Aggressive lion encounter

Joined
Mar 20, 2019
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353
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Took the wife out Saturday morning to try and get her a whitetail buck. Drove 1/2 hour from the house to the end of a logging road, left the Jeep just before sunrise. About an hour later we were walking through some thicker country to get to a nice stand if big timber with no underbrush with plans to try and rattle a buck in for the her. I thought it was odd that we hadn’t even seen a doe but didn’t think too much of it.

Stopped in a small opening to look at the map and get a sip of water. A HUGE gust of wind picks up and through the wind we hear a weird sound. Wind dies down and my wife whispers that maybe it was a wolf a long distance off? I tell her I think it was a tree creaking in the wind. The wind dies down and this time clear as day we hear a very strange growl/whine/scream that I’ve never heard anything like. The only way I can imitate the sounds it was making is to inhale, and engage your vocal cords in the raspiest way possible. Kinda like the sound the predator made in the movie.

Wife and I look at each other and say to each other that it’s gotta be some sort of predator. The sounds continue and they’re getting closer to us but are coming from a thick patch of brush. She hands me the rifle and I tell her let’s step back into the small opening we’re in so that if whatever it is comes out, I’ve got more time to get a shot off. The growling sounds keep getting louder and louder and now I can see brush moving around and coming in my direction. I start yelling “HEY! HEY! GET THE F OUT OF HERE!” And she also joins in yelling but it keeps coming towards us.

I told her to back up more and I start moving parallel to the brush to try and see in there, all the while still yelling at this thing. I catch a glimpse of movement and raise the rifle, which I’d turned the scope down to 2 power, and see a lion staring right at me. She took another step towards me and I gave it to her right under the chin at 20 yards.

After the shot I lost her in the brush, walked back to my wife and she’s holding a giant rock in her hand! I asked her what that’s for and she said “It’s better than nothing!”

We sat for 10 minutes so we could gather our composure before I made a circle around the brush and found the cat dead, a few feet from where I’d shot her. Ended up being a 130lb female. All of this happened about 1 mile from where I called in and killed a 175lb tom while coyote hunting in 2020.
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Rogue Bay

WKR
Joined
Mar 10, 2021
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413
Location
Oregon coast
I’m glad that story had a good ending! I’ve not been in that situation but I can imagine that is was extremely unnerving! Good on you for keeping calm and making good decisions.
 
Joined
Nov 16, 2023
Messages
7
Crazy story! Glad you were able to connect with the first shot. When in cougar country I carry a Taurus Judge with 410 personal defense loads. At 20 yards it throws three projectiles in about a 7 inch pattern; and I can fire five off pretty quick.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2021
Messages
754
Crazy encounter, was she nursing? Curious if maybe she cubs stashed away and that’s why she was confrontational.
 

VbarZ

FNG
Joined
Nov 16, 2023
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6
That will make a nice bathroom rug.


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MtnW

WKR
Joined
Jul 15, 2020
Messages
358
Interesting encounter.
Pretty sure that’s not a 130 lb kitty, maybe 75-80lbs as also mentioned above by JCS271
 

Tmac

WKR
Joined
Mar 16, 2020
Messages
900
Glad it turned out well for you. I like how your wife thinks. I had a go with one that I had to stop at a couple feet. Nearly got to me, they are so fast. Good for you for shooting before it launched.
 
OP
khart_6882
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
Messages
353
Crazy encounter, was she nursing? Curious if maybe she cubs stashed away and that’s why she was confrontational.

So that’s the thing, her nipples were fairly protruded and my wife kind of milked her before I gutted her and she really had to work at it to get a tiny bit of milk to come out. So maybe she’d just weaned them? That or had a kill stashed nearby? Regardless, from the time I shot till the time we headed out was probably 45 minutes and we didn’t hear or see anything, so who knows.


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khart_6882
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
Messages
353
That will make a nice bathroom rug.


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It would! I’m doing a trappers mount tho. I’ve already got a live mount lion on the wall and plenty of euro’s and my wife’s bear rug. Running out of wall space in my double wide haha


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TxxAgg

WKR
Joined
Dec 27, 2019
Messages
2,147
Reading the comments has me curious. Did you weight it? Not judging, just curious.
 
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