Cougar Central!

Pritch

Pritch

Joined
May 3, 2006
Messages
1,819
I spent Thanksgiving weekend in Eastern Washington bowhunting Mule Deer. the friend who invited me along brought an old wall tent and woodstove he had recently purchased. It was nice to have somewhere to get warm but we have yet to figure out how to keep it warm through the night.

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On Saturday, I decided to climb a VERY steep mountainside as it was steep enough to keep most of the other hunters away. Here is one of the more gradual spots where I took a couple of pics while catching my breath.

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As I started up, I started seeing a lot of deer bones. At first, I attributed these to bones left from prior hunters, which had been dragged off and cleaned up by coyotes.

As I got higher, the bone volume went up, and I started seeing lots of prints which did not have the telltale toenail marks of canines. some of these were nearly fist size! :eek: I didn't get any good pics of the footprints, but I ran across this scat.

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Here is a shot with my bow in frame for size comparison.
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At one point, I spotted a rock outcropping above me and thought it would be an attractive denning spot for mountain lions. At this point, although I reminded myself that I did have a cougar tag in my pocket, I thought it would be prudent to back away.

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About two thirds up the hillside, I finally ran across a pretty good game trail and stopped to catch my breath before deciding how to proceed. Within seconds, I heard some gravel skittering and looked up to see a big doe staring at me about 50 yards away, on the trail I was (stupidly) standing on. Behind her, another 4 or 5 does and yearling fawns started piling up. I have no way of knowing if there were any bucks on their trail as they turned around and went back the way they came. It turns out they were the only deer I saw all day.

Getting back down the mountain, I found this very close to our camp. It seems cartoonishly large, but, given the size of the prints I saw, maybe not!

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Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures. I plan on going back next weekend.

-- FLIX
 
That's a serious claw!

Thanks for sharing the photos.

With regard to staying heated all night, it's pretty tough with a smaller capacity stove unless you get up a couple times and toss more wood on. If I were trying to avoid interrupting sleep to add wood, I'd would lay down a good bed of coals then fill the stove fairly full (using the largest diameter pieces of wood I could fit in there) but keep the air flow adjusted to a low level so that the wood burns more slowly. Of course, you've probably already tried that.

Best of luck with your hunting,

DancesWithKnives
 
Great pics, and wow you arent kidding! Sounds like cougar central to me.
 
I was expecting to see pictures of hot older ladies outdoors! :D;)

Seriously though, cool pics of the environment and experience.

Definitely an environment you better keep thinking in. Good find on the claw. Never seen one with a size comparison like that with the quarter. I only have zoo experience with cougars (cats, now! ;))
 
sounds like a pretty frightening experience not knowing what might have been lurking above. Pretty cool story and great find on the claw
 
I love this stuff. Were do they live, in the rocks? We had cougars around here they say. That is a good picture of the scat. I guess they eat alot of food. I would carry a shotgun with me with 000 buck shot in 3" mag, if I was there. You need to hit them hard. I'm sure.
 
Re keeping the stove going at night -

The native folk up in northern Canada burn green wood in that situation because it takes longer to burn, thus keeps things warm longer.

Make sure you have a good hot bed of coals before you put the green wood in, adjust the air inlets and chimney vent properly, and be aware that you'll get more creosote build-up than normal.
 
Good point about the green wood. A couple times when I tried that, the green logs burned only half way. Guess I didn't have a big enough bed of coals under them.

DancesWithKnives
 
SO how sure are you that that picture of skat was Mountain lion? It is pretty amazing, I just found some skat like that in MA, very close to my hunting area. Heres my pic.
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Picture of a very elusive Cougar. Taken from cover as to avoid attack

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:D
 
- temporary hijack on -

This thread has gone to scat! :D:p

- temporary hijack off -

To the thread - how close did you get to the rock formation? Any clear signs close to it?
 
The Skat in my picture was in the middle of a long wooded driveway, and was filled with hair...quite a big pile for a smaller animal like a coyote....OK, what is my skat and what is FLIX skat?? Sorry FLIX, I dont want to hijack the thread..but our skats look alike as far as I can tell. Gene
 
Thanks guys on the woodstove suggestions. Note the propane torch in the woodbox to the left of the stove. My buddy has different ideas on firestarting technique than I do!

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Gene- I'm not sure that the scat in the picture was from a cougar. I took a look at some online resources, and given the diameter - which was .5-.75", it might have been bobcat or lynx.

cmdr249 - I got right to the edge of the rocks when I thought I ought to skirt them. (Partially out of concern about getting a face full of feline and partially because the ground rocks were crumbly and loose, making the already sketchy footing even worse, and offering no reliable handholds.
The scat was directly on a vertical "trail" leading up to the rocks, but other than that, I didn't see any specific evidence that there was a cave or overhang that may have been inhabited.

-- FLIX
 
From the title of this thread, I thought I might belong in the Pirates Cove at first. Nice pictures and definitely an interesting tale. Thanks for sharing!
 
You might try gathering up all that Mountain Lion scat and burnig in your wood stove to keep you warm all night. I think the fresher the scat, the longer it would burn.
 
Man, thats neato. I bet you were in their area for sure.
 
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