A Georgia man was hunting elk in Wyoming's Upper Green River Basin on Thursday, September 26, when a grizzly bear charged him and bit down on his leg. Thirty-one-year-old Landon Clements ended the attack by shooting the bear at point-blank range with a 10mm pistol, according to reporting for Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily.
Clements said he'd only been set up for a few minutes when he saw the sow and its two cubs moving through nearby timber. They were on a trail that led directly to him when they picked up his scent at roughly 10 yards away.
All three bears charged, but the cubs scattered when Clements opened fire with his semi-automatic Glock 10mm pistol. "[The sow] lunged right at me," he told Cowboy State Daily. "I saw nothing but her head and her white teeth coming right at me."
The bear latched onto this left thigh and began to thrash its head back and forth. Though his pistol jammed, Clements managed to fire two more shots, both of which hit the bear in the head—killing it instantly.
“Once I cleared the jam, I put the gun as close to its head as I could and shot a couple of more times,” he said. “It let go and rolled off me. I knew that I had killed that bear.”
After the attack, Clements hiked out of the immediate area in search of his hunting companions. One of them found him lying against a tree, and they hiked more than a mile to an awaiting side-by-side that took them off the mountain.
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Clements received medical treatment at a hospital in Pinedale and is expected to make a full recovery. His attack marks the third time this month that archery hunters in the area have been forced to shoot charging grizzly bears in self defense.
