North Dakota pheasant hunter kills mountain lion that charged him
MINOT, N.D. — A Minot man who was hunting pheasants in the Custer Mine area near Garrison Thursday shot and killed a mountain lion that had emerged from tall grass and charged at him.
Gary Gorney told the Minot Daily News that he expected to see a rooster pheasant after his German shorthaired dog had pointed to the area. Instead he was greeted by a female lion that weighed more than 100 pounds.
Gorney said he doesn’t remember dropping his dad’s 100-year double-barrel shotgun and reaching for his 9 millimeter handgun underneath his jacket.
“My instincts as a military law enforcement officer took over,“ Gorney said. “There was no thought process. It was self-defense.”
The lion came within 10 feet of Gorney before she was shot. Both of his dogs sprang into action and jumped on the lion. Gorney said he wanted to pull them off but “wasn’t going anywhere near that lion.”
Gorney, who has a picture of himself holding the big cat, said it was the first mountain lion he had seen in 31 years of hunting. He said the grass perfectly matched the mountain lion’s coat.
“I felt like I was in Africa hunting,” he said.