Hunting Washington Forum

Other Hunting => Turkey Hunting => Topic started by: RidgeWalker on April 25, 2011, 09:25:17 PM

Title: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: RidgeWalker on April 25, 2011, 09:25:17 PM: Hi All -

I'm new to the site and a bit of a rookie when it comes to turkey hunting. I've bagged a number of birds the last few years, but still am learning how to finesse those big toms.

I was out on Friday with my three young sons and getting a few long distance responses from some reluctant tom's. We moved in a bit closer to a couple of birds that seemed to be a bit more responsive and set up. I started calling and after about 15 minutes got another gobble fairly close. About that time I noticed a slight movement off to my left. I started slowly turning my head, thinking it was the gobbler but instead saw a Mountain Lion crouched about 10 feet away. I was just barely processing the fact when it leapt right at me. I started shouting at it and swinging my gun it's direction. It's front feet landed less than a foot from my stool, and whirled and ran behind me. I popped a shot over it's head and then ran to my boys who were huddled in a ground blind about 20 yards off to my right.

Now I haven't been turkey hunting very long, so I'm wondering if this is relatively normal? I've been using a predator call for years to call coyotes, bears, and cats but have never been jumped by anything. In fact most of the time they come in fairly cautiously. Has anyone experienced this before? If so, what do you do to prevent this from occurring? Would decoys help?

Rich Walker
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: blacktailcrzy on April 25, 2011, 09:29:11 PM: wow thats crazy most people never see one let alone get jumped but cool story thanks for sharing
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: phishisgroovin on April 25, 2011, 09:36:33 PM: dang, my roll of mountain money would have came in very handy.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: GoPlayOutside on April 25, 2011, 09:39:26 PM: 1 ft from your stool? I would have pooped my pants too!
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: ORCA_SIX on April 25, 2011, 09:44:00 PM: :ass:
:crap:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Alan K on April 25, 2011, 09:54:19 PM: Quote from: ORCA_SIX on April 25, 2011, 09:44:00 PM
:ass:
:crap:

:yeah:
:yike:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: longknife on April 25, 2011, 09:56:04 PM: Crazy story! Glad to see no one was hurt! Its amazing how many cats are around.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: predatorpro on April 25, 2011, 09:57:23 PM: i know someone that pretty much had the same thing happen to him while calling turkeys, heard a twig crack behind looks back and theres a cougar staring at him about 15 feet away, not as life threatening as your story tho! lol glad you made it out alive! welcome to washington!
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: agchawk on April 25, 2011, 10:11:28 PM: DAMN! Glad to hear that you and kids came through unscathed! I's be shakin' for weeks after something like that.

I BELIEVE that is a story on this site somewhere where someone had a similar experience while elk hunting. He was trying to get a bull to respond but ended up with a cat coming in for a meal. I've never heard of it happening to a turkey hunter before although I suppose it could happen to anyone trying to call in an animal that the cat perceives as a meal.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Wazukie on April 25, 2011, 10:12:00 PM: That happened here where I live last year, different ending though. The cougar ended up with about a 1 1/2 hole in it. Scary for sure.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Big game archer on April 25, 2011, 10:15:13 PM: Crazy! We've had a couple friends in years past call cougars to within about 10 feet while calling for turkeys, too. A couple years ago my dads buddy was walking towards us while we were calling for turkeys and he walked right up on a big cat that was laying down watching us from about 100 yards away. Scary stuff.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: JKEEN33 on April 25, 2011, 10:18:26 PM: Turkey is pretty much at the bottom of the food chain. Everything is out looking for one. I was calling to a tom opening weekend when I heard somethig moving. My dad nudged me and pointed out a coyote about 25 yards out in the bushes. I was surprised he was that close, but we had the wind in our favor. Didn't get a shot before he caught me moving.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: JimmyHoffa on April 25, 2011, 10:23:59 PM: Yikes. I have this fear every time I try to call anything. Need a bayonet.
But I did hear if you put up a goalpost near your site, the cougars won't come near it.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Wacenturion on April 25, 2011, 10:24:25 PM: I had a similar thing happen to me while I was turkey hunting in western Washington using decoys. Female cougar suddenly appeared 8-10 yards in front of my buddy and I ready to pounce on the decoys while we was sitting in a depression blind. The reason I know it was female was her two half grown kittens made it to within five feet of us. Had to spook them with hand movement as we were both completely invisible from camo. They were coming right at us.

