The Largest Tiger Ever Taken

Just 'cause:
P.C.: Privy Council of the UK​
G.C.B.: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath​
G.M.S.I.: Error(?) of G.C.S.I., Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India​
G.M.I.E.: Ditto(?) of G.C.I.E, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire​
G.C.M.G.: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George​
G.C.V.O.: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order​
I.S.O.: Imperial Service Order​
 
Without a doubt.
It’s one thing to say you can do it. We all assume we could. It’s quite another for those of us who haven’t been tested as certain death (by rather nasty painful causes) bears down at high speed only feet away.
My hat’s off to all of you who have done it. I love to read about them all on this forum from cats to buffalo, pigs to elephants.
I hope I never have to find out if I can do it.
The closest I’ve come is a bluff by a black bear. I stood my ground and thankfully didn’t have to make the shot. But that doesn’t mean I completed the process with clean pants.
The only other time was when I had a white tail doe rear up in front of my because I had accidentally walked too close to her fawn while turkey hunting. That time I ran like a little girl.
@Randy F
Mate you have already faced the most fearsome animal known to man and survived it all whilst being unarmed. After your stint in hospital I hope you learnt your lesson.
NEVER PISS YOUR WIFE OFF BY BREAKING A FIT BIT.
An angry wife can be a truly dangerous thing. A mate asked me if I knew what real game fishing was. He was not happy with the reply and stated that you have to be real game to tell your wife your going fishing on your anniversary.
Bob
 
Without a doubt.
It’s one thing to say you can do it. We all assume we could. It’s quite another for those of us who haven’t been tested as certain death (by rather nasty painful causes) bears down at high speed only feet away.
My hat’s off to all of you who have done it. I love to read about them all on this forum from cats to buffalo, pigs to elephants.
I hope I never have to find out if I can do it.
The closest I’ve come is a bluff by a black bear. I stood my ground and thankfully didn’t have to make the shot. But that doesn’t mean I completed the process with clean pants.
The only other time was when I had a white tail doe rear up in front of my because I had accidentally walked too close to her fawn while turkey hunting. That time I ran like a little girl.
@Randy F
Mate you have already faced the most fearsome animal known to man and survived it all whilst being unarmed. After your stint in hospital I hope you learnt your lesson.
NEVER PISS YOUR WIFE OFF BY BREAKING A FIT BIT.
An angry wife can be a truly dangerous thing. A mate asked me if I knew what real game fishing was. He was not happy with the reply and stated that you have to be real game to tell your wife your going fishing on your anniversary.
Bob
 
View attachment 367270
My mentor , the late Pachabdhi Gazi shot a marauding Royal Bengal tiger which was nicknamed the “ Terror Of Golkhali “ in 1972 . This occurred in the Gabura Union of the Buri Goalini forest range . It was his 55th marauder and measured 12 feet . He killed the marauder with an Eley Alphamax LG shell fired from his Belgian 12 bore exposed hammer side by side shotgun . The incident is briefly talked about , in Pachabdhi’s biography in this video :

Speaking for myself , the largest marauding Royal Bengal tiger which I have ever shot till now weighed only 273 kilograms and measured only ten feet seven inches ( from snout to tail ) . He charged , so I took a frontal brain shot with my .458 Winchester Magnum and a 510 grain Winchester Super Speed soft point factory load .

I was so impressed with the animal’s size that I featured the photograph on the cover of my book , when I first published it in 1999 .
View attachment 367271
Great story!! Has your book ever been translated to English? Think I would enjoy the read. (y)
 
@Randy F
I will share my own fear with you - Having to hunt a Royal Bengal tiger during the daytime .

I am often asked by apprentice Probem Animal Control Officers “ Are you more afraid of hunting Royal Bengal tigers during the daytime , or during nighttime ? “ . My answer is always , without hesitation “ Daytime “ . Upon hearing this , many question my assessment but I do believe that an explanation is in order . Suppose it is daytime , and a group of beaters have a Royal Bengal tiger surrounded for you . You approach the scene ; rifle in hand . The beaters point at the Royal Bengal tiger for you and ask you to shoot it . As soon as you make eye contact with the Royal Bengal tiger , it will ignore everyone else and attack you ( the person armed with the rifle ) right away .

This is strangely not the case , during nighttime . As a young man prior to 1974 ( when Royal Bengal tigers still had not been formally recognized as a legally protected species in Bangladesh ) , I used to spend my entire nights chasing and shooting Royal Bengal tigers in the Sundarban mangrove forests . On some occasions , I would see three Royal Bengal tigers lying down and I would shoot two of them to death at point blank range . The third one ( even after locking eyes with me ) would refrain from attacking me and would simply bound off into the foliage . For some reason , Royal Bengal tigers are far less aggressive during the nighttime than they are during the day .


