Bigfork hunter has close encounter of the cougar kind

By Jacob Doran / Bigfork Eagle

A Bigfork man got more than he bargained for Sunday when, while bugling for elk on Crane Mountain, the hunter found himself the hunted and came within several feet of becoming the most recent victim of a mountain lion attack in the Flathead.

Matthew Smith was hunting with his father and brother when the incident occurred. Smith had shot a small buck, a 2x3 mule deer, earlier that morning and was in search of an elk. Having spotting signs of elk at about 11:30 a.m., a short distance away from the others in his party, he thought that some bugling might draw the elk out into the open.

With his back against a tree, he said he heard a twig snap somewhere behind him but did not investigate, thinking it to be squirrel or chipmunk. However, when a second twig snapped — this time closer — he spun around quickly to discover a female cougar just ten feet away and moving toward him in a crouched position.

"I spend a lot of time in the woods and the majority of twig snaps I hear are either a squirrel or a chipmunk," Smith said. "To turn around and for it be a mountain lion was definitely a shocker. She was down on all fours, crawling toward me like cats do when they're getting ready to pounce. I didn't realy think. As soon as I turned around and saw her there, I just pointed my rifle at her and shot. Afterward, your heart starts beating again and you think, 'Wow! That really just happened.'"

Smith's bullet skimmed the cougar's face and entered the neck, exiting the lion's side. The lion, a young female later determined to be one-and-a-half to two-years-old and weighing about 100 lbs., dropped and died almost immediately. Smith then fired two more shots to let his hunting party know that something had happened.

Eventually, Smith headed in to the Swan Lake ranger station to show his deer and reported the mountain lion encounter to the wildlife biologist. A call was put in to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and two game wardens came out to investigate, subsequently hiking with Smith back to the site where the incident occurred.

"We investigated the scene and determined it truly was a self-defense situation," game warden and investigating officer Nathan Reiner said. "The lion had snuck up on him, and when he realized it he just shot from the hip with his hunting rifle.

"We tried to follow the tracks back and it looked like the lion's tracks were right along with the elk tracks. He was probably just coming in on the call. The shooter had put out some elk scent and thought he'd try some bugling. He drew in something, but not what he was looking for. I really don't think the lion thought it was stalking a human. It was probably just hungry and thought it was stalking the elk."

Smith filled out an incident report and the carcass was removed by the wardens to the Region One headquarters, where it is being stored in an investigation locker and will eventually be used for educational purposes.

"I think everything I did was about as right as I could have done, and I'm still here," Smith said of the split-second decision to shoot. "I followed my instincts and when I saw that it was a mountain lion I just fired. It's amazing how close those animals can get without being heard. I'm certainly not going to let it keep me out of the woods, but it definitely makes you more aware that these kinds of things can happen and you need to stay alert."

Reiner said cougar encounters are rare and are generally not a concern in this area. However, he added that there has been a significantly higher population of lions recently, which can increase the likelihood of such encounters, even though they are still rare.

He believed Smith's mistake was in having his back against a dark, thick tree in a dark draw, where it would have been easy for a lion to sneak up on him.

"Hunters need to try and have more of a 360-degree view so that they can see what's behind them," he said. "Maybe if [Smith] had positioned himself differently so that he could see what's coming up behind him, he would have been better off. If the lion could have seen him a little better, it probably would have taken off when it realized it wasn't an elk that he was coming up on."