Interesting article... guess you never know when a good spear will come in handy... Bear Man Uses Spear to Save Girlfriend from Mountain Lion | OutdoorHub
One of My BILs, used an Ice Axe, to fend off a Mountain Lion, while descending from the summit of Mount Olympus, in NW Washington, years ago.... It was being used as a Walking Stick, at the time, and proved to be very effective, for the Defensive purpose. The Cat had the situational advantage, of being above them on a Large rock, and only made one mistake. He/She growled before making the attack, which allowed my BIL to bring his defensive Weapon into play. It was a standoff, for about 5 minutes, before the Cat decided that this just wasn't going to end with a Meal, was a waste of time and energy, and moved off. Mountain Lions have been known to take Bikers off their wheels, in the LA, Commiefornia mountains, and eating them, in recent years.
The man had the Nads. It's getting rarer but glorious to see a guy man-up and be the warrior protecting his tribe as he was meant to be. Kudo's to him and prayers for his girlfriend. Sometimes a spear or sword is far better than a firearm. Sometimes.
Big! I have seen two in the wild. Both were huge! The first was in Wyoming outside Kaycee near the interstate rest stop. We were driving through so it was a short looksee. Maybe 20 yds from the truck. Huge. The second was at the scenic lookout inside Rocky Mtn National Park just west of Estes Park. Was in my Nissan Altima and it crossed the road literally 10 ft in front of the car. Think it was a male. His shoulders were level with my line of sight. He had to be nearing 4ft at the shoulders. Bigger than the first one I saw. Scary big kitty to come face to face with. Scarier if you're being stalked by one. Byte
Have had tracks at the watering holes here. Never sighted one but they are on a 20 mile loop and will be back if they live.
I think I hear a hammer at a forge somewhere making spear points that can be put on hardware store shovel handles --.
@fmhuff Yup... that thing about at certain close distances... a knife, in the right hands, is a more effective too. :0)
I have never seen a tan or brown one in the wild. I have peppered a black one with a load of #6 From a 100 yds away while it was drinking water out of the Sabine river. I informed the LDWF that there is nothing they can do about it since they don't exist !!! About a 7' footer is my estimate.
We have had one adult cougar walk up the driveway to the ranch . 1995 or so , it's paw imprints were huge due to the construction that we had going on .Foundation being laid , it walked on/across the bare dirt . I figured it was 4 foot tall while being very long with a long tail that slunk as it walked. I was across the cleared section while I heard my wife (needed glasses for vision ) telling this "dog" to go home and leave !!! Thats when I started to yell and run towards house & wife towards cat, making myself look big and gaudily & nutzo . Cat didn't even pick up pace .. I made the house , got wife & myself inside. (dogless at that time) I live in the woods (started in the 70's here) , many deer,elk,bear,wolves at that time up here. Now in 2013 , Im surrounded with neighbours that when the power go's out there all in panic !! Straight out of citys I swear. They should of live here when we had weeks at a time of no power, 9 mouths later , many a man/farmer went in for a Nip & tuck. So now I live amongst political city bread folk on my ranch with neighbours with what they call rural living on 2 acres postage stamps.. Get this , they put in a recycling program for food & green waste (stuff we put in our compost system & pork chop / meat stuff you don't eat) . Now every two weeks they want you to leave this on on the main street at the end of your driveway , I saw them dropping off these small plastic wheeled tubs for you to leave your food wastes in and thinking , "IS THERE ANYONE NOT SEE WHATS NEXT "!! Well we have had many of these green boxes smashed , tipped over , broken into by ,ravens birds (2.5 ft tall)not seen any eagle B&E one yet but kick out the ravens ,bear , wolf & dogs all have roadside meals.. NOW these wolves & bears & cats are being tempted for ez food scraps , so then we were told to only put out the treats on the day and that morning just before the trucks come .. Ya right that's going to happen..Kids pulling the treat box to the curb , and wait beside till the bus comes ,,, Don't get your days mixed up , cuz you could be fined. They wiped out wolfs I use to see , shot at least 6 bear & 4 Mountain Lions/Cougar THAT I have heard of . Now were over run with Deer and need a major cull .. Thats not going to happen,because my political city bread folk neighbours feed the field rats , thinking there so cute.. We have never put any food recycling out EVER !! We compost or dog / chicken / farm gets first scraps then the left over parts Bone etc gets put in with the firewood Airtight wood stove.. We had a bear live on our back woods(2003) for 4 months , 2 year old bear , & dog/ myself understood stay out of our deer fenced house area , you can stay on that side / we stay on this side , Dog understood . Bear made a mistake , dog treed the bear for over a day that I know of . We couldn't fine the dog till next day in the evening. I locked the dog in the barn and next day the bear was gone , 3 year's later ,bear was shot because of stealing & breaking green recycling bins.. The reason the cats are around humans is because there starving , their food is deer , some big adult cats may get an elk , but Mountain lions don't pac hunt like wolves did. My thinking is because deer are not afraid of us , they will literately come within 5 feet of us , cars & walk down the streets & sidewalks live in our population area's is causing the cats to come close to prey around us.. That cat attack is one of many we have on this rock I live on . Google Earth" Flores Island, British Columbia, Canada" I live just across from them . We don't hear of cat attacks or bear problems where the areas are very rural like I once was. I remember seeing the odd deer etc , but now on a drive into village/town I can count over 20 +somedays . Plus they always want to inspect your headlights at the last second. Sloth
I have only seen one in the wild, while fishing in Arizona. Unarmed, but for a filet knife, and fishing gear, and a staff. I left him some fish, and moved across the river, and we stared at each other for what felt like hours. Was more like 20 minutes then he took the fish and vanished back into the rocks. I beat it back to the truck. If I fish outside the city now, I'm packing a pistol.
Good for our local pigs too. There have been a couple of instances where big pigs have chased some people I know off a trail. The closest call was a younger guy we know. He actually jumped off the trail. Think it was a ten foot or so drop. Lucky not to have gotten hurt. I went face to face with one too, years ago. We got inside of 2-3 feet of each other. It's head height was about three feet or so and I guessed it was about 150 pounds. Someone that knows better than me suggested more like 200+. Not knowing any better, I lunged at it and actually made it run off. That was when I learned how fast they are and how lucky I was.
make sure to add the cross bar... so the critter in question can't push up the spear and swipe at you with claws/tusks/teeth
You beat me to it @Witch Doctor 01 , they added the cross bar because the pig would continue it's charge, even though it was impaled. He will kill you, if he can get at you.