Hunter Carson Bender said he suffered minor scratches after the April 18 encounter on private land.
NEKOOSA, Wis. — A bobcat lunged at 19-year-old Carson Bender during a spring turkey hunt on private land near Nekoosa on April 18, leaving the Wisconsin Rapids hunter with minor scratches and a widely shared video of a rare encounter in the woods.
The incident drew attention because it happened during the opening stretch of Wisconsin’s spring turkey season and because close contact between bobcats and people is unusual. Bender said he was able to shake the animal off and continue moving through the morning before going to a doctor. The episode quickly spread online through short video clips and follow-up interviews, turning a brief hunting mishap into a story about wildlife behavior, hunting conditions and how one hunter reacted when the animal he noticed behind him did not back away.
Bender said the hunt had been unfolding the way he expected before the bobcat appeared. He was set up near the base of a tree with decoys in a hay field and heard gobbling from more than one direction as birds worked closer. Wanting to keep his position and avoid turning too much, he used his phone to check what was behind him. What the camera picked up was a bobcat standing and watching from close range. Bender said the animal held still for several moments, then moved in. The video shows the cat edging closer before it jumps and grabs at his arm, after which the recording cuts off. Bender later said he was able to shake the animal loose almost immediately and that it ran off. The attack was short, but the sequence gave the encounter a clarity that many wildlife stories never get because there is video from the hunter’s point of view rather than a description after the fact.
In interviews after the encounter, Bender described the moment with a mix of calm and disbelief. He said he looked at the phone screen and saw the bobcat staring at him, realizing at once that the hunt had changed. He estimated the cat at about 25 pounds, which would place it within the general size range Wisconsin wildlife officials give for bobcats. After the animal made contact and bolted, Bender said the turkey he had been working did not leave the field. He took a shot a few minutes later and missed, then headed for medical care. In a social media post, he wrote that he learned he was good at calling cats and turkeys, an offhand line that helped explain why the clip spread so quickly. He also said the injuries were limited to scratches on his shoulder and that the bigger surprise was not the pain but how fast the scene turned from stillness to impact and then back to normal hunting woods.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources material helps explain why the story drew so much interest. The agency says bobcats are the state’s most commonly seen wild cat, though they remain uncommon in some areas, and recent sightings have increased in central and southern Wisconsin. The department also says bobcats in Wisconsin average about 20 to 30 pounds. That makes Bender’s estimate plausible and places the animal squarely within the size range that hunters and landowners in the state might encounter. Even so, the ordinary picture of a bobcat is not one of a cat charging a person who is sitting against a tree. Bobcats are elusive animals, and the state’s public information focuses more on management, habitat and harvest rules than on attacks on people. That is part of what made the video stand out. It was not a distant trail camera image or a brief crossing on a road. It was a close, sustained look at a bobcat that seemed to be studying a camouflaged hunter before deciding to make contact.
The timing also mattered. Wisconsin’s regular spring turkey season opened April 15 and runs through May 26 in six seven-day periods. The encounter took place during Period A, which runs through April 21, with Period B scheduled to begin April 22. Those dates place Bender in the field during one of the busiest early windows of the spring hunt, when many hunters are tucked into field edges and wood lots before sunrise, calling birds that may already be under pressure. Bender said he was on private land near Nekoosa, a central Wisconsin setting of open field and brush that fits the kind of mixed habitat where turkeys and bobcats can both show up. The DNR’s own description of bobcats says sightings have been rising in the central part of the state, which gives the encounter a practical backdrop even if the exact behavior in Bender’s case remains unusual. The woods around Nekoosa are not outside bobcat country. What appears out of the ordinary is how close the cat came and the fact that it followed through with a quick strike.
By Tuesday, the public record around the encounter was still thin beyond Bender’s account and the video. Public reports did not describe any citation, trapping effort or formal wildlife warning tied specifically to this animal. No public statement reviewed Tuesday said the bobcat was sick, rabid or later located. There was also no sign that the encounter had interrupted the broader turkey season, which was already set to move from Period A into Period B on Wednesday. That leaves the immediate next steps more observational than legal. Hunters will keep moving into the field, the video will likely keep circulating, and wildlife officials may eventually say more if the encounter is reported through state channels or if the animal is seen again. For now, the incident sits in an odd place between a news story and a field anecdote: serious enough to send a hunter to a doctor, brief enough that it produced only scratches, and unusual enough that it immediately raised questions about what drew the animal in so close.
The video itself helps carry the story because it captures the quiet that comes before the lunge. There is no long chase and no dramatic struggle. Instead, there is the small tension of a hunter trying not to move too much while watching a wild cat decide what to do. Bender’s reaction afterward added to the tone of the coverage. He did not describe panic, and he said he returned to the same spot the next morning. That decision became part of the story because it matched the attitude hunters often bring to the field: a willingness to treat even a strange setback as part of the hunt rather than the end of it. Seen that way, the encounter was two stories at once. It was a rare instance of a bobcat making physical contact with a person, and it was also a snapshot of spring hunting in Wisconsin, with birds gobbling, decoys in place, a phone lifted for a quick look behind a shoulder, and a hunt that somehow kept going after the wildest moment of the morning had already passed.
As of Tuesday evening, Bender had reported only minor injuries and no agency had publicly announced a specific follow-up action tied to the bobcat. The next clear marker is the continuation of Wisconsin’s spring turkey season on April 22, when Period B opens and hunters return to the same mix of fields, brush and early morning silence.
Author note: Last updated April 21, 2026.