A few days ago PG 66 mentioned to me that there was cougar hanging around behind his GF's house, and it looked as if it had ripped up some fencing near the chicken coop, too. She lives pretty close to me and I have a Foxpro caller, so I was enlisted after being assured the path out to the back 40 wasn't too treacherous for my damaged knee.
I've never called in a cat of any sort, but since there are always coyotes around that area, and I knew i was pretty flat, with only one marshy area and a bunch of willows to get through, I agreed. I wasn't too confident in seeing a cat, but pretty sure we had a good chance of pulling in a yote or two. And, I figured that if there was EVER a chance of calling in a cougar, it would be now, where we knew one was in the area recently. We set out this afternoon, PG66 armed with his .243 and me with my yote blastin' .223...
There isn't too much snow around this side of the Pemberton area so it was easy for me to walk with the bad knee. Only downside was getting a bit wet in the marshy area. We arrived at our destination, which was an large opening among the willows and an area for us to sit in the larger trees.
We were sitting on the west side, the east has a rocky bluff that PG66 suspected the cougar of using. The bluff runs to the south and north. South is where I expected the yotes to come from, as it offers varied terrain including grassy wetland. The bluff looked as good as anywhere for the cougar to come from.
We set up the FX3 and sat down 30 yards away from each other, so we had all angles pretty well covered. After getting settled (and remembering that my nice little seat cushion was secure back in my shop) I started to call.
Bartell had suggested using a constant fawn distress call, so I started of softly at first, and then increased volume after about 15 minutes, and kept calling.
Usually coyotes stands only last 20-30 minutes, but Bartell had mentioned to stick at it longer, so we did, and continued past 30 minutes. By this point, my ass was pretty cold and wet, and I assumed PG66's was too, but neither of us had anythign better to do, so we stayed put.
I also like napping on stand, so at the 45 minute point, I was considering dozing off, when a twitch of movement from slightly up on the bluff caught my eye! What was it?
I slowly moved my eyeballs only toward PG66 and very softly went "pssst." He made a tiny nod, indicating he had seen the movement, too. The movement disappeared and then we saw it- moving through the willows totally fixed on the direction of the Foxpro, was a COUGAR!! But no clear shot through the willows yet
Bartell had suggested setting the caller up upwind in the clearing, so that is what I had done. Anything would have to expose itself to investigate, and that's what happened.
The cat moved towards an opening, and PG66's .243 cracked, sending the 85gr TSX on it's way. The cougar spun around, snarled and thrashed and was out!!
Both of us looked at each other with our eyes popping out of our heads, with a look of "DID THAT JUST HAPPEN??"
It was getting dark, and we were soaking wet and freezing from the waist down, so we collected Mr. Foxpro, dragged the cat back to the truck and couldn't stop saying "Did that just happen? No, really- Did THAT just happen??"
We snapped couple of pics in the dark, PG66 said he would take some tomorrow in the light, before skinning. This was the strangest afternoon I've had in some time. Ha!
I've never called in a cat of any sort, but since there are always coyotes around that area, and I knew i was pretty flat, with only one marshy area and a bunch of willows to get through, I agreed. I wasn't too confident in seeing a cat, but pretty sure we had a good chance of pulling in a yote or two. And, I figured that if there was EVER a chance of calling in a cougar, it would be now, where we knew one was in the area recently. We set out this afternoon, PG66 armed with his .243 and me with my yote blastin' .223...
There isn't too much snow around this side of the Pemberton area so it was easy for me to walk with the bad knee. Only downside was getting a bit wet in the marshy area. We arrived at our destination, which was an large opening among the willows and an area for us to sit in the larger trees.
We were sitting on the west side, the east has a rocky bluff that PG66 suspected the cougar of using. The bluff runs to the south and north. South is where I expected the yotes to come from, as it offers varied terrain including grassy wetland. The bluff looked as good as anywhere for the cougar to come from.
We set up the FX3 and sat down 30 yards away from each other, so we had all angles pretty well covered. After getting settled (and remembering that my nice little seat cushion was secure back in my shop) I started to call.
Bartell had suggested using a constant fawn distress call, so I started of softly at first, and then increased volume after about 15 minutes, and kept calling.
Usually coyotes stands only last 20-30 minutes, but Bartell had mentioned to stick at it longer, so we did, and continued past 30 minutes. By this point, my ass was pretty cold and wet, and I assumed PG66's was too, but neither of us had anythign better to do, so we stayed put.
I also like napping on stand, so at the 45 minute point, I was considering dozing off, when a twitch of movement from slightly up on the bluff caught my eye! What was it?
I slowly moved my eyeballs only toward PG66 and very softly went "pssst." He made a tiny nod, indicating he had seen the movement, too. The movement disappeared and then we saw it- moving through the willows totally fixed on the direction of the Foxpro, was a COUGAR!! But no clear shot through the willows yet
Bartell had suggested setting the caller up upwind in the clearing, so that is what I had done. Anything would have to expose itself to investigate, and that's what happened.
The cat moved towards an opening, and PG66's .243 cracked, sending the 85gr TSX on it's way. The cougar spun around, snarled and thrashed and was out!!
Both of us looked at each other with our eyes popping out of our heads, with a look of "DID THAT JUST HAPPEN??"
It was getting dark, and we were soaking wet and freezing from the waist down, so we collected Mr. Foxpro, dragged the cat back to the truck and couldn't stop saying "Did that just happen? No, really- Did THAT just happen??"
We snapped couple of pics in the dark, PG66 said he would take some tomorrow in the light, before skinning. This was the strangest afternoon I've had in some time. Ha!
What do you guys figure the weight was on that kitty?
