Early Thursday morning, archery hunter Landon Clement was backed up against a rock in the remote Upper Green River Basin, hoping and praying that the three grizzly bears that were 10 yards away would just walk away.
It was the most intense, terrifying moment he’s experienced in his 31 years, he told Cowboy State Daily.
The bears, a female with two large cubs, had come downhill on his left and turned to cross in front of him.
Although he already had his Glock 10mm semiautomatic drawn and leveled at the bears, all he wanted was for things to end peacefully.
“But that’s not what happened,” he said.
‘It Felt Like A Freight Train’
Instead, the mother grizzly charged Clement and sank her teeth into his left thigh, and he ended up shooting the bear to death.
“She lunged right at me,” he said. “I saw nothing but her head and her white teeth coming right at me.”
He described the attack was incredibly fast and violent, as the bear locked her jaws down on his leg and started shaking her head.
He was too pumped full of adrenaline to feel any pain, he said. That came later.
What struck him in that awful moment was the sheer force of the grizzly’s jaws.
“I did not feel the pain in the moment,” he said. “I could feel the force that it put on me. It felt like a freight train. I’ve never felt that much force in my life. It’s unbelievable that something could do that to me, and how fast it happened.”
Clement’s ordeal was the third time this hunting season that grizzlies in the region have attacked archery hunters, and the hunters used handguns to kill the bears in self-defense. The two previous incidents were in Idaho and Montana.
Clement said he considers himself lucky.
He suffered four deep puncture wounds to his thigh. Doctors at the Pinedale Clinic “stitched me up really good,” said Clement, who is from Blue Ridge, Georgia, but frequently hunts in the Upper Green River Basin near Pinedale.
They told him that he hadn’t suffered any permanent damage and should recover fully.
That was great news for Clement, who competes in marathons and ultramarathon trail runs.
“It was a miracle,” he said about surviving the grizzly attack. “I had an angel looking over me. I have no doubt about that.”
Out Hunting With Old Friends
Clement’s father Don is lifelong friends with John “Buzzy” Quintrell, who also lived in Georgia but moved to the Upper Green River area.
Quintrell loves having his friends come to Wyoming for hunting trips, and they love going into the beautiful backcountry.
On Thursday, they were joined by Clement’s cousin from Georgia, Chris Harper.
Quintrell and Clement had elk tags. His father and cousin weren’t hunting, but still wanted to go out and enjoy the day.
The four of them rode to a remote spot in a side-by-side, and then started hiking. Before long they split up. Clement’s father and cousin decided to keep going farther back in to do some scouting.
Quintrell and Clement selected good spots to set up and wait for elk to come within bow range. The two hunters were about 300 yards apart, with Quintrell downhill from Clement.
Clement found what he thought was the perfect spot, a large boulder with some deadfall timber leaning against it.
Those Aren’t Elk, They’re Grizzlies
Archery hunting can be a game of extreme patience. But Clement was in his spot “for not even 2 minutes” before he heard noise coming from uphill and to his left.
He figured it was elk and was flabbergasted, because he hadn’t even taken bow off the back of his pack.
He saw “brown moving through the trees” and thought he might have just gotten incredibly lucky.
Then the bears came into full view.
“I knew right away it was grizzlies,” he said. I could see the shapes of their heads, the shoulder humps, everything.”
At first, it looked as if the bears would just keep going downslope, passing him by and leaving him with nothing but a great story to tell.
Then the grizzlies turned, taking a path that would put them right in front of him.
“When those bears cut down that trail and veered toward me, I knew I was probably going to have an issue,” Clement said.
So he drew his pistol.
“I was still backed up against the rock,” he said. “And when I realized that they were coming my way, I just backed up even further against that rock, I was practically glued to it.”
Pistol Jams At Worst Possible Moment
As the bears came up in front of him, his only hope was that they wouldn’t notice him and would keep going.
But they caught his scent.
“They stopped on a dime. All three of them, with their noses going in the air,” he said.
The mother grizzly locked in on him and silent tension exploded into absolute chaos as the bear charged Clement, and he opened fire.
The cubs bolted and ran off when the shooting started, and Clement and his companions never saw them again.
The mother grizzly’s attack was utterly ferocious, he said.
“She just leaped. She just charged right at me with her mouth wide open,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast, she covered that 10-12 yards in less than a second.
