cougar hunting techniques

[joseph.rupp001]

This is a question for all you seasoned experienced cougar hunters out there. This is my first year hunting cougars, i could use some advice on areas and techniques/aids to fill the tag. Soaking down with blood and guts and walking through the forest to see what comes to me doesn't seem to be a smart thing to do. Wait...that may have been a joke on me.
 Any advice or pointers would be greatly appericiated, i live in Puyallup and work on JBLM. Thanks in advance.

[Kain]

You just missed a great seminar on how to call cougars.  You can go to rain-shadow.com an read a bunch of stories and buy cougar sounds and calls.

[gottatree]

The only consistent way is dog's dog's and dog's.

[bobcat]

If you can get out there when the snow conditions are just right, I hear tracking them can be very productive.

[Houndhunter]

get out there on days with fresh snow, either run em down or follow em, set up and start callin

[CAMPMEAT]

Trust me, it's not as easy as everybody says. Most guys don't and won't hunt them without hounds. They give advice and probably have never hunted them or have seen them. It's very hard to even find a track let alone follow them. I do it all the time during our very short season. I've got calls up the ying yang for just about everything that has to do with predators. I've never heard a cat answer to any of my calling. I have heard them crying, but that's all. I don't know how other guys do it, but it's very, very few and far between.

[saylean]

I have tried catnip at a trail cam...butI think I set up the cam too high...it was my first time setting it up.

[saylean]

I think I am gonna take a bath in that stuff and wander the woods...yes, im that desperate.

[Kain]

Catnip oil make good skeeter repellent.

[fair-chase]

I also have some of the mt. lion urine. I think the only reason I bought it was because the warning label stated that applying to body could cause an attack. That's probably the best advertising gimmick I have ever been suckered into. After purchasing I read several reviews that said it didn't work and they actually avoided the areas where the urine was placed. Don't know which is correct. Seems there are conflicting studies on the catnip as well. As in works in captivity but not in the wild. I would really like to hear some real world experiences with these. Seems like every article about how well they work is countered by one that states they don't work at all.

I have only called in two cougars to date. Could not manage to put either of them down. Misfire with the muzzy on one from a too close to call distance.    I may have peed a little on that one. Couldn't see the other one in the reprod from 20 yards but he made sure I knew he was there. Came up on my 6 and started growling at me. I may have peed a little on that one to.  Both came in to a mixture of cow calf calls while elk hunting. Both with open reed calls. I have tried several different mt lion calls on my foxpro but have yet to get a response. I have been putting that on hold since I lost the remote for the foxpro. I think I want to get some distance between me and the call (and me and the cat) before I make any more attempts.

Wish I would have made it to the seminar last weekend. I would really like learn more so I can put one on the ground.

Good luck to all. Keep us updated on how the catnip or urine works.

[Alpine Mojo]

Cougar hunting circa 1944...the good old days...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,774751,00.html


The trigger fingers and the palms of western cougar hunters itched at the news. For the biggest cougar kill of the season (eight cats—in nine days), Jesse Stockdale and his son Url, of Twisp, Wash, this week got a $400 bounty check—$50 a carcass—from the State Game Department.

Like all men who hunt with hounds, cougar hunters are out for more than money. They are proud of their dogs, of their skill, of their sport. A cougar hunter must be as rugged as the country he hunts —the mountain wildernesses of the western U.S. On the snow-covered trail of the biggest cat on the North American continent, sometimes grown to nine or ten feet in length from gorging on deer, the hunter must make as much as 30 miles a day. Creeping along rock ledges, plunging through rough timber, always pressing to keep his dogs within sound, he often follows a trail for days before he makes the kill.

Because cougars are predatory, there are no bag or season limits. But cougar-hunting is primarily a winter sport: scents last longer in snow than on ground soaked with summer rain. This winter, western snows are light and cougars are high up in the mountains. Hunting them demands supreme endurance.

To the Dogs. Smart cougar dogs can follow days-old trails, baying continuously so that the hunter can follow. Good hounds will keep the big cats treed for half a day until the hunter catches up. The West has developed its own breed of hounds—big, rangy, fast "black and tans." Hunters start training with a sackful of house cats for practice treeing. Only after two seasons of running with veterans do most dogs learn to disregard deer trails and stay on the cougar scent.

Most dangerous is the moment just before the kill. With a single swipe of its claws, a cougar could kill any dog or man that ever trailed him. But the big cats rarely learn. While the dogs are being tied up so that the cougar will not crush them in his death fall, their frenzied barking keeps the beautiful, snarling beast from springing. Some hunters have had to pump as many as 20 bullets into the vicious animal before he fell.

Because a cougar kills 40 deer a year, five western states pay bounties. Washington alone pays nearly 100 each year. Last week the greatest hunter of them all was oiling his gun. White-bearded John Huelsdonk, now 76, was beginning his 55th year of hunting the big cats.

Life Begins at 76. Until two years ago, when a road was pushed through to his Hoh River valley farm, "the Iron Man of the Hoh" packed all his supplies 20 miles by canoe or on his back. When trail crews first hacked into the fastness of Washington's Olympic Mountains, Huelsdonk earned double pay by carrying double loads—200 Ib.

He has killed more than 150 cougars, including the dreaded "Big Foot" which harassed the Hoh and Queets River valleys in 1936. Ten years ago the sport almost cost Huelsdonk his life. A surprised female bear made a swipe at his cougar dog, Tom, and sent him yelping 30 ft. through the air. The bear then lunged for the Iron Man. They grappled for minutes, until Tom came back and drew the bear's fury again. Huelsdonk finally reached his 30-30 carbine and killed the beast.

His legs ribboned from a dozen deep slashes, Huelsdonk trudged five miles home. His wife argued with him for a week. Finally the 66-year-old Iron Man buckled, went to the hospital.

[ICEMAN]

I would use Axe cologne as my cover scent...and hit up a few of the nicer lounges in the area. Be sure to dress well, brush your teeth and comb your hair. Have plenty of cash in your wallet as they are sort of expensive.   

[CastleRocker]

I would use Axe cologne as my cover scent...and hit up a few of the nicer lounges in the area. Be sure to dress well, brush your teeth and comb your hair. Have plenty of cash in your wallet as they are sort of expensive.   

That's a good one!  Seriously though, I was reading somewhere that "Obsession" actually will hold a cougar's attention, (that is the four legged variety), for quite a while due to the synthitic Civet Cat base.  I am not going to try it though, as I think if I came home from "hunting" smelling like any kind of perfume, I would have a fight on my hands that I could not win. The claws would surely come out and I'd have to pull a Forest Gump.  (RUN Forest, RUN!)