Called another Cougar, No shot. Yesterday's hunt...

[rainshadow1]

I'm going to try to take you guys along here, as best I can.

I called in another Cougar yesterday.

This is about 4000 feet average. It's been a DISMAL snow year this year, with no real Winter snow since Christmas.

We've gotten 2, maybe 3 high snows in the past 10 days. As you'll see, they've pretty much melted right back to about 5000 ft. There's not much snowpack in the Mountains this year.
  
I went with a friend who has a Cougar tag, in hopes of getting another one on Video. We picked a ridgeline and decided to pound it all day.

 


Our first stand we came close. Here's the stand...

 

We climbed up the ridge about 600 yards above the FS road. Decent visibility for this area. Good sign. We found this scratch just before the bench we set-up on...

 
Mound is on the left, the claw marks are on the right. You can see two distinct ruts.

 
The same scratch, only from behind the mound, with the claw ruts out past.


 We set up and called for about 40 minutes (10 or so minutes of prey distress, followed by a sequence of RS Cougar Vocals, with an intermittent distress scream every now and then) when we both heard a distinct SubAdult whistle from up and left. We continued to call on it until about 70 minutes. Nothing showed.

I allow the tiny, tiny, tiny possibility to remain in my mind that it wasn't a Cougar because it's so warm already that the Northern Flickers have moved back in. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Flicker. We didn't hear any of them before or after. (On the third stand, we actually heard a Flicker, similar sound, but it was obviously a bird. Chirpy, and over and over again. This wasn't birdy like that, it was a single whistle.)

My hunting partner is also a very experienced Cougar caller, he and I were both convinced it was a cat, so we decided to stalk that direction and see what we could find.

 

Here's what we came to about 200 yards around the ridge...

 


Steep I mean wall-like steep, cliffs, rocks, scrub, from our side there was a real good game trail every 75 yards or so, funnelling into this south facing ridge.  

We decided to sit right there and do a quick stand, hoping to make it show itself, or at least call back.

Here's where I messed up...

I turned on the minaska remote, pressed " bank - 0 - 2 " to start RS Cougar Up, then started bumping the volume up listening for it to get louder and louder, starting from minimum. What I didn't realize was that "2" didn't take, I didn't push it clean. And I was jacking up the volume with the sound paused. I realized I'd short stroked the "2" so I hit it again...

A happy, excited Cougar vocal went blasting up the mountianside at full volume!

A nanosecond later something BOLTED from about 100 yards above and left of us. Rocks came tumbling down. We were totally busted! We wasted the next 15 minutes trying to call it back, but I'm sure it was scared out of the country!


Here's a handheld video clip after we gave up and before we headed down...

318 post clip.m2ts



We went down two ridges and tried it again. Ended up doing 5 stands. Nothing doing. Found some interesting stuff and took a couple pics....

[rainshadow1]

 
Another scenic along the ridge we were working. The cliff above goes for a couple miles and works as a funnel for moving game. A high percentage cold calling area.




 
Heading back down from stand #2.




 
The drainage. We were working about 5 miles of the West side, east facing slope.




 
A swamp bottom we called at the end of the day on the way back to civilization. (Squirrels & Birds.)




 
Bobcat territorial marking dookie!




 
Ever heard me talking about "turd shaped deer hair?" This is it! Cougar scat between stand 3 and stand 4.




Overall, a very good day to be in the mountains! Bright glaring sunshine, but still cool air, probably high 30's.

A good day, especially getting that close to one in a cold calling situation.

My hunting partner and I determined that there's a pretty good chance we called a young cat who was in the midst of getting pushed around and relocated by older and bigger cats. If that was the case, it stands to reason that it was very timid and skittish. Wanted to come in (called to us) but was too intimidated to get all the way in.

[bowhunterforever]

Nice read and pics!

[mulehunter]

  Nice.....     glad u had fun.

Mulehunter

[rainshadow1]

Got the video working. You might have to hit the little arrow and change it from 1080p to a lower number, 1080p takes forever to download.

[jackelope]

C-Ride is missing his opportunities!!!
I better give him a swift kick in the arse!

[rainshadow1]

I keep tellin' him!

("Nooooo, I need a new gunnnnnn!!!!")

My partner yesterday had a 7mag! That'll work!

[bucklucky]

OOPS  Nice read Rainshadow. Sounds like a nice day in the mountains!

[jackelope]

I keep tellin' him!

("Nooooo, I need a new gunnnnnn!!!!")

My partner yesterday had a 7mag! That'll work!

 

[rainshadow1]

  At this point, anyone's welcome. I really want to get another cat on video... only 10 days left in the unrestricted areas.

[Pathfinder101]

Super cool Rainshadow.  U da man!

[carpsniperg2]

great read and pics makes us poor saps feel like we were there

[rainshadow1]

It was a good day.

[saylean]

Cool read Rainshadow. Good tips to learn from.

Thanks~

[Houndhunter]

dang 2 in one year! do you ever hear them making noise when they come in? i have some family that has called in a few or just been at the right place at the right time and they said they sound almost like a bird cherping, you ever heard anything like this?

[rainshadow1]

That's what this one sounded like, like I said in the story.

I've heard about 5 different kinds of vocal responses, the whistle is the most common.

[gramps]

Missed this post.  Sounds exciting..nice day Steve.

[Houndhunter]

That's what this one sounded like, like I said in the story.

I've heard about 5 different kinds of vocal responses, the whistle is the most common.

you ever mimick hte sounds they make when calling?

[rainshadow1]

Not alot of opportunity to experiment, but so far I'm pretty good percentage just continuing what I was doing when they called back.

Read through my call-in story page, and youll get a good idea of stands that succeeded, and stands that almost did!

[elkman54]

Have you ever used your e caller while in a portable ground blind?

[rainshadow1]

No, it would work, but I rarely set up so close to the road, or in such accomodating locations as to make a ground blind realistic... If I did, it would work, I don't have any doubt about it.

Ed Blankenship, of Gobbler's End Turkey Calls, has had a Cougar walk right past him in his ground blind.