A Reddit user said one of the worst moments he ever had in the woods started at first light while he was glassing for deer from a ridge. According to his comment in the thread, he heard heavy breathing coming up one of the hillsides below him. It sounded big enough that his first thought was elk. He said he did not have an elk tag, but the noise was close and distinct enough that he wanted to get a better look at whatever was climbing toward him. So he got up, moved toward a tree, and eased around it to improve his angle.
That was when the whole morning blew apart.
Instead of an elk, he said he stepped around the tree and found himself face to face with a mountain lion at about seven yards. He estimated the cat at around 150 pounds and said its ears were pinned back. From the way he told it, the sight hit him all at once: not off in the distance, not slipping through the brush, but right there at a distance where there was no room left for error. He added one detail that made the whole thing even worse — he had left his gun behind.
He did not describe some dramatic scramble or a shot fired at the last second. He described a staredown. A very tense one. He said there was a long frozen moment where he and the lion were just locked on each other, close enough that every second probably felt a lot longer than it really was. He did not try to make himself sound cool about it either. He flatly said there were “pants full of doodoo,” which honestly tells you more about how real the fear was than any polished retelling ever could.
Then, just as suddenly as it started, the lion broke the tension in a way he clearly never forgot. He wrote that the cat did a “wild little flip” and disappeared down the opposite ridge. That was it. No charge, no shot, no attack. Just a predator at seven yards with its ears back, a hunter who had left his gun behind, and a few horrible seconds where he had to stand there and hope the animal made the next choice instead of him.
He actually shared a second bear story in the same comment, which gives you a sense of how much country this guy had covered and how often things can go sideways when you think you understand what is around you. He said another time, during spring bear season, he was watching a bear work through brush below him and waiting for it to step into a clearing. Then a cub’s face appeared in a bush only about five yards to his left. Almost immediately after that, what he believed were a boar and sow came out of a berry bush about 20 yards above him. He said the sow stood up on her hind legs to get a better look and grunted, probably calling the cub back, and because she was already uphill from him on the mountain, she looked “50 feet tall.” He ended that one by saying it was another pair of pants ruined, but luckily the bears caught his scent and busted out.
Still, it was the mountain lion story that felt like the one that really stuck with him. Sitting on a ridge at first light, hearing what sounded like elk breathing uphill, stepping around a tree to get a better look, and finding a 150-pound lion with its ears back at seven yards while your gun is not even on you — that is the kind of hunting story that does not need much dressing up.
What do you think — if you stepped around a tree expecting to spot an elk and instead found yourself seven yards from a mountain lion with no gun on you, would you trust yourself to hold still through the stare-down, or would panic take over first?
Original Reddit post: What’s your scariest experience while hunting?
