Encounters with Cougars while bowhunting

[Tbob]

Wow. Very cool story!

[buglebrush]

I have been fortunate to encounter several.  The coolest thing I ever saw was a big cat jump on a cow elk.  I was watching this from 800 yards away through my spotter.  She hit the brakes so hard the cat flew over her head.  She then tried to stomp him to death, but he got away.  Sadly, I watched the cat angling to ambush her as they both headed into cover.  This was in spring bear season, and I am convinced the cow had a calf somewhere nearby. 

Once while on a sheep hunt in Idaho ( my buddy was the hunter ) we were glassing across a canyon.  My buddy decided he needed to take a dump and went about 50 yards away behind a little brush clump.  as he went around one side a huge tom slunk out the other.  It headed right at me, and I followed it with my .44 mag as it passed within 5 yards of me.  Sadly, I did not have an Idaho tag as I was only along for the ride.  That was a great day though.  We watched two bull elk fighting, and were charged by a black bear with two cubs.  Another step, and she would've been dead.  stopped about fifteen yards away. 

one of my cousins had a cat chase him off his fresh killed deer.  It was dark, and with only a scoped rifel he just managed to hit one of its front legs from point blank range.  There was about a foot of snow, and we were on its tracks at first light.  tracked it almost all day.  It circled back and followed us numerous times.  We found out later it couldn't tree with a shot foreleg.   Ended up shooting it from the hip with a rifle after almost walking past it less than 5 yards away.  Just caught the tail twitching out of the corner of my eye.  Definitely the scariest most awesome hunt ever! 

Have seen others, but nothing too exciting.  Definitely know I have been watched many times. 

[KFhunter]

While bow hunting:

Sitting on a stump cow calling and had one stalk up on me about 15 feet away.  I had no idea how long it stared at the back of my head, no clue it was there until I stood up and it bounded off through the brush.  There was a small drainage I was sitting right near so it used that to put the sneak on me.  If it wanted me I'd have been toast, but like most archery hunters the cat didn't know what it was looking at when it snuck in expecting to find an Elk and instead found a human oblivious to it's presence.   I use walkers game ears now,  would have been nice to hear it sneaking in and got ready for a shot - opportunity to take a cat was lost.



Another was berry picking with 2 kids and a grandpa and a bird dog.  had to ditch the atv's and decided to hoof it the rest of the way.   Got about a 1/2 mile in (we underestimated the distance) and came across a big tom that must have just sprayed a tree.  You could smell the cat piss wafting in the wind and sticking to your tongue -  nasty!

My little Britt had no clue she was about to get eaten as she was heading up towards the cat, I had a tough time recalling her but she eventually came to me then I used a belt for a leash.  We expected the cat to take off but instead it just sat there hidden behind a log.  none of us were armed

We decided to head back to the Atv's and this cat stalked us the entire way,  you could hear it just above us on a rocky ridge with brush breaks, occasionally it would break a branch giving away it's position as it kept pace with us.  Eventually it went away (we thought) instead it had run ahead of us and set up an ambush on the trail we were using.  it popped its head up out of the bushes just uphill from us.   I rared back with a big stick getting ready to clobber it over the head,  but it sat back down in the bushes and we eased past it (about 10 feet away) 

I went back up the next morning with a ruger 44 carbine,  it shat right in our tracks but didn't show itself.

I never go unarmed now.  Irresponsible to do so now.   I used to tromp through the woods pretty much every day as a kid, but there were no wolves and the bears/cats were chased with houndsmen so I was pretty safe if I didn't injure myself.  Not so much now we have uneducated wolves, bears and cats and more grizz than ever. 

I think you'd all be shocked if you knew how many grizz there are now. 

[wadu1]

Well let’s see what I can remember. The first one was on a scouting trip in the NE glassing a hill side and only seeing one beef cow when all of a sudden I see a cat *censored* footing towards the cow. The cat sprang from about 10-12 feet onto the back of the cow and it was down and kicking in few minutes and then lunch for the cat. The next encounter was at Swan Lake south of Republic in 1967 or 8, we were using the old camp kitchen as a place to sleep and cook. About midnight we heard a cat screaming on Swan Butte a little while later we herd some rustling in our gear. I grabbed the old metal Ray-O-Vac flashlight thinking it was a packrat but NO it was a cat sitting on the picnic table about 10 feet away. I must have let out a good scream because it scarred the cat away. The next encounter was on Vancouver Island, my cousin and I were glassing some re-prod in a foot of snow. I was having that feeling that we were being watched, after glassing and finding nothing we turned to go back to the truck only to find where a cat had crouched in the snow about 20 feet behind us. The last one was also on Vancouver Island, I was bear hunting and not seeing much in the re-prod so I used one of Rick’s bear calls to see if I could get some action. Boy did I get some action, three medium cats cruising through the brush straight at me and my cousin. When we stood up in our cammo gear when they got to 20 yards with guns ready that was enough for them. 

[Greg Mullins]

2010 on a cow elk hunt in the Mudflow. Walked in around 5 still dark and saw a shadow moving away from me in the road.It was still pretty dark and I thought it was a small deer.I was about 80 yards from it and in the low light it turned sideways in the road.It stood still for about 5 secs then jumped of into the brush on the right side and was gone.Wont lie Brett spooky in low light.

[Mxracer532]

I myself have never seen a cat but my dad has told me about a good freind of his (Jack Wahl) maybe spelled diff. But anyway in the 70's they were elk hunting in the late season and Jacks boy Rusty had walked to the other side of a clearing and stumbled on blood and decided to follow it. Be ended up on top of a cougar kill that was fresh and partially covered. As he looked around he caught a glimpse of movement and sure enough not 10 yards away was a monster tom crouched with his tail spinning ready to pounce. Rusty like 14 years old shooting a a compound with no sights (first year never shot a thing) ended up shooting it right square in the chest. He ran back and got Jack and my dad and they all thought he was full of *censored* till they found the cat dead. Not sure exact size but my dad said at the time it was the 2nd largest cat killed in Wa.