The Pennsylvania Game Commission told Samuel Fisher on Wednesday that he could be fined if he shot a trio of mountain lions that he claimed were lurking around farms in Sadsbury Township.

About 4 p.m. Thursday, Fisher said, he shot one cat. He said he then was attacked by another as he followed an inch-wide blood trail across Mount Pleasant Road, just east of Route 896.

"It was a mistake to walk into the woods alone," Fisher said Friday while rubbing the deep claw marks on his forearms. "The second cat jumped out of a tree and knocked my shotgun out of my hands."

Fisher, who estimated the cat was about 130 pounds and 8 feet long from head to tail, said he was able to scare it away by stabbing it with a pocketknife he carried — but not before the cat scratched and clawed at him for a terrifying 15 minutes while he lay helpless on his neighbor Jonas Stoltzfus' property.

"I was scared. He was standing on his hind legs and scratching at me every time I moved," Fisher said. "I was able to stab him three times in the abdomen, and he took off."

Fisher, who was treated for cuts and a hip injury at Lancaster General Hospital on Thursday night, walked with crutches among a group of about 50 men searching for signs of the cats at 4 a.m. Friday.

They were joined later by state police and seven Game Commission officials, who said they uncovered no trace of the cats. A scan of the area by helicopter equipped with a device that detects heat on the ground failed to find the animals.

However, specially trained hounds brought in from Dallas, Luzerne County, picked up the scent of a cat where Fisher was attacked. Trainer Chip Sorer said the dogs lost the scent at Annan Run creek.

He said more dogs were being brought in and the search would continue overnight and into this morning if necessary.

Several men carrying rifles said Friday they had seen cougars or mountain lions since the end of the summer. They said they were disappointed by the response of a skeptical Game Commission.

Fisher, who lives on Windy Top Road, arranged to meet with Game Commission officials Wednesday to express his concerns for the safety of his nine children. But he said he was dismissed when he told them he'd seen three cats — one black, one brown, one tan — on his property.

"They told me it is illegal to shoot at them," said Fisher, who still had blood on his hands Friday. "I told them if I see them, I'm going to shoot it," Fisher said.

Cheryl Trewella, the Game Commission's information and education supervisor in the southeast, said the commission is taking the report seriously but warns residents not to hunt for the animals. "We don't want vigilantes or groups of people going into cornfields looking to kill cats," she said.

Fisher said he shot the tan cat with a .30-06 rifle from about 80 to 100 yards.

"It went right down," he said.

He said both cats lost a lot of blood and that "both are dead somewhere."

Police and Game Commission officers called off the search of the area Thursday shortly after 11 p.m.

Trewella said blood samples were taken from the scene and from Fisher's knife. Test results will not be available for several weeks, she said.

Trewella said the Game Commission has received numerous reports of wild mountain lion sightings, but this is the first time anyone has claimed to have made contact with one.

"We do not believe there is a breeding population of mountain lions in the state," Trewella said. "But people have them legally and illegally."

Trewella said a check by the Game Commission with all the people in the area that have permits to keep big cats disclosed that none was missing.

Although there are conflicting opinions, by one account the state's last known wild Eastern mountain lion was killed in Berks County in 1874.

However, a Web site that tracks big cat sightings, www.easternpumaresearch.com, reports there have been about 1,500 sightings in Pennsylvania since 1950.

Intelligencer Journal staff writer P.J. Reilly contributed to this story.

E-mail: pburns@lnpnews.com