In 2003 my wife, Nicole, drew her first cow elk tag in Nevada. We hunted hard for three days and on the fourth day spotted several cows with a huge bull. I asked her if she wanted to try a stalk on them even though it was late in the afternoon. She quickly answered "Yes." Being the president of our local National Wild Turkey Federation -Women In The Outdoors program, she had often heard the guys sitting around and talking about spot and stalk hunts and always wanted the opportunity to try one. We walked behind a small hill where we were hidden and, as we descended, put on our camo headgear and checked which way the wind was blowing. As we walked through the thick mahogany trees, I quietly explained to her that we were going to have to crawl the last 100 yards due to the thickness of the trees. When we reached the end of the hill above the ravine, the elk would be on the hillside across from us so we would just have to take our time and make as little noise as possible. She nodded her head up and down and we were on our way.
As I reached the end of the tree line I peeked over into the bottom of the ravine and there, only fifty yards away, was the big bull and several cows. I motioned to Nicole to move up to where I was sitting. She carefully crawled, then stopped, with wide eyes looking straight out in front of her. I turned slowly to where she was looking and could see three cows right across from us on the hillside. Nicole slowly lowered her bipod, chambered a round and settled in for the shot. I was pretty proud of her; she was like an old pro. I attempted to run my video camera to film the whole thing, but then I glanced over and noticed Nicole’s muzzlebrake only three feet from my ears. I set the camera down and plugged my ears instead. Nicole took the shot, my hat blew off my head and the cow went down. I was so excited I reached over and gave her a bear hug and a high- five.
We walked up the steep hillside and reached the spot where the cow was lying. A perfect shot! Nicole was smiling from ear-to-ear and I was happy that she had such a great experience. I noticed that it was getting late and we were about two miles from the jeep. We would need to get some help heading our way soon since we only had about an hour of light left. Nicole gathered the gear that was no longer needed, including her rifle, and headed to the jeep. We both had two-way radios and could communicate with each other.
I removed my backpack and began to field dress the cow, when I received a radio call from Nicole stating that she had reached the jeep and was unable to receive cell service so she was going to drive around the mountaintop and try. I told her that I was doing fine and would see her soon. I then continued to field dress the cow.
It soon became dark and I retrieved my headlamp, placed it on my head and finished my duties. I then thought to myself, I could probably drag the cow into the ravine so that my helpers wouldn’t have to walk up the steep hill. So I began to drag and made good progress. I stopped to grab some water from my pack and had a seat on the ground next to the elk. I was enjoying the quiet night, drinking the cool water and remembering the great hunt when I heard some rocks being kicked up on the hillside above me. Now I have been in the mountains all my life, and was by no means frightened of being in them in the dark. I just thought it was probably the other cows looking for their partner.
I sat there for a few minutes longer and then turned on my headlamp again to see if I could possibly drag the cow anymore and decided I could go on a little further. As I stood up and turned around I caught a flash in my light. I turned to that spot again and noticed that it was a set of eyes glowing in the dark. I really couldn’t see what it was with my headlamp, so I reached into my pack and pulled out my flashlight and pointed into the direction of the eyes. The eyes were about 100 yards uphill from me and were underneath a tree, but didn’t look very tall, so I figured it was a bobcat waiting for the gut pile. I continued to drag the cow, not thinking much of the eyes, when I looked up again and the eyes were now much taller. I again pointed the flashlight at them, but this time I looked through my binoculars. I could clearly see the white-color underneath the glowing eyes and then realized that it was not a bobcat, but a good-sized mountain lion.
I still was not too frightened, I had heard all the stories about mountain lions being non-confrontational and afraid of humans so I again figured he wanted the gut pile. We stood there looking at each other for a while and I tried to call Nicole on the radio, but she was still out of range. I picked up a rock and tried to spook the lion away so that I could get back to what I was doing. The lion did not move and after several throws I tried to yell at it to see if that would work. After about thirty minutes of this the lion stood up and began walking downhill towards the gut pile and I could see that it was a lot bigger then I had first thought it was. I reached to my hip and realized that there was no pistol in my holster. I had placed the pistol in the jeep’s glove box after several hours of bouncing around the rocky roads with it jabbing me in the side. Still, I was not too worried.
I began yelling a little louder now as the mountain lion walked over to the gut pile. The lion did not really pay much attention to it as it turned back towards the cow and me. At this point I was not giving my wife’s elk, which we had worked so hard for, to him that easy. I thought if it could see that I was a human it would run away, so I shined the flashlight on myself and jumped up and down and yelled at him. The lion didn’t even stop. The lion kept walking towards the cow and me and I was now out of rocks to throw so I tried calling Nicole on the radio, still no answer.
At this point the lion was thirty yards from me and I quickly decided that he could have the elk because I was out of there. As I began to back down the hillside, I was having trouble keeping my balance because I kept tripping on sagebrush. I didn’t want to take my eyes off the lion and turn and run for fear it would pounce on my back like they do to their prey. I then retrieved my gutting knife from its scabbard, just in case, because I did not have any other defense to turn to. I slowly moved downhill, away from the elk, but didn’t go into the ravine because I would loose sight of the lion and give him a ledge to jump on me from.
As the lion reached the cow elk, it stood over it for a while sniffing, but again showed no interest and turned downhill again and began walking towards me. This moment will forever be etched in my mind, as the lion walked towards me I yelled with everything I had and I will always remember two things about that lion, the way it’s tail looked so big and swung slowly from side to side and his huge shoulder blades as he stalked towards me with his head down and his eyes always on me. A feeling of complete helplessness filled my body. As the lion approached around ten yards above me, the fight-or-flight instinct took over and with every ounce of strength I had, I threw the knife at the lion who was now standing broadside, crouching down. The knife did hit the lion on the side, but it hit him with the blade sideways. The lion jumped into the air, throwing dirt and rocks everywhere, and I turned and ran into the ravine yelling the whole way.
As I clawed my way up the other side, I could see that the lion had spooked up the hill about fifty yards but was coming down towards me again. Just then the radio went off; it was Nicole who had seen the light of my flashlight waving wildly in the dark. I told her what had happened and that the lion was still coming towards me. Nicole could tell I was rattled and advised me that my friend Jeff should be there any minute and had his pistol. The lion was still coming and I finally reached the other side of the ravine and began yelling for Jeff. He answered me, but was having trouble getting through the thick mahogany trees from where we had shot. I began climbing towards his location, looking back one more time at the lion. The lion was now stopped on the other side of the ravine with its nose in the air; it quickly walked in a circle and began to run away uphill as Jeff reached my location. I guess it had winded Jeff and spooked away.
I sat there with Jeff and collected myself and called Nicole on the radio reassuring her that I was all right and that she didn’t have to worry anymore. We went back to the elk and quartered her out and soon my dad arrived to assist with the haul. We laughed about the whole thing, but I still was looking around pretty often.
Telling my story to some old timers drew several laughs and some interesting comments on how mountain lions like to kill just for the thrill of killing and are very wasteful with their prey. I guess being covered in elk blood and without a weapon in the dark is not a very good idea- I don’t think you will have to worry about this problem with me anymore. I did go back and find my knife that night.  |
From
the Feb/March 2005 Issue of Hunting Illustrated Magazine - posted Jan. 6, 2005
