NE corner critters

[bearpaw]

Sorry RugerRay, for getting off topic. If you want me to remove these off-topic posts just send me a message and I'll clean it up.

[RugerRay]

There's nothing to be sorry about. Pictures can easily provoke discussion, so no worries at all! I agree with you and KFhunter. I get pictures of cows and their calves on this camera every spring, and the cows eventually start showing up solo towards the fall. I hunt the area where the camera is quite a bit, and have yet to see a cow with a calf in person once fall comes.

[logola512c]

There's probably a good thread on it somewhere (but I couldn't find it with a quick search), but is there any (relatively) easy way to target cats?  I feel like it should be just like bears (find their food source) but the problem with cats is that their food source happens to always be moving and hiding.  Especially on the wet side of the mountains where I spend most of my hunting time.  Any hints other than going out right after it snows to look for tracks and/or checking the WDFW cougar sightings updates?  I'd love to get some cougar meat to experiment with and save some ungulates...

[bearpaw]

There's probably a good thread on it somewhere (but I couldn't find it with a quick search), but is there any (relatively) easy way to target cats?  I feel like it should be just like bears (find their food source) but the problem with cats is that their food source happens to always be moving and hiding.  Especially on the wet side of the mountains where I spend most of my hunting time.  Any hints other than going out right after it snows to look for tracks and/or checking the WDFW cougar sightings updates?  I'd love to get some cougar meat to experiment with and save some ungulates...

These are the options that I know of to use in Washington:

- Accidentally stumble upon one
- Find tracks and walk them down
- Look for ravens, watch a deer kill
- Use a predator call
- Bait them

[logola512c]

There's probably a good thread on it somewhere (but I couldn't find it with a quick search), but is there any (relatively) easy way to target cats?  I feel like it should be just like bears (find their food source) but the problem with cats is that their food source happens to always be moving and hiding.  Especially on the wet side of the mountains where I spend most of my hunting time.  Any hints other than going out right after it snows to look for tracks and/or checking the WDFW cougar sightings updates?  I'd love to get some cougar meat to experiment with and save some ungulates...

These are the options that I know of to use in Washington:

- Accidentally stumble upon one
- Find tracks and walk them down
- Look for ravens, watch a deer kill
- Use a predator call
- Bait them

Thanks.  I've heard that watching kills and baiting don't actually work because cats are too fastidious about eating fresh meat and won't partake of sloppy seconds.  I have no idea if that is true or not, but it's what I've heard.  As for calling, I've tried that numerous times and haven't had any luck, but that's almost certainly down to user error on my part.  Who knows, maybe it worked every time and the cougars just didn't feel like eating me after watching me for a while.     But on one of those many tries, I did talk to two older gentlemen (a few years ago they were probably in their late 60's) who did share a little pearl of wisdom.  They said in the past 20 years, they had between the two of them taken a dozen big cats and a fair number of bobcats using a mountain beaver call near steap-banked creaks on the wet side of the state.  They didn't strike me as BS-ers...

[logola512c]

More on the mountain beaver ... albeit from the Seattle Times... 

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/the-pacific-northwests-elusive-mountain-beaver/

[logola512c]

And geez...now I need to apologize for hijacking the original post...

[LDennis24]

Back on topic! Lol That's definitely a piebald cow! I hope she makes it several seasons and produces some offspring with that gene. If you look closely in your pic you can see the speckling on the skin. Definitely a piebald. Or it has vitiligo... Lol