Cougar Encounters

[AJGUNNER]

 

[Mobuck]

So far, I've not seen one although I check for tracks after each fresh snowfall. Closest encounter was around 15 years ago about 30 miles from here. There have been some iffy sightings on trail cams but nothing good enough to be definitive. About 10 years back, I was asked to look at a deer kill about 3 miles away which was obviously something a cat had perpetrated but the morning sun had melted whatever tracks had been made in the frost.
Bunny cop showed up and gave the standard response: coyotes feeding on a roadkill. Yeah, right, OK, see ya.

 

[Daryll (Macbullet)]

Caught this one on a trail cam a couple weeks ago.

 

[arfmel]

That's a hungry cat. Look how skinny it is.

 

[Skook1]

A .500 Linebaugh 400 Grain LBT 30.0 H-110 turned this one off like a light switch.

John,
Beautiful cat, and love that 5.5" banded barrel on the 500L.
Russ

 

[buckeyeshooter]

I have seen 3, one in Hells Canyon, one in the Nez Pierce Wilderness Area and one in the Lolo area of Idaho. I was bear hunting all three times doing spot and stalk and they just ambled by and did not even know I was there.

 

[mirglip]

I have seen 3, one in Hells Canyon, one in the Nez Pierce Wilderness Area and one in the Lolo area of Idaho. I was bear hunting all three times doing spot and stalk and they just ambled by and did not even know I was there.

You are a very stealthy hunter not to be seen by their keen senses. I figure for each one I see, a dozen see me.

 

[Garth69]

I've had several Cougar run-ins while out and about some close enough to touch. One in particular. I took a female friend that wanted to video deer out one evening to a lease that was sure to present plenty of opportunity. I put a small brush blind in front of us looking out on a wheat field behind was a deep dry creek bed. Wind was in our favor it wasn't long b4 deer came filtering in. Sitting shoulder to shoulder on 5 gal. buckets I'd about had enough when all of a sudden several of the deer snapped their heads up and stared directly where we were sitting. The following turn of events played out over the next minute. So I say wonder what spooked'em. The wind didn't change. I 'm deaf as a post, use ear plugs, butI I can hear the Sony camera making a cacophony of sounds like a crackling groan like it was in a vice at the same time I hear her say hushed 'is that your stomach growling' I don't know at what poitnt in time she actually saw the cat but the death grip on the camera was a sign she knew some thing was up. I turn my head to respond and see a huge lion sitting close enough I can reach behind her and poke'em. Facing the field and a foot or two behind her intently watching the deer leave. As the last one jumps into the brush he turns to look me straight in the eye and I could swear he said 'no use hanging around here' turned and in a single bound hit the creek bed bottom 30ft. below and was gone. I've been trailed many times day and night but never felt threated. Was armed but didn't feel compelled to shoot. Tell me your story

I ain't got no story but yours is enough to let me know I ain't goin 5 gallon bucket sittin' in Texas!

 

[Rockrat75]

Only saw one when it ran in front of my truck, one night. This was about 30 years ago. about two weeks later, same thing happened to the wife, in about the same area.
Last year, Neighbor about 3/4 mile away posted a few pics of one loitering around the entrance to his driveway. Big sucker.

 

[Hvymax]

Saw a vid from Florida the other day where deer were watching a bear when a Florida Panther came onto the backyard. Bear took off deer split up cat chased one but got intercepted by the other deer and escaped.

Deer learned the Thatch Weave!!!

 

[Mobuck]

Some of you guys seem to have a fixation with cougars.

 

[Watertender]

Some of you guys seem to have a fixation with cougars.

At our age what would be considered a cougar to us would be using a walker and have no teeth!

 

[Mobuck]

In that case, I'll just say I've been 'stalked' by several (mostly in WalMart)

 

[arfmel]

I've found that that type of cougar is fairly easy to outrun

 

[Threespears]

Last week at my neighbor's house

 

[John in WYO]

John,
Beautiful cat, and love that 5.5" banded barrel on the 500L.
Russ

Thanks, Gramps and Skook1.
Here is his skull.
14 10/16ths"
7.7 years old.

You can see the slug as a knot on his near shoulder.
It didn't go all the way through even at 12 yards.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

I love reading/hearing about cougar encounters. I have seen them out hunting but only for a very brief glimpse before they vanished into brush or rocks.

I believe it was 1988/89 I was hunting in Beaver Utah with my ex-Father in Law (Great guy). He took me up a hill with big rocks on the sides. It ended overlooking a valley. You could tell where the deer were coming down when looking across. He left me there and moved to another spot we had passed heading up. After awhile I heard snow crunching thinking he got cold and wanted to head back early. I turned slowly to look behind me but nobody/nothing was there. Later just before dark I heard it again, and turned slowly to see him standing there with a big smile. He said "you had a visitor". I told him I heard another hunter come up but must have seen me and left. He said "it was definitely a hunter and you are lucky it left" as he continued laughing. I walked up to him, a bit confused what was so funny. He said "look, here's your visitor" as he pointed at cat tracks over top of our tracks. It gave me a bit of an uneasy feeling for sure. He said they just appeared out of nowhere close to the trails end as he was heading up to me. That cat was maybe 12-15 feet behind me at one point. It just seemed to appear and vanish. The tracks anyway, never saw the cat.

Another time we were on a ground squirrel shoot in a valley in Ramona California. The rancher loved that we were interested in this as he had livestock that grazed in the valley and squirrel holes are a problem, like groundhog holes are here in the east. We walked to an area that had a bunch of trees to get out of the sun for a bit. A friend of mine sat down and leaned up against a tree. He looked up, and noticed a clump of hair and legs in the tree. Turned out to be a goat. We showed the rancher and he said he had been losing goats to cougars. We never saw one there before, and we hunted that place a ton for dove, deer, quail, coyotes. We also camped out there a lot with our families. We had been all over the valley, hills, boulders, you name it. Never saw a cougar or sign. About a year after I transferred back east my friend sent me photos of cougars in the valley that he saw when hunting deer and coyotes.

You never know out there. If you get the sense you are being watched you probably are being watched....

In PA people have been saying for years that there are cougars here....possible I guess, but all the predator hunting I've done a cougar has never been called in or seen. If they are here, why haven't they been caught on trail cams? PGC denies any confirmed sightings.

 

[any ruger]

Cougar on north shore highway 61 just north of Duluth Mn. Caught on security cam at a roofing company.