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.  |
From the Feb/March 2004 Issue of Hunting Illustrated
Magazine - posted Jan. 13, 2004
