Was grouse hunting up an old road, came across this. Lot of BT's in there, thought this was a bruiser rub from a distance... but up close it looked like something I liked a lot less. The claw marks down the front looked fresh. Unstrapped my spray and kept on up the road, another hundred yards or so came to a steep bank with a very well used trail up it, disappearing into an old slash pile in some thick young cedars. No hoof prints up the bank, only a lot of what looked like claw marks. Bank was too steep to get any sort of definitive prints. I was by myself, and suddenly the shade under the cedars along the edges of the road looked a lot darker. I decided wrapping up my limit with another ruffy wasn't worth the goosebumps crawling up my neck. Say what you will, I've read a lot on here and know there's some dudes with real lion experiences that would probably laugh at this, but being new to hunting in predator dense areas, and doing it solo, that was way too much fresh sign in an area for me. Had spray and my O/U, but when the dark edges of the road bank are 5ft from your neck, the line between irrational and rational get pretty blurry.
