Calling Cougars?

[Okanagan]

Bango, good photo record.  I saw the same sequence in the snow where a pack of wolves had pulled down a  moose.  I was flying in a STOL plane in Alaska with a trapper friend, following the tracks of a pack of wolves on a frozen snow covered river when we came to where they had killed a moose, with the remains of the dead moose on the river ice.  At tree top level it was clear that the pack had jumped the moose from a thicket on shore, and pulled it down after the moose ran onto the ice.  The moose had gotten to its feet twice and each time ran a few more strides, and been pulled down each time.  Its eaten out carcass lay where it had fallen the third time.  Ugly trail of blood and tracks in the snow.  Bad way to go but that is the norm.

Worst mess of blood on snow I ever saw was where a wolverine had killed a button mule deer buck.  A rectangle at least 40x20 feet was trampled and body-pressed bloody snow.  The wolverine turned the deer on its back and ate down, bones and all till we jumped it off of the fresh carcass. The tenderloins and outer straps were yet untouched, but sternum, ribs, leg bones, leg muscles, entrails, lungs, and heart were all eaten.  Short stubs of ribs remained with chewed off ends. 

[Okanagan]

I'm still waiting for snow in my area. My first cougar tag is burning a hole in my wallet. What's a good non-electronic call for a beginner?

Closed reed calls are much easier to use and take almost zero learning to produce an acceptable sound.  Open reed calls require a bit of learning to "play" but are capable of producing a wide range of sounds.   If you are really new to hand calls, start with a closed reed.

Purt near any rabbit or fawn distress call will work on lions.  I'd get in touch with Rainshadow and buy one of his beauties.  If I needed the call today I'd go buy a commercial Primos jack rabbit or fawn distress or whatever brand your local sporting goods or even a Wal-Mart has.

 With many of the commercial calls, I cannot tell the difference between what they call fawn distress and jackrabbit or hare distress and sometimes bear cub distress --  and I don't think the animals know either!    If it sounds like some kind of small animal or bird in trouble, most predators will come check it out. 

[rainshadow1]

Just turned a moose antler base for a customer who wanted a "Royal" Cougar whistle....


RoyalCoug1 by Steve Tormala, on Flickr


Voiced it the same as the basic plain wood calls that I or one of my kids turn for my Cougar Packages. With a little practice it does a great Cougar Whistle.

[rainshadow1]

I have chased a ton of cats with dogs starting from the time I was about 12.  Caught everything from a 10 pound lion kitten in Canada to a 175 pound tom in MT which was biggest Tom I've been part of shooting. Only reason we shot this cat was because it was killing dogs. Caught couple bigger when quota was filled. Seen numerous cats while driving or hiking over the years but never really tried to call one in....

In places like MT and Idaho where you have quotas that maintain healthy populations I would be an advocate for shooting mature lions more so tom's. Only ever shot one female over our dogs. Being as I now live in this state that has allowed our ungulates to be mercilessly decimated I'm a strong advocate for as many predators to be removed as possible.

A friend of mine calls me one night says I heard a lion kill a deer right at dark...I decide to  go up the next morning to look around. I wait until there's good light in the timber and start walking up the old Rd. As I'm nearing the place that was describe to me the wind is blowing and swirling so I take note of the bend in the Rd and deer trails going through the draw. Perfect place to call see both directions of the Rd and part of the timbered draw. I walk up the deer trail and look for a kill site to no avail. At this point it's too windy to be effective calling. I like to be able to hear a little bit atleast while I'm sitting there calling in a wild predator. I know even then sometimes you can't hear them but I like the thought! So I decide to hike up to the top of the ridge and just look around. About an hour has passed since I checked out the area the kill was made or supposed kill and the wind had died down perfect! Game on!  I know this has been a long post but what happened literally took like minutes to transpire it was crazy!

So I walk off this Rd on same trail I had walked just an HR before...I go about 30 yds up the hill sit down under a tree...yep this is the spot...get my call out of my pack stand up walk back down trail just short of Rd turn around walk back to tree sit down...load pistol(should have used it) rifles already loaded...turn on contoller select rabbit call push button....second squeal is not even finished ...theres now a mountain lion almost standing on the trail I just walked up and down 3 times... raise rifle shoot...dead mountain lion...as it jumped into the air and did a flip I immediately started looking for the mother. This cat was just shy of 6 ft nose to tail and weighed only 50 pounds.

I know there was another cat nearby and I'm sure there was a kill somewhere close. This cat had to have been bedded down within 10 or 15 feet of the trail I used that day and when the call started it jumped up and was probably only 30 to 40 feet away.

Big Sky, would like to flesh out the call-in part of the post and get it on my website if possible? Send me a mssg?

[Bango skank]

Thats a beauty there man.

