The Great Panther Hunter

by Shane Daughtry 

 It was around 1982, a cool November Saturday morning in South Georgia when the phone rang, it was a friend of mine named Lawrence.  He was a part time farmer that lived in a small unincorporated community called Hinsonton and had inherited a small farm and some woods some years back.  He had recently dug a small pond in the back of a field next to some woods and had stocked this pond with about $10,000 worth of catfish.  Lawrence had called to tell me he needed my help, but would not tell me what it was about, just said I’d have to see it for myself.  I got dressed and went to see what my friend needed.  As I drove up in Lawrence’s yard, I could see he was drinking a beer and had a very concerned look on his face.  Lawrence said “I’ve got a problem, there’s a bear in my pond and he’s eating all my catfish, just biting their heads off” !  I said, “You’ve done had too much to drink, there’s not any bears around here”.  Lawrence said “I knew you would not believe me, that’s why I didn’t tell you over the phone”.  Lawrence told me to get in his truck and he would prove it to me.

     We drove down an old dirt road, into a field and around the pond to a place between the pond and the woods.  Lawrence got out of the old truck and stood there on the dam of the pond drinking another beer.  He pointed down to the Georgia red clay dam and told me, “Look, see there, it’s a bear track”.  I walked over to see what he was talking about and saw the biggest damn Panther track I’d ever seen and several fish, missing their heads.  I told Lawrence to look at the way the tracks were staggered and to look at the pads on the foot prints, “that’s not a bear, it’s a big ass panther, a Florida black panther”.  I explained to Lawrence that this was an endangered species and it was illegal to kill them.
    
     Lawrence knew that I used to be an avid night hunter and probably would not care about the illegality of shooting this panther.  Lawrence stood there with a smirk on his face, and then said “I know you’re a great hunter” then asked “can you kill it ?”  I thought for a minute, he didn’t ask if I would, he asked if I could, that sounded like a challenge to me.  I thought maybe I could make it look like the panther had tried to attack me, wouldn’t get in trouble for shooting it and then I would get on the front page of the local news paper with the biggest panther ever shot.  I told Lawrence to take me to my truck so I could get my stuff. I drove my truck back to the dam, opened my tool box and put on my camouflage.  I put on my camouflage shirt, camouflage pants, camouflage boots, camouflage gloves, and camouflage face mask then sprayed myself down with, pine tree scented, scent remover. Now I looked like a tree and smelled like one too. 

      I then reached into my truck and got my prized rifle, a Ruger mini 14 with a Redfield scope and a 30 round magazine. This use to be my night-hunting deer rifle, I knew it was a little more ammo than I needed but you never can tell when you gonna see the game warden and have to run deep into the woods and stay for awhile, so a little extra ammo don’t hurt.

     I walked up and down the dam and found the trail leading from the dam into the woods, I lost the tracks for a while then saw a hole in the fence that separated the field and the woods, this must be where the panther had come through.  As I approached the hole, I could see a few more tracks then I could see a trail going into the woods.  I followed the trail, stopping from time to time to find another track or two. I followed this trail about a half a mile into the woods to a fire break.  In the middle of the fire break there was a large oak tree and around the tree were what appeared to be a hundred very large panther tracks.
    

Then I saw it, on the oak tree, up about six feet off the ground, claw marks and they where huge!  The panther had clawed most the bark off the tree and there was a strong smell of cat urine around the tree where the panther had marked his territory.  I walked up and down the fire break about 25 yards, then made a decision; I would sit by the big oak tree and wait for the panther to come back.  I sat down between two roots coming out of the ground from the oak tree and leaned against the tree.  The tree would have my back, in front of me, about ten yards away, was nothing but thick brush, to my left and right was the fire break, this was the perfect spot.  I had been a hunter for many years an knew you had to be very still, so I took a few minutes to get very comfortable then didn’t move again for hours.

     After about four hours, a strange feeling came over me, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I had just realized that it was quite …too quite!  Normally you can hear squirrels cackling, birds chirping and rabbits hopping around, but nothing, I could not hear anything.  I knew this meant one of two things, either all the animals in the woods had seen me or there was another predator close by, I was sure that nothing had seen me,  I was well camouflaged and had not moved for hours.  This meant only one thing to me, the panther was close by.  At this moment I heard a twig snap, I was looking away when I heard it but I was sure it came from about ten yards away, straight ahead, from the thick underbrush.

     I watched this area for what seemed like forever, and then I heard another twig snap and saw a large bush move slightly.  I could not see into the thick brush, but I knew it was there, the panther was trying to sneak up on me.  I was thinking to myself, “I hope I had remembered to chamber a round into my rifle when I had taken it out of its case”.  I then realized that my scope was set on 10 power, I was not expecting to shoot this close, with the scope set this high I would not be able to see a running black panther at close range. I slowly reached down and turned the scope to 3 power to give me a wider field of view.  Then I heard another twig break, it was closer this time.  I reached down and clicked the safety off of my rifle, I was ready now.  I slowly started to lift my rifle to my shoulder, slowly, very slowly.

Then it happened, the beast hit me from behind, on the back of my head, the claws dug into the back of my neck, claws wrapped around my face, right over my eyes, the biggest claws I’d ever seen.  I tried to stand up but my legs would not work, so I started to shoot, shooting fast, fast as I could, shooting everywhere, into the dirt, into the air, into the thick brush, into the trees, shooting until my gun was empty.  I had shot up everything in the woods, everything except the panther.  Just as my gun was empty, the beast let go of me, and that’s when I realize what had just happened.

      As I watched the beast run down the fire break and up the next oak tree, I realized that the beast that had attacked me was a little grey squirrel.  I guess I had been so still that he must have thought I was just another tree, and then when he jumped on me and I started shooting, he had just held on for dear life.

Then I saw the other beast emerge from the brush, a very large logger-head turtle that had been slowly crawling through the thick brush.  Then, just as all the shot-up tree limbs stopped falling and things got quite again, I heard another frightening sound.  It was a horn blowing. It must be Lawrence, I knew he had heard all the shots and was there to see the big panther that the great hunter had shot.  How was I going to explain that the great panther hunter had got attacked by a squirrel and a turtle, had shot 30 shots and had not killed the squirrel, the turtle or the panther?  

     Well I am a great hunter and to be a great hunter you must be able to lie pretty good,  I had a about half a mile of walking to make up something to tell Lawrence.  I never went panther hunting again, don’t care much for squirrels anymore either.

© Shane Daughtry 06/12/2006