Spooky thing was we had been scouting and crawling through the same brush for two months prior to the season armed only with a couple cans of coke and a couple sandwiches....lol. Really makes you think...they are incredibly quiet.

When you are out there in the woods in full camo, completely quiet and not moving and calling like a hen....you are in reality ringing the dinner bell. :chuckle:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: phishisgroovin on April 25, 2011, 10:26:09 PM: Two years ago i had a big one following me in the colockum, my footprints broke crisp snow and no other prints anywhere around mine on the way down the rvine, on the way back up though there was Cat prints in MY prints.

Scared as heck and alone (before my last back surgery) I was walking up farther about 200 yards when a small herd of 10-14 Cow elk crested the hilltop like freight trains with only a tiny tree between me and them, i could have gotten a few handfulls of cow hair lol!

I went back to camp right afterwards and collected my thoughts near the fire and coffee.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: one more on April 25, 2011, 11:25:31 PM: Twice I had a coyote sneak up on my decoys while I was calling turkeys. I bet cougars and coyotes check on us more often than we know.
Diane
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: PA BEN on April 26, 2011, 05:46:17 AM: Back in the 80's had a good friend call in a cougar above Chewelah, and another friend called one in out of Hunters. Funny thing about the one out of hunters, he was guiding a guy from California. The guy from California was so scared of cougars because he killed one that spring turkeys hunting, it jumped right in on him, the only reason he killed it before it got him was his shotgun was pointing at the cougar. It died in his lap. Anyway my buddy said this guy would only sit w/a tree to his back. They set up on an old logging road working a tom. The tom shut up, and down the road comes a cougar after the decoy. My buddy was a hound hunter at that time and said watch this, he jump up and ran after the cougar hollowing like a hound. The cougar didn't run at first, and then turned and ran. The guy from California about crapped his panits and said you washington boys are crazy.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Skyvalhunter on April 26, 2011, 06:01:26 AM: :chuckle: :chuckle:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: DOUBLELUNG on April 26, 2011, 06:26:04 AM: It definitely happens with a variety of predators. I think most of the time the predator catches on before we detect them, but it seems somewhere in the country every year a hunter gets jumped on by a cougar/coyote/bobcat etc. and has a shorts-staining experience.

I've called in two coyotes and a bobcat while turkey calling. I shot the coyote in NH at several feet range with a .22 pocket pistol. I was walking through a burned area in WY when a tom gobbled a long way off and i yelped in response. I saw a coyote come running down the ridge in front of me. I set up facing upwind, in full camo in a little dip at the base of a big ponderosa. I clucked and scratched in the dirt with my hand behind my back. I then kept scratching intermittently until he came in, belly crawling, eyes absolutely intense. He got a couple feet from my boots before he detected me and freaked out of there. Bobcat was similar, except I had no idea it was there until it blew up out of the sagebrush away from me, just a few feet away - that one scared the heck out of me!
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: pianoman9701 on April 26, 2011, 06:35:42 AM: The woods are scary. That's it, I'm taking up knitting!
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: farmin4u_98948 on April 26, 2011, 06:42:43 AM: Quote from: pianoman9701 on April 26, 2011, 06:35:42 AM
The woods are scary. That's it, I'm taking up knitting!

