan. Eventually I put another 25/30 yards between myself and the big males who are still moving towards me, but not quite keeping pace...they are also becoming less animated. I feel a little more comfortable so I figure I'll just turn around and start a normal walk back to camp (at this point I'd just been kind off lazily backpedalling). Of course, the first thing I see when I turn around is a few baboons in the middle of the road about 50 yards from me staring at me.......my heart jumps into my throat and I chamber a round in the .45 about as fast as humanly possible. Then I look around and all the baboons that I thought had crossed the road and kept going were really just hanging in the brush watching everything play out.
At this point, here is the situation I'm in
I'm at least a mile away from the nearest human being, so I might as well be 100miles
I'm surrounded on three sides by hundreds of baboons and a sheer river bank on the other.
I have about 20 rounds of ammunition.
I feel like an absolute retard for not noticing that I was being surrounded, but as I noted yesterday, teenagers are fucking stupid, and I was no exception.
The big males that I'd been originally focused on are now behind me, I peak back and they don't seem to be doing anything and the baboons that are infront of me are probably males, but not as big and not nearly as aggressive. I'm really freaked out, but I'm not at the point where I want to fire off any rounds. so I start walking back towards camp and getting closer to the baboons in front of me and a couple scatter but 2 or 3 stand their ground and start up the intimidation BS that the other ones were doing. I'm literally a stones throw away from them, so that's what I do. I pick up a good sized rock and heave it in their direction and fortunately it frightens off all but one of the baboons (it waivers but holds firm) then I pick a rock that's probably about half the diameter of a baseball and whip it at the remaining baboon, I don't hit it, but only because he moved. At that point he trots into the brush, I kind of turn around to see what's going on behind me (other other baboons aren't doing anything) and then I decide that i'm going to jog until I get out of the gallery of baboons. As soon as I start jogging they all start hooting and hollering (which intially scares the shit out of me) but I guess it was just their "vanquishing the enemy" celebration and that was pretty much the end of it.
When I got back the PH asked if I saw anything and I calmly said, "yeah, I saw some baboons" to which he replied, yeah, those fuckers are mean as shit"