Just want to share my story and the lessons learned.

This is being posted from my phone so sorry about the spelling and grammar.This trip took place in September and I figured I would share it with you all.Me and some friends made plans for a canoeing trip. All of them were doing 1 night, 2 days while I was doing 2 nights, 3 days. My journey was 18 miles total and I started a day ahead and further down creek their launch destination. Our plan was for them to canoe until they reach my campground which will be ready. We all knew how far and where the sandbar/campground was. Before I go any further I will give you a brief background about myself. I have done this exact trip around 20 times - I know where to find the best sand bars for camping - I know the wildlife and I know where to catch the fish. I have also camped, hunted and fished since I was a child. I am by no means an 'expert' survivalist or outdoorsman but I am skilled.So, I was scheduled to leave my house around 9am and make the 2 hour drive to the shuttle. I also decided at the last minute to take my 10ft fishing kayak. I notified the other three canoers that I will be traveling light so feel free to carry some beer for me and I will have a bad ass campground ready when they arrive. BTW, its four dudes who have been doing this trip every year for the past 15 years & beer is always involved - its just a way for us to get away and cherish our memories (we are all in our early 30's now). So don't bash me for bringing beer or other items. We only get rowdy once the camp fire is blazing and we have plenty of wood.So, I arrive at the canoe & kayak shuttle location. I share my camping plans/destination and info about the party arriving the next day with the man who owns the outfitter. I pay him to pick me up two days later at 4pm and off I go. The owner also told me that will be the only ones out there that weekend, which is perfect and ideal for me.My gear included: Axe, knife, collapsible shovel, sleeping bag, rain gear, thermals, head lamp, dutch oven, water proof matches, life-straw with bottle, 1 pint of trader joes whiskey, trail mix, 6 packs of emergen-c, 12x12 tarp, about 30 feet of paracord, dried mango, cell phone (no service but I had good music), waterproof ecogear Bluetooth speaker, and 2 packs of the dehydrated dinner/breakfast meals.If you are experienced enough, you may have already noticed my mistake. I got in a rush at the last minute when I decided to bring my kayak and pack lite. I forgot the FIRST AID KIT!! Oh and I know a dutch oven isn't considered lite and I didn't need it for the food I packed. I brought it for when my friends arrive - they had more and better food that we were going to cook in it. I like to cook.Everything is going as planned. Beautiful day on the creek. Current is steady for easy paddling and the creek height is just right. Around 330pm I start to set up camp as planned - I arrived right on time. My plan was to gather enough wood for the first night only and set up a basic camp. However, finding good fire wood was a bit of a hassle. I realized that we were camping on a beautiful sandbar at the end of the outfitters busiest time of the year. No big deal. I look up creek a little bit and notice a dead tree hanging over the creek. TIP: you can cut down any dead tree hanging over a creek and simply guide it the sandbar where you are camping if the creek isn't too deep or strong. So as I am making my way to this tree I hear a few coyotes yelling in the distance. Cool. Should be a little entertaining. I begin by hacking away a few dead branches on the tree. And like a fucking idiot, I swing my axe vertically at a horizontal branch right in front of me. Somehow I miss and the axe head landed straight in my right shin.I thought to my self, "fuck this could be bad...this could be really bad...don't look at it yet. Don't freak out. Stay Calm. Adrenaline is pumping and I still don't feel it". Then I looked at it. It was about 1/4 inch wide, 4 inches long & 1/8 of an inch deep. Luckily, I didn't sharpen my axe and it wasn't that deep. So fuck that tree. I headed back to camp and realized I hadn't seen my first aid. I left it. Shit. I have whiskey to sterilize it and that is it. I wrapped it with paracord and thermal and re-cleaned it every hour or so.As the sky got darker, the coyotes got louder and closer. On top of that, more were barking. Of all the years I have been on that creek I have never heard that many neither have they been that close. Eventually I could actually hear their paws crashing against the forest floor. They were close and loud. I shined my head lamp across the creek and a few were alredy staring at me. They knew I was there. In all my years of hunting I have never seen or heard of a coyote that didn't run in the complete opposite direction when it saw, heard or smelled a human. It was strange. Very strange. Then I heard a few hit the creek and they circled around me. They ran around my camp site for hours while barking. I did everything I could think of. I poked the fire, Banged my axe head on my dutch oven like it was a bell. I threw rocks and sticks in the woods. I yelled. Eventually it was 1am. I had enough. I wasn't quite sure what the coyotes wanted but they did not really consider me a threat. I decided to dig in. I grabbed my collapsible shovel and dug a hole in the sand long enough for me lay in and about 2' deep. I stretched out my tarp and laid one side inside the hole. Then I placed my sleeping bag on the tarp inside the hole. After that I laid my kayak upside down over the hole and pulled the free end of the tarp to the other side of the tape (the tarp was basically folded in half over the kayak and I was sandwiched between them both). It was a last minute shelter. I also kept my blue tooth speaker on with the volume up all the way and placed by the edge of the forest and the sandbar. If the coyotes actually decided to get on the sandbar or in my camp, I would simply play a downloaded song from spotify at full volume to try and spook them. Eventually, I silenced their howls and just passed out from exhaustion inside my kayak/tarp shelter. I woke up right at sunrise and began to clean my wound. Fortunately, everything looked good on the wound.I knew that something was off about the coyotes last night because I have never been harassed by them like that in my entire life. I also knew that another sandbar was directly across and down the creek about 50 yards. I decided to do a quick paddle across and walk down the creek to check out the sandbar and see if it had more firewood. I found plenty of firewood.Now I am not an expert tracker but I have experience tracking wounded animals and finding wild hogs. Im good enough to distinguish if the animal is running, if it is full-grown, and of course what kind of animal it is. So, with my basic tracking knowledge I figured it was a pack of about 20 coyotes and they were on a hunt. A very close hunt.I found some very heavy deer prints crossing the creek, obviously a buck and running from the coyotes. The buck also ran behind my campsite just like the coyotes. However, the buck left about 50 imprints in one spot about 30 feet behind my camp. I'm convinced the buck knew I was there and knew the coyotes wouldn't get any closer, which is why they kept circling around me for hours and hours. The buck was simply outnumbered. The buck knew his end was near but he thought maybe I was last hope. So the buck stood his ground (where I found the 50 imprints) and hoped for the best.I didn't find a deer carcass or any blood, Just a lot of coyote tracks and one set of deer tracks. I'm not sure if the buck got away or if he was eventually captured further away from camp. When my friends arrived, they had first aid and super glue. So I cleaned the wound up properly and applied super glue.When I told them about the coyotes the thought it was funny. The crazy part is we didn't hear a single bark, howl, or yell on the 2nd night. Maybe they didn't need to hunt that night because the eventually caught up the with buck further away from my camp site.TLDR: bring first aid and keep your shit together. Don't panic. Keep your mind occupied. http://ift.tt/2gqnYVD