Aint that the truth... After an encounter like that happens everything makes you jump... I saw a bear one morning and the rest of the day even burnt out stumps made me jump.... Even Elmer Fudd is braver than me...
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: h2ofowlr on April 26, 2011, 06:57:35 AM: Had a similar event happen while archery hunting 3 years back. I was walking towards my buddy down a narrow overgrown road and he was about 50 yards from me. I don't know if the cougar was hidding in the bushes on the side or was passing through, but as soon as I had walked past it, which I didn't see, it sprung out of the bushes a few feet be hind me. When I turned to face it it jumped into the bushes on the otherside of the road. That was the last I saw of it. They could take you out whenever they wanted, so it seems, but so far I haven't heard of to many cougar attacks. You just can't hear them coming typically.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: turkeyfeather on April 26, 2011, 07:09:09 AM: A couple years back my buddy and I were scouting for the upcoming early archery season. We walked down to a creek bottom to check for tracks for potential stand placement, and while walking back out we found cat tracks on top of ours. We never saw or heard a thing. That made the neck hairs stand up.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on April 26, 2011, 07:10:51 AM: I have waited 25 yrs for one to sneak up on me ...... 2010 kitty
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: pianoman9701 on April 26, 2011, 07:18:46 AM: What a great looking cat! Nice kill.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: h2ofowlr on April 26, 2011, 07:22:01 AM: That's a big kitty.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on April 26, 2011, 03:21:21 PM: yeah that was the high lite of my hunting career .. I be happy now ...
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Andrew on April 26, 2011, 03:54:06 PM: Bowhunter45...what's the story I gotta here this one!!
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Tony on April 26, 2011, 04:01:27 PM: Had a Bobcat charge me while walking out of the woods after dark when hunting at Bethel Ridge. Since i just had the moon light i couldn't tell what it was that started running at me from about 100 yds away until it got close but i can tell you they are FAST. it closed that distance before i could do anything but it turn and ran off when i yelled at it. Ever know it wasn't a big cat it still makes you feel like crapping yourself.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: bearpaw on April 26, 2011, 04:08:21 PM: It's not common but I had three hunters stalked by the same cat 3 days in a row last turkey season. WDFW wouldn't let us take him out. :bash:

Most of the time you don't have to worry about it.

Nice cat BH45, you get him near where you took the photo? Dogs or call? congrats either way.... :IBCOOL:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on April 26, 2011, 04:39:04 PM: all my please do not mention dogs .... Believe me I had the run around with my favorite warden ....he just loves me ... :bdid: :bdid:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: lawdog on April 26, 2011, 04:48:57 PM: thank god no one was hurt especially since you had your boys with ya, and i know what it feels like to be severly spooked by game. a couple years back i was hunting on fort bragg NC trying out my new rabbit decoy and call i picked up from cabela's. long story short i had a pack of yotes basicaly run right into my ground blind trying to get at my wobbeling fake rabbit decoy. i almost craped my pants i didnt even get a chance to get a shot off before they had already gone 50 yards and there was no way to reach them with the shotty.
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: Birdguy on April 26, 2011, 05:36:03 PM: That is one of scariest things that could happen to e person in my opinion. I thought about it a few times as I took the kids out this year. I am thankful it turned out so well for you. Seems this happens every other year or so. :yike: :yike:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on April 26, 2011, 05:43:22 PM: My question is why did this post disapear for a few minutes .... HUH :dunno: :dunno:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: superdown on April 27, 2011, 06:28:00 PM: Here is a good joke

Two new members of a hunting lodge get introduced to its oldest member. They
ask him to tell his favorite hunting story, and he agrees. “Well, back in
1944 in Africa,” the old man starts, “we went big-game hunting. Didn’t have
much luck at first, but on the third day I was resting by a tree when I heard a
noise. Next thing I know the biggest lion I’ve ever seen jumped out of the
bushes at me like this…RO-A-A-R-R-R! Well, I just $hit my pants.” The young
men are amazed. One of them says, “I don’t blame you. I’d $hit my pants too if
a lion jumped at me like that!” The old man shakes his head and says, “No,
no, not then—just now when I said roar!”
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: BOWHUNTER45 on April 27, 2011, 07:16:55 PM: superdown .... sweet ..nice way to end this session .... hahahahahaha
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: demontang on April 27, 2011, 08:31:04 PM: Man I think that cat would no long be alive if it where me. Good to hear it ended well for both of you and the cat :chuckle:
Title: Re: Jumped by a cougar?
Post by: KLRKeith on May 02, 2011, 01:03:05 AM: Never a cat, but coyotes have hit my decoy numerous times. I always bring that foam feather flex decoy for turkeys but now I"m thinking it gives those big cats somthing to chase away from me! lol
Glad to hear everyone came out ok.