Frightening footage shows moment quick-thinking hunter fires pistol at pouncing cougar

This guy’s one cool cat.

Heart-pounding footage shows the moment a quick-thinking hunter in Idaho fired his pistol at a prowling cougar just as it pounced.

A video of the frightening wildlife encounter, filmed via the victim’s cellphone, is currently blowing up on Instagram.

“Good thing I was packing,” Jared Erickson wrote above the video of the mountain lion attack, which occurred Oct. 9 while he was hunting in southeast Idaho.

The Utah native had set out to pursue elk, but quickly found himself the one being hunted.

“That was my first confrontation with a predator,” Erickson told Field and Stream. “The mountain lion had been stalking me for about 30 to 45 seconds before I got my phone out.”

In the ensuing POV clip, the puma can be seen stalking through the bush towards the hunter, who has a .40 caliber Glock 27 pointed at it.

The big cat’s ears are flattened against its head in what Field and Stream experts later dubbed a clear sign of aggression.

“Get back,” warns Erickson imperiously while walking backward with his weapon at the ready.

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Unfortunately, his command fails to deter his feline pursuer, which continues its advance. All of a sudden, the cougar lunges at Erickson, who reacts by discharging a shot that just misses the big cat.

Undaunted, the predator incredibly collects itself and then continues moving forward like a slasher-movie villain.

Just when his fate seems sealed, the hunter fires a second shot, which also lands near the cat, but doesn’t hit it.

This seems to do the trick as the cougar heads back into the bush shortly thereafter, prompting Erickson to let out an audible sigh of relief.

Needless to say, the spine-tingling incident sent hearts racing across social media.

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“That will raise your blood pressure!” exclaimed one viewer, while another wrote, “Congrats on surviving the encounter. Well done.”

“No doubt about it that cat was coming,” wrote another armchair wildlife expert. “Bluff charge maybe but we’ll never know because of the shot. Without that sidearm you’d be in trouble brother. Wheew.”

Podcast host and footage on Instagram with the caption: “I am 100% sure I would have put the phone down and sent that cat to the afterlife. @huntingthenorthwest @jarederickson1980 got this crazy video.. It’s making its rounds on the internet so I figured I’d give it a share! Crazy encounter!!”

It’s unclear why the cougar decided to attack; however, wildlife experts claim that it could be for a number of reasons ranging from predatory behavior to perceived self-defense.

“It could have kittens back in those conifers and aspens in the background, but you’d never know,” said Terry Thompson, regional communications manager for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

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Either way, Thompson said that Erickson responded appropriately to the attack, explaining: “I’m surprised the guy held off as long as he did before he shot. This cat was really close.

“Erickson backed away and kept his eyes on it,” he added. “What he did was right.”

In an even scarier cougar-related close call last month, a 7-year-old California boy miraculously survived an attack by a mountain lion, which bit him on the butt.