Cougar down 2024

[7t9cobra]

  With the new rules in place and a lack of cougars on my trail cameras from March through July, my season was not looking like it would be real productive. Finally in August I caught a break. A buddy picked up a nice tom on trail camera near my dad's house. Then another buddy sent me some pics of a cougar that was frequenting an area where he had several cameras which was only 3 miles away. The time was 16 hours from one buddy's camera to the other. Turns out one of them had him on camera for a few months. I put together a timeframe of 4-6 weeks between each sighting. Shortly after the neighbors in the area started talking about seeing him in daylight and not being afraid of humans. I put cameras out on road systems I thought he was likely to travel.  Sure enough, a little over 4 weeks after the last sighting he decides to make an appearance exactly as I was hoping for. Of course, it's a weekday and I'm at work. Sept. 12th It was 10:53am. He was walking a road that dead ends on a knob about 400 yards from the camera. At the end of the knob is a drop into a nasty drainage. I wrapped things up at work as quick as I could, ran home to grab my rifle and call. It was archery elk season so most of my gear was already in the jeep. I drove as fast as I could and parked at the camera. I was able to be out there and setting up in just under 2 hours. I walked to the end of the road and set up on the knob in the 25 year old timber. I sat down in 5 or 6 spots trying to find a spot where my back is covered and I have a good view of the approaches. The problem is I have no idea which way the cat went after the trail cam video. He was wandering around slowly, looking around. So I knew he wouldn't be very far. I finally set up with great cover to my back, but I have a large blind spot to my left which was a possible approach. There were 360 degrees of possible approaches though, so I wasn't too concerned. My call was 15 yards or so away. I started with full volume blacktail doe distress and after 3 minutes switched to calf elk for another 2 minutes. Then switched to RS whistles and MR pair. I ran a variety of vocals and about 18 minutes in, I start hearing stellar Jay's down in the drainage and they're squawking very aggressively. I suspect the cougar is on his way in. I can hear them slowly moving up the hill towards me. They start side hilling to my left and eventually come up behind me slight left. I trust that my call is hidden enough that he will keep moving. The Jay's slowly get quiet. It's about 25 minutes into the set and the Jay's are spread out in the trees above my call and eventually start leaving one by one. I start thinking they were just squawking at my call. Except for my call, it was silent for the next 20 minutes. I start thinking I may need to move soon, so I used cougar in heat briefly, then used one male adult sound then female begging. I was approaching the 50 minute mark so I hit pause and was planning on sitting silent for 10 minutes in hopes he would vocalize or come in to investigate. As soon as I hit pause I decide to lean forward slightly to look at that blind spot. The instant I look left, there is the tom. He is standing 24 feet away and already facing me and staring. He knew inwas there long before I knew he was there. From his angle he could see my rifle and arms. It was a crazy moment. We made direct eye contact and I swung my rifle over. I expected him to bolt or atleast change his facial expression. Nothing. It was still as a statue and didn't look nervous one bit. I put the crosshairs on his chest. (Scope was backed off to 6x power) at 24 feet it was a pretty crazy view. He dropped about 3 feet back from where he stood. After about 30 seconds the adrenaline wore off and I started getting shakey. I've never really had any sort of scary or sketchy experiences cougar hunting. My first two cats had no idea i was there. I realized this cat showed up around 20 minutes before I shot, saw where the call was hidden. Then stopped to look around and saw movement from me more than likely flicking a giant mosquito off my arm. Then just stood there staring. I have no idea at what point it noticed me, but I would guess it was watching me for a while. This last incident gives me an uneasy feeling and I think I'll be setting up a little more cautiously from now on. When I first walked up to him I noticed he had massive paws. It was 131lbs so not as big as I originally thought, but he's a beautiful cat loaded with a face and chest full of porcupine quills. I did manage to film the whole hunt. You can't see the cat until after I shot. But everything else is on film.

[7t9cobra]

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[Rainier10]

Great job. Great write up. Thanks for posting.

[pashok23]

Very nice cat, nice job 👍

[Scruffy]

Great hunt, glad it turned out as it did with him watching you it could have gone wrong....

[zwickeyman]

Congrats, nice Cat

[redi]

Great cat and story. Congratulations

[10mmg]

Great story. Great car congrats

[raydog]

That's awesome! Congratulations.

[MADMAX]

Love it
great story and cat
eat him, they are delicious

[Taco280AI]

Great story and job! I've often wondered how many times I've been in the woods with a cat watching, while having no idea it's there.

[HikerHunter]

Wild story! congrats on the cat

[Threewolves]

Very cool. I appreciate the prior intel and planing work, your plan came together very well thought out. 

[7t9cobra]

Love it
great story and cat
eat him, they are delicious

We plan on it. This is my third tom so we are no stranger to cougar meat. We experiment with different recipes quite a bit.

Thanks guys. My dad and step-mom have been wanting a cougar mount in their house for a long time. I just got my second mount back from the taxidermist a few weeks ago and I'm running out of room, so what better cat to put in my dad's house than the one that's been terrorizing the neighborhood behind his house. The crazy part is a bigger tom showed up the very next day less than a mile from where I killed mine. A buddy and I will be working on that one next.

[Longfield1]

Love it
great story and cat
eat him, they are delicious

We plan on it. This is my third tom so we are no stranger to cougar meat. We experiment with different recipes quite a bit.

Thanks guys. My dad and step-mom have been wanting a cougar mount in their house for a long time. I just got my second mount back from the taxidermist a few weeks ago and I'm running out of room, so what better cat to put in my dad's house than the one that's been terrorizing the neighborhood behind his house. The crazy part is a bigger tom showed up the very next day less than a mile from where I killed mine. A buddy and I will be working on that one next.

Correct me if im wrong but your hunting strategy is to use cell game cameras to locate a cat and if its during daylight and hes recently passed you head over and set up and start calling and hope hes still around? Thats a good plan. Beats the heck out of looking around in the snow for fresh tracks and walking them down. I may have to try this.

Could you share what camera your using?