[rainshadow1]

Bango, good photo record.  I saw the same sequence in the snow where a pack of wolves had pulled down a  moose.  I was flying in a STOL plane in Alaska with a trapper friend, following the tracks of a pack of wolves on a frozen snow covered river when we came to where they had killed a moose, with the remains of the dead moose on the river ice.  At tree top level it was clear that the pack had jumped the moose from a thicket on shore, and pulled it down after the moose ran onto the ice.  The moose had gotten to its feet twice and each time ran a few more strides, and been pulled down each time.  Its eaten out carcass lay where it had fallen the third time.  Ugly trail of blood and tracks in the snow.  Bad way to go but that is the norm.

Worst mess of blood on snow I ever saw was where a wolverine had killed a button mule deer buck.  A rectangle at least 40x20 feet was trampled and body-pressed bloody snow.  The wolverine turned the deer on its back and ate down, bones and all till we jumped it off of the fresh carcass. The tenderloins and outer straps were yet untouched, but sternum, ribs, leg bones, leg muscles, entrails, lungs, and heart were all eaten.  Short stubs of ribs remained with chewed off ends.

Worst I ever came across was a Lion kill in the upper Dungeness. It had obviously been an ambush from above the road, the cut bank in the location was 20' high. Fresh snow, the entire full width of the roadbed was sprayed with blood for 70 feet. Looked like a gladiator arena! 8" of snow all churned up and mixed with blood. Quite the scene. I found a dismembered deer leg downhill of it, like maybe coyotes moved in and cleaned up the cashed deer. Definitely a Cougar kill due to tracks of the cat fighting the deer down, but there was no cashe. I thought I had a picture of it, but I can't find it, that was probably 2010.

Same era, over to the east of that one, I found where a pair of coyotes had tracked a deer up a road for over a mile, then squared off with it and killed it in a landing. Other Coyotes had joined it at some point. Not as much blood, but that thing was gone too! Just a patch of hair about a square foot sitting in the middle of the landing, looked like it was from the withers or thereabouts. Cold cold snap of winter, they were hungry I guess.

[KFhunter]

Just turned a moose antler base for a customer who wanted a "Royal" Cougar whistle....


RoyalCoug1 by Steve Tormala, on Flickr


Voiced it the same as the basic plain wood calls that I or one of my kids turn for my Cougar Packages. With a little practice it does a great Cougar Whistle.

I've got your regular cougar whistle, it lives on my lanyard and I can make very good whistles from it that sound just like all the youtube whistles      

[Bango skank]

Just turned a moose antler base for a customer who wanted a "Royal" Cougar whistle....


RoyalCoug1 by Steve Tormala, on Flickr


Voiced it the same as the basic plain wood calls that I or one of my kids turn for my Cougar Packages. With a little practice it does a great Cougar Whistle.

I've got your regular cougar whistle, it lives on my lanyard and I can make very good whistles from it that sound just like all the youtube whistles      

Ive got it too.  Makes a very realistic sound.  At first i couldnt get the sound i wanted out of it, but i found that blowing hard into it you can get the whistle just right, its a really cool call, just started using it this season, and its coming with me lion hunting every time now to use after im done making fawn noises.  One more ace up the sleeve to have for anybody targeting lions.  Replicates the whistle very well. 

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[KFhunter]

Ya, I do an initial burst of air at a pretty high pressure then quickly reduce the pressure,  I kinda do a wEEEeeeew and it comes out nice,  it takes practice to get the high pitch then immediate trailing pitch,  and now I can prolong the trailing part of the whistle  to  wEEEeeeeeeewwww  for a more begging type call, sometimes I'll throw in a bit of gravel on the end from my voice and the trailing part of the whistle will get a bit of rasp to it. 

[Bango skank]

Ya, I do an initial burst of air at a pretty high pressure then quickly reduce the pressure,  I kinda do a wEEEeeeew and it comes out nice,  it takes practice to get the high pitch then immediate trailing pitch

 

[bigskyhounds]

Bango any chance that's the lion that attacked your buck? Just curious that would be a cool story and make for a unique taxidermy opportunity.

[Bango skank]

Very good chance.  Same area.  I like to think its the one.  Got my coyote a couple days earlier in the same area too.  I figure if a guy is going to try to thin out some predators he may as well do it where he hunts deer.

[KFhunter]

Very good chance.  Same area.  I like to think its the one.  Got my coyote a couple days earlier in the same area too.  I figure if a guy is going to try to thin out some predators he may as well do it where he hunts deer.

There's that male too you thought mighta been near when you got that girl in your avatar,   but then the male mighta killed the buck too

so ya, I'd go with it

[Bango skank]

Yeah, more than 1 lion around there, but it makes me feel good to think i got the culprit, so im going to go with that.  Now next year i need to stick an arrow in the buck that busted up my bucks rack, and the universe will be right again.   

[gramps]

I had a very young Bull Moose walk right through my calling set a couple days ago.  His antlers were barely visible and he didn't look anywhere but straight ahead, didn't stop.  this was in the Blues.

In 11 days of calling so far I have only found one set of cougar tracks in all my favorite places.  But LOTS of wolf tracks and sightings of a single and 2 sperate pairs.  A WDFW employee told me the Touchet Pack had 6 pups this year....how is that old song?   Summertime and the livin' is easy