I was out for a ride yesterday and had a scary experience. I'm wondering if others have had similar experiences and/or if people who have been around guns can tell me if I have/had any reason to be concerned.

I ride beside vineyards a lot and am used to hearing the sound of loud bangs around this time of year because the farmers have some sort of device that makes small explosions (like a gun firing I assume) to scare off birds.

Until yesterday, I had never heard the sound of a gun being fired. While out on my ride yesterday on a country/farm road, I heard a loud bang similar to the sound of those used by the farmers, but this sound was slightly different. There was a slight wizzing sound accompanied with the bang similar to the sound of bullets flying through the air that you hear in war movies but fainter and not as dramatic. I knew in my gut that it was gunfire and instantly thought "if i can hear those bullets they must be close", but I didn't know for sure if that was correct. I really didn't know what to do. The idea of stopping, jumping off my bike a cowering in the ditch crossed my mind, but seemed ridiculous.

Moments later, on my left I could see two people a few hundred meters away, in a farm field, facing towards the field (not in my direction) holding a riffle and paying no attention to me. I rode as quickly as I could without trying to look panicked to a spot about 100m down the road where their house blocked them from my sight and kept riding. At that point, I convinced myself that the guys were practicing shooting and weren't shooting at me so my fear went away and I continued happily along my ride.

Out of curiosity, I just googled how close you have to be to hear the whistle of a bullet and the general consensus seems to be that you have to be VERY close... like close enough that you never want to be that close.

I don't know though.. I can't imagine that people would shoot at a cyclist on a road where cars are driving past every 30 seconds to a minute. Is it possible that I could hear the bullets from a distance, or maybe they were using skeets and maybe the skeets make a whistling sound? What are people's thoughts on this. Is this concerning? Do I just need to get out in the country more?