Mountain Lion Encounter

[jbhtiger]

Wow, dlakney, that is a w e s o m e. 
Holy everything, that is awesome.

I haven't had a bad encounter, ... yet.  Mine are more comical.
Earlier this summer I surprised a cougar.  I was moving my trail cam, walking down a powerline road.  I counded a corner and that cat didn't know I was approaching.  And I didn't know it was there.  It was facing away from me, laying down.  We made visual contact at about 10 feet, and it took off quick.  My thought process was:

"wow, look at that thick tail.  huh, black on the end of it.  jeez, it's about time i see one of those." 

That took about a second, and then I started running after it to keep it in sight.  It just disappeared into the brush.  Exciting.

On a later recon mission, I realized that the cougar exited on a small game trail.  So I'll have the camera on there after I fill my tags.

I used to run lots in the woods, before work, pre dawn with a headlamp.  4am in the winter dark.  Over 1000s of miles, never had an encounter. 

[dblakney]

Thanks.  Any one else seen the cat?   I am amazed at how many cats end up on trail cams as well.  Scary stuff.   I don't do much solo hunting as a result of my encounter.

[Kowsrule30]

I've told this before..... But here we go.... Sat under a tree in the middle of a steep side ridge clearing..... Calling elk.... It was early AM..... Fell asleep..... Woke up for some reason...... Heard a low growl..... Made eye contact with a big cat ten feet away crouched in the cheat grass....... I screamed like a girl and tried to get it dialed in with the ML..... Had it dead to rights from there out to 150 yards or so before it hit the trees.... I could never pull the trigger.... Had what felt like 100 pounds of pressure on that 3 pound trigger...... Never took the safety off..... After I ran down the ridge side I realized I pissed myself...... Pretty much jogged the whole 4 miles back to camp with the Glock in my hand on a swivel..... Proceded to get drunk and start a raging bon fire...... Couldn't sleep and hunted right next to my Dad for the next 3 days.....

[denali]

  nice kowsrule

[sledjockey]

This was the only "close encounter of the fuzzy kind" I have ever had with a cougar (other than bars).

I spent most of my "formative outdoors years" in Wyoming so I had learned very young in life to always carry a gun while in the bush. When I was in high school (sophomore year) we moved to Orting, WA. We moved out to a little spread with horses and such outside of town and part of our property went up a big arsed hill and back to a power line easement. It was only a couple fences to cross and we had a straight shot from our back pasture through to Champion land to get to Mt. Rainier.

Anyway, I was a senior and out goofing around on horseback up on the power line easement above our house. I knew there was a pack of wild dogs that ran that area so I used to carry an old family heirloom 30-30 and had a cantle bag that I carried my dad's .357 in. No one ever bothered me since we knew everyone around, including the game warden that worked that area. As a matter of fact, I shoed his horses....

Now back on subject, I was riding my mother's horse and just being a dumb kid when all 4 of the horses hooves went out in opposite directions, her ears when straight back, she did some sort of a weird twisting jump thing sideways and she just started staring into the brush ahead of us. I thought it was probably the pack of dogs or something so I (note the age) thought I was all bad arse and pulled the 30-30 and the pistol. There were dreams of being Rooster Cogburn or something going through my head.

About 10-15 yards ahead of me a cougar stepped out and onto the power line road. The horse started backing up and ran her butt into a patch of blackberries. As I got off one shot out of each weapon (one in each hand), the horse jumped/twisted/bolted. The cougar did the same. I dropped both the pistol (broke the ejection spring) and the rifle (chipped up the stock but couldn't tell with all the other chips) almost fell out of the saddle. It took FOREVER to get the derned horse to quit running.

Long story longer, I learned a lot that day. I learned that I was not capable of pulling off a John Wayne stunt. I learned how fast that horse could run. I also learned that my father has no sense of humour....

[jmx369]

My a$$! You are a great writer. What a great read! Thanks

dblakney,

I have posted this before... Long read and I am not the best writer, but hope you all enjoy...

[Andrew]

The growl is what is impressive...and something you will never forget if done within a few feet of you!  I had a cat literally outside my tent in the Olympic National Forest along the Sol Duc at 3:00 am or so.  It's guttural growl woke me from a dead sleep, my buddy who was sleeping in his own tent saw the silhouette when I turned on my head lamp.  Needless to say we screamed our asses off for a few minutes...and probably didn't sleep the rest of the morning.  While all of this was going down my choc lab woke up and gave me this look like "WTF I was sleeping what the hell are you doing?"...she was completely unaware!  Following morning we went over to the Park side and talked to the same ranger who told us to camp where we did cause dogs weren't allowed in the 'Park'...needless to say the moron explained that they had two cougar sightings and one dog attacked within the past few weeks.  That information would have been priceless 24 hours previous!

Obviously my dog must have been the flavor of the night.

[jackmaster]

i do recall another little story , back when i had hounds itreed this medium sized tom probably around 110 to 130 or so, i struck him off of a fresh calf elk kill just off the road in the ferns, cat must have been full because the dogs only had to run him about 100ft and he went up in some old reprod about 30ft high, i got the bright idea to climb up the tree next to him and take some photos, it was a rush i wish i knew how to put some of the poloroids on this thread, they actually turned out pretty good for a 14 yr old punk kid, even got one with his mouth wide open growlin at me, talk about some chompers, it was to bad back then that you had to have a permit to get a cat. oh well maybe we will get hound huntn and trapn back when people start getn knocked off by these fuzzy little fellas