People do not comprehend the "sixth sense" of animals. Two anecdotes for you:

-An acquaintance owned a zoo and had a tiger in one of the exhibits. He knew this cat very well and was observing odd body language. (the owner was a hunter so he understood predation and aggression in animals) A visitor to the zoo, in cold autumn or winter weather, was watching the tiger that kept walking past the school children and a dozen other visitors and was clearly taking an interest in killing this visitor if the cat could gain the opportunity from the other side of the bars. Curious, the owner walked up to shake the man's hand, introduce himself, and comment on the odd behavior of the cat. When the man shook the zoo owner's hand, it was a horribly disfigured hand that emerged from his coat pocket revealing a disability. The cat's sixth sense indicated a vulnerability that was impossible for a human being to know as it was concealed from sight.

-In 25 years of flying raptors in falconry, I noticed a lot of strange behavior from raptors. Many times I watched hawks, particularly goshawks, fly directly over the "guaranteed 100% kill" duck to instead commit to difficult aerial maneuvers on a much more distant duck in the flock. This seemed absurd, made no initial sense, and provided remarkable and difficult pursuits. 100% of the time when this happened and it ended with a kill, there was always a defect with the duck that was selected from the flock. Either a cut to the webbing of a foot (not visible to a human), a canker on the skin, or after dressing the animal it had a cyst or bird shot in the animal. Yet again, predators have a cunning sixth sense we cannot detect using human objective criterion and general observation.

Clearly, the Royal Bengals becoming aggressive to the rifleman during the daytime hours is due to some behavior detectable to the tiger about the human behavior, likely something perceived that has nothing to do with the firearm. (body posture, state of mind, difference in aggressive stress as a predator rather than defensive stress from the unarmed members of the party, etc.)
 
People do not comprehend the "sixth sense" of animals. Two anecdotes for you:

-An acquaintance owned a zoo and had a tiger in one of the exhibits. He knew this cat very well and was observing odd body language. (the owner was a hunter so he understood predation and aggression in animals) A visitor to the zoo, in cold autumn or winter weather, was watching the tiger that kept walking past the school children and a dozen other visitors and was clearly taking an interest in killing this visitor if the cat could gain the opportunity from the other side of the bars. Curious, the owner walked up to shake the man's hand, introduce himself, and comment on the odd behavior of the cat. When the man shook the zoo owner's hand, it was a horribly disfigured hand that emerged from his coat pocket revealing a disability. The cat's sixth sense indicated a vulnerability that was impossible for a human being to know as it was concealed from sight.

-In 25 years of flying raptors in falconry, I noticed a lot of strange behavior from raptors. Many times I watched hawks, particularly goshawks, fly directly over the "guaranteed 100% kill" duck to instead commit to difficult aerial maneuvers on a much more distant duck in the flock. This seemed absurd, made no initial sense, and provided remarkable and difficult pursuits. 100% of the time when this happened and it ended with a kill, there was always a defect with the duck that was selected from the flock. Either a cut to the webbing of a foot (not visible to a human), a canker on the skin, or after dressing the animal it had a cyst or bird shot in the animal. Yet again, predators have a cunning sixth sense we cannot detect using human objective criterion and general observation.

Clearly, the Royal Bengals becoming aggressive to the rifleman during the daytime hours is due to some behavior detectable to the tiger about the human behavior, likely something perceived that has nothing to do with the firearm. (body posture, state of mind, difference in aggressive stress as a predator rather than defensive stress from the unarmed members of the party, etc.)
@rookhawk
You are correct . Observe these pug marks of a marauding Royal Bengal tigress which I had to hunt down recently .

BBBE2B2C-AD60-40C3-B117-0303FBB5F3CF.png

One of the animal’s toes is showing an abnormality . She was impaled through the toe with a porcupine quill and thus , bit part of her own toe off ( in an attempt to stop the pain ) . Like all marauding Royal Bengal tigers , she would stalk stalk wood cutters and / or honey collectors for hours through the Sundarban mangrove forests . But she would always attack the weakest and most frail member of the party .

Marauding Royal Bengal tigers will always ( without exception ) go after the weakest possible prey which they can come across . In fact , the very reason why Royal Bengal tigers and cheetahs become marauders is because they perceive human beings as weaker prey than Axis deer or wild boars .

