I know some of you probably already heard this story, but here it is again.
A while back I decided to try to go do some calling for bears up in unit 1. I really couldn’t find anyone to go with me so I ended up going by myself, I really dislike going by myself. I ended up making 3-4 stands calling for around 45-60 minutes starting from Escudilla to Mt Baldy. I drove my quad around and hiked a lot of miles that day. I headed back to the house around 3pm to grab a bite to eat after all the unsuccessful attempts and getting discouraged.
I decided to give it one last go, so I remember a aspen grove up on top that was close enough to a road that headed down a thick canyon. I arrived at this spot around 4:30-5pm hike over to the boulders that over looked a small Meadow of about 2 feet of grass with aspens around it.
I sat on the ground having a boulder to my back I felt pretty safe nothing could jump out from behind me without me seeing it first. I got my favorite reed call out and started calling for about 10-15 minutes noticing my left leg was going numb from the lack of blood flow. Getting a little nervous I paused the calling and attempted to move my left leg around to get some blood circulation into it. As I tried to move my leg something came in and latched on to the end of my boot. I screamed like a little girl feeling helpless. I couldn’t figure out what the H#%L it was. I took my right boot and kicked as hard as I could and it finally let go and backed off making a terrible noise. It started coming back towards me so I pulled my S&W 357 from my shoulder holster and fired once at it. It was gone, not knowing where it went I started to make sure I didn’t shoot my leg. Luckily my legs were intact as I missed them.
I stood up trying to realize what just happened and getting the feeling back into leg I couldn’t figure out what it was. I had phone service so i called the wife and told her I just got attacked by something and that I was ok. Chatting with the wife I came to the realization it was a badger after she was trying to guess what it was. Wife asked if I shot it and I told her I didn’t know. After getting off the phone with her I walked down about 5-10 yards where I found a big ol stinky male badger piled up next to a bush. One hole from the 357 entering its neck and bullet lodged in its back leg, at point blank range it incredibly did not pass through. It’s nut sack was bigger than a baseball, and had a bald spot on them from dragging them around, it WAS the king of the mountain.