“When it came at me it was making this noise, not really growling, but more like a ‘huff, huff, huff.’”
Clement fired as fast as he could; he’s still not sure how many rounds.
“It bit into my left thigh, and it would not let go,” he continued. “It just bit into my thigh and starting shaking its head.”
It was then Clement he noticed that, although he was still pulling his pistol’s trigger, nothing was happening.
“As the bear was still clamped onto my leg, I was finally able to look down and see that my gun was jammed,” he said.
Clearing a jam in a semiautomatic pistol can be chore even under the best of circumstances on a shooting range.
Clement managed to do it with a 600-pound grizzly clamped on his leg trying to ragdoll him.
“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.”
‘Buzzy Found Me Laying Against A Tree’
Clement was still on adrenaline overload after the bear was off of him.
“After the attack ended, my senses started coming back to me,” he said. “I noticed then that the bear was very smelly — it was really stinky.
“I took off, hobbling down the mountain. I was screaming for help. I was screaming for Buzz. I was screaming for my dad and my cousin.”
He’s not really sure what happened next, only that, “Buzzy found me laying up against a tree,” he said.
As things started to settle down, “I looked down at my pistol, and it was jammed again,” he said.
“It jammed right after the kill shot,” Clement said. “If it had jammed again before then, I don’t know what I would have done. The Lord was looking out for me.”
His father and cousin were about three-quarters of a mile away when the attack happened, but they scrambled back as fast as they could.
After they got there, Quintrell took off to get the side-by-side, and Clement’s father and cousin started helping him hobble back out.
“I found me a good stick that I could prop myself up on,” he said, and with the others helping, Clement limped along for an excruciating mile and a half or so until they met up with Quintrell.
Doesn’t Think Bear Spray Would Have Worked
Even as he was being treated at the clinic, Clement was questioned by game wardens.
Grizzlies remain under federal protection in the Lower 48 and may not be hunted.
It’s legal to kill a grizzly in self-defense or in defense of another human. It’s also standard protocol for wardens to investigate such killings to make sure they were legitimate self-defense.
Clement said he was headed out with wardens to the scene of the attack early Friday for an on-site investigation.
He has not doubt that his case will be ruled self-defense. He’s also not proud or happy about killing the grizzly.
“I wasn’t planning to shoot. I did not want to shoot,” he said. “As I had my pistol pointed at the bears, I was praying for them to keep moving. I waited until the very last moment, when I didn’t have a choice.
“She charged at me and I knew at that moment it was me or her, and I chose myself.”
Regarding the guns-bear spray debate for grizzly defense, Clement said he thinks people should choose whatever they’re most comfortable with, be that one, the other or both.
However, he questions how effective bear spray would have been in his case.
“I honestly think that if I had tried to use bear spray in that situation, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” he said.
Still Thinks Grizzlies Are ‘Beautiful Animals’
Thursday’s attack wasn’t Clement’s first bad encounter with Wyoming grizzlies.
Two years ago, he and his father were charged by a grizzly as they were hiking out from a hunting trip in the dark.
That bear knocked him to the ground.
“That bear knocked me over, but luckily, immediately after that, it veered off and ran away,” he said.
During another previous encounter, a grizzly came to within 10-15 yards and locked eyes with Clement.
“That bear just stared right into my soul,” he said. “Fortunately, he just turned and kept going. I guess he had bigger fish to fry that day.”
He’s also heard other peoples’ stories of spooky grizzly encounters.
Clement agrees with what Quintrell previously told Cowboy State Daily — that grizzlies should be delisted and hunted in Wyoming.
It might make the grizzlies less aggressive toward people and save both people and bears, he said.
“Every single year, there’s grizzly attacks on hunters, hikers or whoever,” he said.
Still, Clements doesn’t want grizzlies eliminated, he loves having them around and said they’re one of the highlights of his trips to Wyoming.
“I do not want the grizzlies to go away. They are a beautiful animal and they should be free to roam this Earth that God gave us,” he said.
When asked if he plans to continue visiting Wyoming and hunting here, his answer was an enthusiastic “yes.”
“I’m an avid outdoorsman,” he said. “I’m from North Georgia, we have great mountains there too. I love it. Hunting is my passion. And I realize the bear was just doing what it felt it needed to do.
“Obviously, I will always have to continue be bear aware, but that’s not going to stop me from chasing my passion.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
