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A good story about a hunter that was attacked:

What does it feel like to be attacked by a mountain lion? Let me tell you...

“I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!” Something had jumped on my back and knocked me down driving me over the top of the cow elk my buddy had just shot and into the ground. I had been preparing to field dress and quarter the animal and had my hunting knife in my hand.

I jabbed back at my attacker two or three times. Was this the bear we had seen earlier? The one we had shot at the day before? One of my thrusts hit home and the animal let out a squealing screech. Courage flooded through me. I was OK. I would get whatever was on me off. I tried to get to my feet, but the animal drove me back to the ground as it leaped off my back. I saw the grayish white blue of its back end just a couple feet in front of me before the specter fled up the trail and vanished.

I was bleeding and dirt smeared my face when my friend Pete finally arrived. My blaze orange sweatshirt was ripped and covered with blood. Blood also covered my back and side. Pete, thinking I had been shot, rushed to my side... “Oh Kirk! You’ve been attacked by a cougar!”

It was Monday, Oct. 27, 2003. Pete and I were in the Blue Mountains in southeastern Washington State. We both had spike elk permits as well as bear and cougar tags. In Washington a hunter can put in for special tags like branch antlers or cows. You can always get a tag for cougars; and spikes and deer – three-point or better – are always available. Only one in our hunting party of four had drawn a cow permit.

The season started Saturday. On opening morning my hunting companions and I saw tons of cows and a couple big branch bulls – a huge 6x6 and a 5x5. We saw a couple spikes but they were way, way out there so we didn’t take any shots. Unfortunately, the guy with the cow tag wasn’t there Saturday or Sunday.

On Sunday we located a bear. I shot at it three times and my buddy shot at it twice. It was already spooked and cruising across the side of the hill. It was definitely within our shooting distance but we just didn't hit it. I shot about 12 inches low; then I shot about a foot and a half in front of it. My buddy had a 300 ultra mag, which can reach out a mile, and he just barely missed it. It went into the brush and we had had less than 10 seconds to shoot.

On Monday the man with the cow tag arrived and the hunt began in earnest. The four of us arrived on top of the ridge in a place called Lewis Peak before the sun came out. As it started to get light we saw a herd of elk coming across the canyon. A big 6x6 lead bull popped out first. Then we saw the lead cow come out and about six or seven more cows followed. My buddy made a good 400-yard shot through an opening in the bushes. He shot again and the lead cow fell.

At 33, I’m the youngest and in the best shape. I was voluntarily volunteered to go after the cow. It took me about about 25 minutes to hike down the canyon and back up the other side to where the downed animal lay. I radioed the others when I got there. “OK, we know where you are. Give us about a half hour to get the quads. We'll just drive down; skin, gut, and quarter it, and pack it out.”

I was wearing a backpack and carried my 30.06 Remington ADL, because we had taken a shot at that bear the day before in this same area. About 15 minutes after I got to the animal I got tired of standing around. I sat my gun down, took my pack off, got my knife out, and was going to get a jump on field dressing the cow.

The cow lay on a real sharp incline-probably about 65 degrees. I put one knee into the ground and used my other foot as leverage on the downside of the mountain. I leaned over the cow to see exactly where my buddy had hit it. It was obvious one shot had hit the head because the skullcap had been completely ripped off. But he had shot twice. I wanted to see if it was hit again.

A few seconds after I leaned over the cow something jumped on my back. lt was as if a 250-pound linebacker had broadsided me. I hadn’t heard anything and certainly didn't expect it. I had no idea what was going on.
I felt the animal on my back. My back was hurting. I had my knife in my hand and it was just instinct to fight back. I jabbed at the animal; then jabbed again. I can't say if it was the first or second blow that hit it. The animal screamed, leaped off my back and ran up the trail. I was driven into the ground by the power of the retreating animal. Once the pressure was off my back I got up, briefly saw my attacker, and then fell. “I’ve just been hit by a freaking train.” Then I radioed my buddies:

“Hey, I’m hurt, I’m hurt." I heard their reply, "OK. hold on. We'll be right there. We're right at the base. It's going to take us five minutes to hump up the trail." Pete was the first to reach me. I must have looked a mess - dirt all over my face, blood all over my back, and on my shirt itself. Five claw marks had ripped through my orange sweatshirt. "I've been hit, I've been hit."

" You've been attacked by a cougar." "What?" I couldn’t believe my ears. “Your back has been ripped to crud.” I lifted my shirt off and saw the claw marks in my shirt. My back had five or six superficial scratches - like a regular kitty cat scratch. I was really shaking and my buddies said I looked like a ghost. It scared the living hell right out of me.

The rest of the party arrived and of course none of them had guns because they were just expecting to pack out elk. One of them grabbed my gun and followed the cougar’s blood trail 15 or 20 feet before it suddenly disappeared. The game department would later explain that even though I stuck it good, big cats have a layer of fat that often rolls down over a wound to prevent bleeding out.

"Let's get this animal out of here." We gutted the animal and quartered it. This was the first time I had ever seen an elk up close. It was my third year hunting and I wanted to be part of the whole pack out thing. Working on that animal helped calm me down and took my mind off the cougar. I helped gut the cow and I packed out the rear quarter first. Then I came back up the hill and retrieved the second quarter.

I really wanted to get away from there, but I manned up. The others had already seen me all shaking and white. I didn't want to be too much of a wimp. My buddy told me that I had just had a cougar jump on my back. There was no wimp here. I wish it could've been like a Tarzan movie: hand and hand with the big cat, me in my loin cloth…but it was nothing like that. It pounced. I didn't hear it. I didn't see it coming and it wasn’t a movie. It was real. The shaking began again. For a brief second I had thought it was a bear because we had taken a shot at one the day before. But I saw it run off and recognized it.

I was pretty well high off the whole experience. I’m an adrenaline junkie, but that by far was more than I really needed. By the time we got back to the cabin it was about 11:30. I said, hey I’m done hunting for the day. I got a couple scratches left on my back that are healing really well. It took about a week, week and a half for my back to be back to normal.

I went back up the next day to hunt again in the same area from about 6:30 to 8 a.m. Then I had to get out of there. It was the scariest and craziest ordeal that has ever happened to me, and I’ve lived a pretty crazy life. I’m a correctional officer and I work in a maximum-security prison. I have always considered myself pretty aware of my surroundings, but not out there I’ll tell you.

The state department of fish and wildlife did the big investigation and man that's like going through a murder case. But the guys that handled it were really cool. They helped me a lot. I returned to the attack scene two days later and had to stand in the same spot where it happened. The game department people took photographs. Apparently there was a tree about 10 feet right behind me with this perfect U. That's where they said the cougar came from. It had been up in that tree just waiting. During the investigation an Oregon specialist on cougar and bear attacks reviewed the case. He believed that the cougar was just watching me at first. I wasn't considered a threat until I got on all fours and leaned over the animal. At that point the cougar probably thought I was another predator. Instead of going all out to kill me, it pounced to see if I was going to run off. It was that brief second I fought back with my knife that ran it off.

I guess there’s always a silver lining to everything. I have a couple tattoos of things that mean stuff to me and my artist out of Spokane, Washington, is going to do a big cougar tattoo on my back for nothing. I thought that would be a great idea.

Hunter attacked by MT Lion

Edited by IronBuck (25/03/04 08:35 AM)