[4v50 Gary]

"In the early settlement of Alabama, there lived on the south side of the Tennessee River, in Jackson County, opposite to where Scottsboro now stands, a couple of Creek Indians, who had built a little hut near Coffee's trading store and suported themselves by hunting. One of thse, called by the whites Creek John, was an excellent hunter, and always returned from the mountain loaded with peltries. late one evening he came down the mountain from a hunt, and instead of going directly to his hut, he stooped to get a drink. While in this posture an immense panther leaped from an overhanging rock on his prostrate form, and a desperate struggle ensued at once. The Indian being taken unawares, as placed at a great disadvantage, and the panther inflicted fearful damage on him before he could get out his long hunting knife; this he plied vigorously on his adversary, but it was too late to save his life. His abdomen was torn across by the animal's claws, and the muscles of his chest stripped to the ribs, while the blood flowed from other wounds. Yet he drove his long knife into the panther so vigorously that it was compelled to let him go and make off the field, leaving him victor of the despeate battle, but mortally wounded. He managed to drag himself to his hut, one hundred yards distant, where his companion, coming in a little later, found him in the agonies of death. The panther was tracked the next morning, by his bloody trail, to a ledge of rocks a short distance off, and found start and stiff, showing he had been dead some hours. He proved to be the largest specimen of his kind ever killed in that country. Creek John's Knife had passed through him in several places from side to side, showing the strength and vigor with which it was plied. With an equal advantage, there is no doubt but that the Indian would have escaped with his life."

One heckuva story.

[Keith]

There is a well-documented story about an African farmer who killed two leopards by choking them to death - on two separate occasions. If I recall correctly, one was a leopard wounded by someone hunting on his property which the farmer went after. The cat got "inside" his gun and he had to kill it with his bare hands.
The other cat jumped him when he was unarmed.

He simply "pinned" them underneath himself and choked away until they were dead. In both cases, he barely survived. His arms and chest ripped up by the front claws, his belly and groin ripped up by the rear claws.

Just a couple of years ago here on Kodiak, an old guy (last name of Moe) successfully fought off a brown bear with a skinning knife. He took some damage too, but was able to hurt the bear enough to make it back off until he could grab his rifle from nearby, whereupon he shot it.

Amazing stuff. When it gets right down to fight or flight (and flight is impossible), you will fight!

[Art Eatman]

Hunt up the story of Hugh Glass and the Grizzly...

Art

[Bigjake]

dangit art ya beat me to it.

[cooch]

Ex American Charles Cottar is one of theose to have gone to it barehanded with a leopard. Story has it that one of his sons was filming the charge and Cottar told him to keep filming which he strangled the cat.

Capstick's "Long Grass" has at least one other story, possibly about Cottar but I can't find my copy at the moment.

Cheers.... Cooch (who ALWAYS uses gloves when leopard-wrestling;) )

[makdaddy03]

Nice story.:)

[Byron Quick]

And I thought I was tough after using welding gloves to bathe a house cat:D

[Keith]

Deer hunter battles grizzly, ends up winner

'Tough old buzzard' refuses to give up in Kodiak attack

By Craig Medred / Anchorage Daily News

Sixty-eight-year-old Gene Moe was butchering a deer on Raspberry Island on Monday (Nov. 1, 1999) when a grizzly bear jumped him, knocked him to the ground and began to maul him.

The Anchorage contractor fought back the only way he could: He stabbed the bear with the knife in his hand.
A badly mauled Moe told Silver Salmon Lodge owner Peter Guttchen that when he sank his knife into the animal's neck, blood "spurted'' out. Moe told Guttchen that he stabbed the bear twice more before it climbed off him.

Fish and Wildlife Protection trooper Allan Jones of Kodiak said the Anchorage hunter then recovered his rifle and shot the attacking bear three times. The shots, Jones said, apparently killed the bear.

Moe, despite being badly injured and alone, climbed to his feet and started hiking for the beach of the wilderness island east of Kodiak.

"He's one tough old buzzard,'' said nephew Doug Moe of Homer. "He's an old-timer, but he's got the heart of a 20-year-old.''

"I don't know how far he walked,'' Jones said, but it appeared that Moe might have covered as much as two miles getting to the beach.

