Hunting Washington Forum

Big Game Hunting => Other Big Game => Topic started by: deaner on October 28, 2012, 08:56:32 AM

Title: calling cougars
Post by: deaner on October 28, 2012, 08:56:32 AM: finally saw my first cougar few days ago while deer hunting, but it slipped into the timber too fast for me to do anything about it. the area i found it in got some fresh snow and is thick with cougar tracks. lots of deer and snowshoe hares in the area, and judging by the tracks the cats seem to be hunting both. anybody have any opinion on which call might be more effective, fawn distress or snowshoe distress? looking for any tips from people who have successfully called in cougs
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: billythekidrock on October 28, 2012, 09:02:27 AM: Rainshadow is your friend!
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: gramps on November 05, 2012, 07:47:41 PM: I called and shot a cougar a couple yrs. ago with a foxpro caller and a dummy rabbit decoy. The whole story is on this forum in Feb'10.
I was using a fawn in distress and a cougar whistle sound. I and a friend have made as many as 50 + calling sets a winter for the past several winters so the success ratio is pretty poor. If you can find fresh sign of a cat then your odds are much better. i have called a lot of times (without sucess ) just because i know there are cats in that area off and on all winter.
Last week I called in a really nice bobcat in the mountains(5700 ft elev.) using a goat distress sound. There is not a goat with in 30 miles of where this cat was. I don't think the type or specie of the animal sound really matters as long as it sounds like an animal in distress.
Good Luck.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: deaner on November 05, 2012, 08:14:50 PM: bobcat to goat distress? never wouldve expected that. yeah im just going to have to give it a shot. got up in area im loking at after fresh snow few days in a row. soon as i saw the cat i went and looked at its tracks in the snow. next day more fresh snow and saw a track of similar size (may or may not have been same cat) with two sets of smaller cat tracks im assuming are from almost grown kittens. next day ,more fresh snow and a fresh set of cat tracks much larger than the others. tells me 4-5 cats in that area. one of them has to be hungry right?
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: gramps on November 05, 2012, 08:20:12 PM: Cats can travel a large area, but will come back as though they are working a 'route'....may be several weeks between trips. find a place you like and start calling....sometimes it takes 30 minutes or more for them to show. The bobcat mentioned above came in after calling for 30 minutes straight.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: Jonathan_S on November 11, 2012, 07:21:56 PM: Yeah, if they're anything like Robert Cat, call steady and keep a close eye because they'll just appear. Give it at least 40 minutes at any stand and more like an hour if you're on fresh sign.

Decoys work well because they'll give you grace when you move your gun.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: deaner on November 17, 2012, 09:10:00 PM: okay so i just looked at the game regs and there is nothing in there that says baiting cougar is illegal, has anybody tried this? if not for hunting even for trail cams?
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: snowshoes22 on November 17, 2012, 09:16:07 PM: track them if the snow/tracks are super fresh it has been working over here on the eastside the last couple years.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: deaner on November 17, 2012, 09:18:00 PM: yeah im looking at getting to a spot i saw one and have been finding tons of tracks in the snow. want to go try calling on the 20th when deer is over, but also wondering if putting deer scraps in front of a trail camera might not yield me some positive results, or if they wont come to bait like that? id love to get some pics even if i cant manage to call one in successfully
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: JimmyHoffa on November 17, 2012, 09:39:11 PM: Quote from: deaner on November 17, 2012, 09:10:00 PM
okay so i just looked at the game regs and there is nothing in there that says baiting cougar is illegal, has anybody tried this? if not for hunting even for trail cams?
I've tried it with no luck that I know of. A buddy got one of those freezer deals that came with tons of meat. His roommate unplugged it so we were unsure if it was any good. Anyways, we put out a huge pile of meat, fish, hot dogs, etc right outside a small cave where we found where a coug killed an elk. Then moved back from the site a few hundred yards to watch during the day and had game cams on it during the night--nothing showed. After we left it may have come to eat. I've been taking grouse carcasses lately, but no luck with those either. I think they want the live bait.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: deaner on November 17, 2012, 09:41:16 PM: well screw it ill dump a pile of deer scraps in front of a trail camera in the cougar infested spot anyway, and hopefully ill get something on the camera other than ravens and magpies. still think im going to go there to try calling them on the 20th.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: gramps on November 18, 2012, 07:19:31 PM: I have about a dozen pictures of cougars feeding on carcasses that they did not kill. A friend of mine has photos of cougars feeding on an animal that was not killed by the cougars and the animal was ripe as can be and full of maggots.
Sometimes they are not too fussy.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: buglebuster on November 18, 2012, 07:26:41 PM: What about tying a goat to a tree :dunno:
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: gramps on November 18, 2012, 07:42:33 PM: I don't know if live bait is legal, but a goat distress sound works well.
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: runamuk on November 18, 2012, 07:46:20 PM: Quote from: deaner on October 28, 2012, 08:56:32 AM
finally saw my first cougar few days ago while deer hunting, but it slipped into the timber too fast for me to do anything about it. the area i found it in got some fresh snow and is thick with cougar tracks. lots of deer and snowshoe hares in the area, and judging by the tracks the cats seem to be hunting both. anybody have any opinion on which call might be more effective, fawn distress or snowshoe distress? looking for any tips from people who have successfully called in cougs
we were running fawn distress when we called in a cougar, we had been using both fawn and rabbit it was on one of the fawn sets that the cat snuck in on us
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: CAMPMEAT on November 18, 2012, 07:56:13 PM: I used to call cougars when I was 20.................. oh never mind !!!! Worked great with my mouth call !!! :tup:
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: TikkaT3-270Shortmag on November 18, 2012, 10:06:15 PM: Get ahold of rainshadow!
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: Huntbear on November 18, 2012, 10:08:18 PM: Quote from: CAMPMEAT on November 18, 2012, 07:56:13 PM
I used to call cougars when I was 20.................. oh never mind !!!! Worked great with my mouth call !!! :tup:

oh yea.. those were the days... :tup: :tup:
Title: Re: calling cougars
Post by: Machias on November 25, 2012, 02:09:07 PM: I believe baiting cats can be effective, in the right terrain. I think the blues is perfect terrain. You'll need an area where the birds can find your bait and create a rucus, preferably in a lion crossing area and I think it is worth a sit. Put a trail camera on it and once the cat shows up, sit in a blind. You still should contact Rainshadow. One of my best bear calls for a long time was a javenlina in distress call. No javelinas anywhere near WA state, but it's an animal in distress. The bears or cats are not thinking, hmmm, no goats up here or no javelinas up here, must be a trap. Nope, they hear animal in distress and come in for an easy meal.