Ok, this an embarrasing, but kind of cool story. You yankees might disagree, but as a Southern boy, I have never seen a badger before, despite spending a fair amount of time camping up north.
My dad and I were fishing on Slough Creek in Yellowstone. After two hours and getting zero love from the trout (who can probably tie their own flies with the level of education they have), we decided to adjourn to find dumber fish. On the way, I decided to gather a bunch of firewood from the abundant drift wood. I gave my dad my rod and took his belt so I could make two large bundles of wood. After getting a fair amount, I decided it made more sense to walk high through the sage rather than low on the creek since the wood kept snagging.
Anyway, I was decending into this little pot hole when the sage about twenty feet away started shaking and this weird growling noise started. Now, being a a good swamp redneck, you don't need to tell me twice that that particular combination means you need to find an elsewhere to be and figure out why later.
So I dropped the wood and high stepped it upslope a bit. Out comes this badger. He can smell me, but not see me, and is cutting figure eights through the sage making this weird trilling growl and popping his teeth. It was like a combination of a big coon and a hog popping its tusks. It started chewing on one of the belts and kept running around for a good ten minutes or so while I watched. Finally, it went back into its hole and I recovered the wood and left.
As I said, very cool. The funny part is that it would be a hell of a thing to put on your tombstone. "Eaten by a bear"? That has a certain romance to it. "Gored by a buffalo"? Well, it means you were dumb enough to crowd one, but it does have sort of an old west vibe. "Bled out from a badger taking a hunk out your ankle"? That's just embarrassing.
FQ13 who will never view "The Wind in the Willows" the same way gain. Those things are just mean!
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