9.3x57
(.450 member)
22/02/24 02:01 AM
Re: End of barrel leopard charge

This vid below maybe has been posted before? The commentary will drive you nuts but there are a couple of charges/attacks that I've never seen before and one involves dogs and a sixgun which I don't think the guy got running before the cat was on top of him.

Also note the use of shotguns.

The first charge is a doozy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki8tUBOBje0

Quote:

Dogs barking and sound of the leopard coming would be aids to the direction.




YES! Absolutely.

Regarding dogs:

Dogs are a plus (and a minus) in a situation like that and likely a minus at times, too. The plus is of course that they can smell and hear better than we can and can offer that much advantage in finding the thing laid up exactly as you say. That is golden. But then if they wade into it the pluses and minuses start to even out as while the dogs can slow a charge by mixing it up with the cat (in our case, mountain lion or black bear), one does not want to hit a valuable dog when shooting the cat. A "Catch 22" since allowing the fight to go on likely means more wounding of the dogs.

I know many fellows around here that have had to stop dog and bear fights and it can get very tricky. Here's an anecdote mirroring what I suspect has happened with leopard hunted with dogs. (Not sure where to post it so if it is too much topic drift, Nitro just let me know and I'll delete or move it or something.)

Posted many years ago here, I myself had a fight with a rather small bear (a bit bigger than that leopard in the rifle muzzle stop vid) that would neither bay nor tree as is the way with the aggressive ones. First shot was after 2 hours of hard race at about 40 yards as the bear waddled across an overgrown logging road. It dropped at the shot and lay still. We breathed easy but then a couple dogs arrived and jumped on it. With that the bear blew up, grabbed a dog...in a bear hug...and rolled down the far bank out of sight. I ran to where I thought it had gone over then ran down the slope and hit it again as it was running away from me at about 15 yards, bullet entering in the seat of its pants, that bullet we later recovered under the hide on offside shoulder. The bear swatted at its butt and turned, saw me and came for me. I fired again very close but due to the mayhem and that "dogging" concern for the dogs, hit it too far back. Then the dogs were on it and a real shitshow ensued, a mass of claws and teeth and growling bear and screaming dogs. In that case the dogs certainly helped in a manner of speaking as they gave the bear something to think about besides me which was good as the bear was at this point at my ankles. Another fellow came in from the side, poked the muzzle of his rifle at the bear's head and then walked away without firing a shot. I leaned over and when a bit of bear chest opened up gave it what I thought were two more shots fast double action (my son later said it sounded like a burst from the Stemple submachine gun we had at the time), then when another opportunity arose gave it the last except the wheelgun had already run dry and I just clicked away on empty cases, muzzle now right up against the black hide. My then-14-year-old son was right behind me and saw me go dumb, fumbling for rounds from my belt while the bear still showed no sign of giving up so he dove over my left shoulder and with the one 7x57R round in his Baikal combination gun more or less bayoneted the bear with a 139 grain bullet. With that things slowed down and I'd gotten a couple rounds in the cylinder but the bear had expired. The torn up dogs worried it for a while and we packed it out.

I am pretty certain something similar to my experience has happened with leopard hunts at times. Very tricky to avoid shooting the dogs. The videos I've watched indicate a very similar hunt to our bear hunts and to a degree our mountain lion hunts, tho in winter when they are hunted, lion do not run far and typically give a very easy shot treed. Why leopard are different than mountain lion I do not know. ML will and do attack people in the regions where they are not hunted (California comes to mind) but leopard when hunted seem to be a different thing. Anyway, some guys even use .22 Mag revolvers on ML when treed and I doubt anyone with functioning gray matter would want to try that with a treed leopard.



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