It was there, Jones said, that Gene Moe met other members of his hunting party. Seeing how badly he was injured, Guttchen said, they loaded him into a skiff and made a run to the nearby lodge.

The group came motoring into the bay waving wildly, he said. When he went down to see what was wrong, they told him they had a badly injured hunter.

Guttchen said he could barely believe what he saw. The bear had torn an 18-inch-long chunk of fat and muscle out of Moe's leg, and ripped skin hung loose from the hunter's shoulder and arms.

But he got out of the boat and started walking up the beach to the lodge. Doug Moe said he'd have been shocked if it had happened any other way.

"This guy is one of the toughest beings alive,'' Doug said. "He could walk to the North Pole in his day.''

"He's an awesome guy,'' added daughter Jane Newby of Anchorage. "(But) I'd rather listen to his stories than experience them.''

Family members said this was not the first near-deadly hunting accident for Gene Moe. He fell hundreds of feet down a Chugach Range mountain while sheep hunting in the 1950s, they said.

This time, Guttchen said, Moe was lucky to survive.

He was in pretty bad shape when he got to the lodge. Fortunately, Guttchen was able to reach the U.S. Coast Guard in Kodiak on a cellular phone. The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to rush Moe to the Kodiak hospital.

He spent seven hours in surgery there Monday night and Tuesday morning.

"The nurse said that this guy had so many stitches she couldn't even count them all,'' said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Tod Lyons.

Moe is expected to recover from the injuries, but he was sedated on Tuesday and unable to talk. That left details of the bear attack sketchy.

Here's what was known based on interviews with the Coast Guard, troopers, family friends, hospital personnel, employees of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and lodge owner Guttchen:

Moe was hunting near Selief Bay on Raspberry Island about 25 miles west of the city of Kodiak in a party with his son and two others. The hunters had separated sometime before Moe shot and killed a Sitka blacktail deer.

Moe was dressing and butchering that deer in heavy brush when he was jumped by the bear. He told trooper Jones that he thought the bear might have been a sow with two cubs.

Moe told Guttchen he neither saw nor heard the bear before the attack.

"He was totally surprised,'' Jones added.

The bear knocked Moe to the ground, grabbed his leg in its mouth and began trying to throw him around. It then grabbed him by the shoulder, and Moe began stabbing the bear with the knife he had been using to butcher the deer.

Eventually, the wounded bear retreated, at least temporarily. Moe grabbed his rifle and started shooting. Jones thought Moe killed the bear. Doug Moe, who had talked to Gene Moe's son by cell phone shortly after the shooting, thought the bear was only wounded, and that his cousin was going back to finish it.

There was no word on what might have happened to the cubs, if there were any.

Lodge owner Guttchen said the Raspberry Island bears appear to have been particularly aggressive this fall because of a lack of food. Salmon runs were weak, he said, the berry crop was poor, and deer numbers dropped precipitously because of a bad winter last year.

Fish and Game biologist Larry Van Daele of Kodiak estimates deep snow and cold weather in the Kodiak Archipelago might have killed 30 to 35 percent of the deer last winter.

As always, state biologists say, Kodiak deer hunters have to be alert to the possibility of bear encounters. They advise hunters to hunt in pairs for safety, and drag deer to openings where they can see any approaching bears before beginning the process of gutting and butchering.

(Reporter Karen Aho contributed to this story. Reporter Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com. This story appeared Nov. 1, 1999, in the Anchorage Daily News.)

[BigG]

Bill Hickok killt him a Bar with a knife. The bar thought he was good to eat and began to do so when Bill was sleeping. Just one of the exploits that Bill is credited with.

[cooch]

Then there is Harry Wolhuter..
Attacked by lion which flattened him and then started dragging him away by the right shoulder.
IIRC He had to reach under his own body with his left hand to get the knife on his right hip, then stabbed the animal in the chest where he thought the heart was.

When the lion dropped him, he managed to climb a tree and spent several very painful and shocked hours while the lion - or another - waited underneath. :uhoh: :uhoh: :uhoh:

[4v50 Gary]

Hugh Glass & the tame circus bear doesn't count. ;)

Kidding. I think his story was told in Give Your Heart to the Hawks.