Tales from the Brush: The Ghost’s Wildest Animal Run-Ins While Guerrilla Growing Cannabis

Thoughts from The Ghost: Respecting Nature While Growing Guerrilla

Black Bears and Guerrilla Growing: Stepping on a Bear in the Dark (Plus Video)

Back in the day, I used to care for my cannabis plants grown out and about in the middle of the night at times. Less chance of any unwanted interactions… or so I thought! I have had a few run-ins with animals while growing guerrilla!

Once, while going out on a full moon night to check plants, I was moving along slowly, using just the moonlight to see my way. Just as I stepped behind a tree into that dark shadow, I took a step and something literally exploded! I had stepped right on a young black bear! I am not sure who was the most startled, but by the way he took off, it was likely him… although, I may have peed myself just a bit…

Another quick bear story…I planted cannabis way up in the mountains and used pelleted fish fertilizer as I put the plans in. I added some to every planting hole. I come back in a week or to to check on them and they are all dug up….each and every one of them. I look at tracks and see it was a black bear…a really large black bear! I never saw him, but from the size of the tracks he was a 4-500 lb black bear…which is big for this country.

Nighttime Guerrilla Growing: When I Stepped on a Deer in the Shadows

I also once had that very same experience with deer….dark of night, I step right on a deer in the shadows. It was a young yearling it looked like, and taking off in a complete panic! There is just nothing that really compares to the excitement of that happening when you are snicking through the woods in the pitch black of night…oh too, I never used a light…just relied on moon light.

Beavers and Outdoor Cannabis: Lost Island Plants and a Canal Ride

I have had run ins with beavers on many occasions…Once I grew on an island in a marsh area. The plants were loving life and about 6-8 feet tall. I get there in my canoe to check on the plants, and they are all gone! I can see their stumps still there. I look closely at them and I see they have been all chewed off…beavers! I investigate some more and find all the plants, pulled under water to they will keep and the beavers can eat them even when the water has ice on it. This is how beavers stock up their food stores for the coming winter.

Another time I was walking in hip boots down a small beaver canal….they build these small canals because they simply free safer in the water, so they access the trees and things they will eat this way. I loved using their little canals for travel as it lift not sign of my passing. As I worked my way down this particular canal, I could see I was approaching a beaver lodge…this is where the beaver lives. There was alot of loose beaver wood (the wood the beavers build dams, their lodge, ect with. I step on this wood in the canal, and under is is a perhaps 40-50 lb beaver hiding. Again there was an explosion of movement! And I was nearly standing on him…and took a little ride! Holy Guacamole….

Do Deer and Elk Eat Cannabis Plants? (And the Time Elk Trimmed My Buds)

I have had deer and elk both show interest in my cannabis plants. They will both eat on them on rare occasions. Generally they simply do not like the trichomes, but if they are in the mood will eat come of the leaves. I once had elk literally trim it for me, the buds were basically ready to dry and market…no extra trimming needed.

Generally deer and elk in that country do not like cannabis and leave it alone.

Mice Girdling Cannabis Stems: How Rodents Can Kill a 12-Foot Plant

Mice! I have hated them! I always use 3 or 4 baited mouse traps at my guerrilla grows. I never use mouse poison as that is too broad an application…other things would die too, and I do not want that. I use mouse traps and just re-bait them when I visit.

I have on a few occasions stopped trapping them later in the season, and have come back to find my 12 foot tall plants dying outright. After some investigation I realize a mouse had neatly girdled the entire trunk of the plant…killing it outright.

I do not like killing things…but the mice had to go!

The Most Dangerous Threat to a Guerrilla Grow: The Human Animal

Bears, beavers, elk, and mice can all test your patience in the bush, but none of them hold a candle to the one creature you truly never want to cross paths with out there—the human animal.

A deer might nibble a few leaves and a mouse might girdle a trunk, yet a two-legged intruder can wipe out an entire season’s work in ten minutes flat, or worse, land you in a precarious spot you cannot walk away from.

Unlike wild animals, humans leave behind a different kind of trouble, whether it is rippers hunting for a free harvest or law enforcement following up on your grow. When you are guerrilla growing out and about, it behooves you to remember that nature is predictable, whereas people are the real wild card.