So, I needed a perfect panther skin to finish expanding my saddlebags. Looked up on a tips site where to find them.
Got to that area, nothing. Looked around, almost got snake bit, nothing. Searched and found deer, foxes, etc but no panthers. Set out predator bait and watched. Nothing.
Then I saw a red dot on the map near my horse, near enough I could see her, she ran. I scanned with my binoculars, nothing. Scanning more. Jumped out of nowhere by the panther - dead. No chance.
Reloaded (I save often.) Searched hard, no panther. Saw my horse run from something, went next to a tree to cover my back, scanned hard, didn’t see a thing. Out of nowhere jumped and killed by the panther. Argh.
One more reload. By now I’m convinced there’s only one panther. Same thing, took longer, horse gets skittish, this time I move and scan and suddenly get a glimpse of something. It’s the panther coming at me. I needed a perfect pelt so I aimed my bolt action, hit deadeye, knew I had one shot as he was charging, fired, and he landed on me. I fell back and he was on me but I wasn’t getting the black and white death screen. Then I realized I’d killed him in mid leap, his momentum carried him into and on top of me.
Got out from under him, skinned and got my perfect panther pelt, saved immediately. Now on to the only skin missing for the full set of saddlebags, a raccoon. I’m thinking that will be trivial compared to this one. In fact, this is the only time I’ve been killed getting a skin, including the legendary grizzly.