I will relate one small incident from December , 1972 . Hunting Royal Bengal tigers for sport was still not formally prohibited in Bangladesh , so I used to hunt them for their hides ( which used to fetch a great deal of money ) . I did not possess my .458 Winchester Magnum until 1977 , so I was forced to make do with only my Laurona 12 bore side-lock ejector ( loaded with Eley Alphamax LG shells ) at the time .

It was 2:00 AM at night , in the Sundarban mangrove forests . I had a Garo tracker ( indigenous people who inhibit the Sundarban mangrove forests ) under my employment . My Laurona 12 bore was in my hands and there was a six cell torchlight clamped to the fore end . The Garo tracker was leading the way and I was following him . We came across three Royal Bengal tigers lying down under some Banyan trees . One was a male and two of them were tigresses . Their hides were extremely high in quality and so we decided that we found what we were looking for .

After closing in on them to within 20 feet range , I switched on the torchlight and immediately fired my left barrel at the region where the male’s neck met the shoulder . He gave the characteristic death growl and we knew that he was done for . Without waiting for the death growl to end , I immediately fired my right barrel at the ear of the first tigress ; taking her out on the spot . By now , I started seeing the second tigress beginning to rise up to her feet . She had now come to her senses about what was going on .

I frantically opened the breech of my Laurona 12 bore and was putting in two fresh Eley Alphamax LG shells , in order to take her out . She locked eyes with me , but simply bounced off into the foliage instead of attacking me and my tracker . My tracker wanted me to take a shot at her , but I declined because I realized that the tigress was pregnant . Besides , I rationalized that I had enough hides for pay the bills for the next three months .

During daytime , I believe that it would be suicide attempting to hunt a Royal Bengal tiger with a shotgun .
 
@ Professor Mawla,

Do you think it is possible that tigers fear man more during the day than in the night time? So perhaps in the day time a tiger surrounded by beaters maybe feeling like its backed into a corner and it becomes a matter of fight or flight. It picks fight because it doesnt feel like it has any other option and that imminent death awaits it with the rifleman. In the night time perhaps this is more of the tiger's turf and it does not feel as scared of humans. Hence if it comes across a potentially dangerous human it will rather leave than fight.
 
@ Professor Mawla,

Do you think it is possible that tigers fear man more during the day than in the night time? So perhaps in the day time a tiger surrounded by beaters maybe feeling like its backed into a corner and it becomes a matter of fight or flight. It picks fight because it doesnt feel like it has any other option and that imminent death awaits it with the rifleman. In the night time perhaps this is more of the tiger's turf and it does not feel as scared of humans. Hence if it comes across a potentially dangerous human it will rather leave than fight.
@Dragan N.
Your theory is extremely interesting and I would ALMOST consider it , had it not been for an incident in August of 1982 . We were hunting a marauding male Royal Bengal tiger at 10:00 PM at night.

A group of beaters had the marauding Royal Bengal tiger surrounded and I was running towards the encirclement ; my .458 Winchester Magnum in my hands . When the Royal Bengal tiger saw me , he actually broke through the line of beaters in order to flee from me ; WITHOUT even directly attacking a single beater .

Bear in mind that this particular Royal Bengal tiger had already killed and fed on 14 local villagers in the last one month . Seven of whom , were fully grown men .
 
I remember reading Jim Corbett say that a man eating tiger will most likely attack in the daytime, while leopards will only attack at night.
I think that it was this way:
If it's a daytime attack, then it's surely a tiger. At night, it could be either of them. If I remember correctly. And I guess it was said in the Rudraprayag story.
 
Jim Corbett’s “bachelor of powlgraw” was 10’ 7” between the pegs. I don’t know how much length would be added over the curves.

That was my first thought, when discovered this thread. But the one on the plaque is still considerably larger than powalgarhs.
Not to mention the 12 ft monster the honorable professor refers to.

I actually thought that a Siberian tiger would top the list, however that's not the case . Apparently the largest one taken was 350 cm / 11 ft 6 in over the curves. On record in 1947.
 
@sestoppelman
Thank you very much . The second edition of my book ( translated in English ) is due for publication on January .
@Professor Malwa
Make that another English copy.
If we could get friend Poton Kahn, Sgt Rahman and Panther Shooter to do a combined book as well we would have some truly remarkable reading from you fine gentleman the likes that hasn't been see for a while.
I have read Col. Craig Boddington book and found it as dry as a dictionary compared to the colourful writings ok you four gentleman.
Bob
 

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