Mountain Lion info

[kituwa]

My wife has some kind of little yip yap lap dog that has been part of our home for nearly 10 years now. It is a small dog but thinks she is king kong. I have said if that dog weighed 100 pounds it would be the most dangerous animal in the world.Then think about a simease house cat. We had one of those that ran around the house once. Playing, it would attack your feet if you moved them, jump the lap dog like it was going to eat it, stalk imaginary prey in the house and pounce on it. Then one day our half timberwolf half american pit, was eatting table scraps out of a dish in the kitchen when the cat decided to attack the wolfs tail. The wolf killed that cat with one slash that was so fast you couldnt even see the movement. Anyway, watching that cat play, then imagine that cat weighing 100 pounds or better in the wild and you have that mountain lion.That is kind of a chilling thought really.Here you are, walking out of your deer stand through a narrow trail in the thick stuff after dar going back to your truck. You have the latest doe in heat sent sprayed on your boots and you are walking as quiet as you can not to spook any deer away because you plan on hunting that stand again at daybreak the next day. Then you think about that lion you saw on your game cam last week. Wait a sec here! I smell like a deer, i am walking softly through this thick stuff? The hair on the back of your neck starts to rise, now you are not so concerned with being quiet. All you wanna do is get back to the truck,lol.

 

[satx78247]

Fwiw, I would NOT want to meet the "ghost cat" (whether cougar or jaguar) that my ISO reported seeing several times on "3rd shift" UNLESS I had his pump-shotgun loaded with 00 Bucks as the ISO did.
(After I saw the photo, I always went about ARMED when out checking on my ISOs & the security of the armories.)

yours, satx

 

[Zonie]

Not a Jaguar



A Jaguar



This male Jaguar was seen and photoed many times in Southern Arizona.
Unfortunately, he was killed by some "scientists" who wanted to do some remeasuring of his weight and physical dimensions. The tranquilizing dart killed him.

 

[satx78247]

Tranquilizer darts are LETHAL more often than is ever reported by the media.

yours, satx

 

[hanshi]

Never have seen a cougar or jaguar in the wild. But I have seen and killed a number of bobcats. I can imagine what a bobcat might be capable of if one weighed, say 100lbs or more. Mr bobtail ain't called a "wildcat" for nothing.

Jaguars, which use to be common in the southwest, appear to be repopulating. The jaguar has the strongest bite of any of the big cats and also has a melanistic phase. IMHO it would be easy for a jaguar to be mistaken for a black cougar by one uninitiated with the differences or by someone getting only a surprised glance. It also seems that the mountain lion may be reinhabiting his ancestral grounds in the eastern states and in the south.

 

[sidelock]

I have not killed a bobcat and don't want to but I have seen many in the woods over the years. I saw the biggest one I have ever seen last summer while I was trout fishing. he was after a sandhill crane and must have weighed 60 pounds. Many years ago I was turkey hunting in Surry county VA. It had rained during the night and I was sneaking along a logging road a daybreak listening for turkey activity. I stopped to listen standing tight up against the brush on one side when out of the woods on the other side stepped a bobcat. He??? went to the middle of the road no more than 12' from me and shook the wetness off him, licked his paws, straightened up and waked down that lane like he was a king and out of sight.

 

[Nativearizonan]

One time I volunteered to help a State Wildlife Manager (game warden) track an elk that a hunter had reportedly wounded and never followed up on just the day before. I had crossed the track of it earlier when I was out hiking and took him to that point to start trying to follow it. There was one larger elk and a smaller one, but the larger one, a cow, was the one bleeding. We followed the track across a couple of dry canyons and then dropped off into one with a creek in it and big locust thicket. I didn't have a weapon except a heavy duty walking stick, made from a locust stave about 5' long. The WM had his issue 9mm side arm. We followed the tracks right through the thicket, where visibility on both sides of the trail was 15' or less. We lost the track in the thicket and kept circling around the thicket trying to find out where it came out. He found a small track going into the thicket and so we pushed into the thorns and there in the thicket was a fresh killed elk covered with leaves and small dead branches. It was the younger one. We both knew it was a lion kill, and one of the elk we had been tracking. So we talked pretty loudly, he unsnapped his holster and kept his hand resting on the butt of his gun as we walked out. I felt safe enough with a big stick in my hand at ready. I figured a long time ago it would be better to already have a weapon in your hand if you ever had a run in like that. We did find the larger track leaving the thicket, but never found the wounded cow, and figured it hadn't been hit so badly and had kept on traveling. We tracked the thing for about 5 miles.

The WM was an area supervisor, an older guy, about my age, and a good tracker. He died later in an unfortunate helicopter wreck while doing a game survey. His eyes sure got big that day.

I found a lion kill deer one time while I was by myself that was just as fresh. I wasn't armed that day either and didn't have my walking stick that day, but I picked up a couple of big rocks and carried them until I was well away from that kill.

 

[Shifty]

Just the other day i was deer hunting and was sitting a little ways up a ridge watching a travel route at about 3 pm ( i usually do better at mid day)when i see movement this is a thick area so i keep looking and see a Bobcat just walking through like he is on his way somewhere, well i was so intent on watching him that i didn't see the buck that was following about ten minutes behind him until he was just there,i missed,dang it.I was surprised to see the deer coming in just in the very same area as the cat.