Reported 1st by Ammoland: Alyssa Caldwell and her father had been hunting all day. The weather had been nasty; cloudy skies with snow and rain alternating. They had seen a few elk, much too far away to take a shot. They left their makeshift blind to see if they could spot another elk before the end of the day. It was the middle of the afternoon.
At 12, Alyssa was already an experienced huntress. She had started shooting at 5, and had a new rifle, a stainless Howa 1500, as her elk gun. They had only gone a few hundred yards when her father remembered that he had left the shooting sticks back at the blind. He told Alyssa to wait while he went back to retrieve them. It sounds like the start of a horror movie. A young blond girl, left alone in the wilderness by circumstance, the weather cloudy and rainy and cold, darkness only a couple of hours away.
Less than a minute later, she saw it. A cat. A big cat, stalking her, only a car length away. The cat crouched, ready to spring. Alyssa shouldered the rifle and fired point blank. It was too close to use the scope. She worked the bolt, ready to fire again. But one shot from the 30-06 was enough. The 165 grain Accubond Nosler projectile had skinned the cheek, hitting the lion facing her at the junction of neck and shoulder, traveling the length of its body, killing it instantly. From Alyssa:
“I saw him first,” Alyssa said. “I didn’t hear him or see him until he was really close. I didn’t know exactly what it was but I knew it wasn’t a bobcat. I raised my gun when he crouched down.