(https://i.imgur.com/TPyPr3o.jpg)
Friend D, who called his first cougar Dec. 23, called another one today that my grandson (pictured above) shot. Big smiles and fun stories. (Oops, make that yesterday Dec. 27 since it is after midnight.)
My son, his son R, and D hunted today and found a smallish lion track at 11:00 in sparse patchy snow up in nearby mountains. They hiked a half mile on a forest trail in the direction the lion went and set up in fairly open timber. D used his cougar tag four days ago so he told my grandson he would low whistle if he saw a cougar because he couldn't shoot it. He used his new Icotec Outlaw e-call on the stand, mixing prey distress and Rainshadow cougar whistles. D planned to add the caterwaul sound later but they never got that far.
At 14 minutes squirrels chattering made it sound like cougars were coming in from both sides. 18 minutes into the stand D whistled. He was sitting ten feet from my grandson and saw only 8 inches of a cougar's tail as it hid behind a big tree. Grandson R stood up and sneaked three steps toward him to see the slope in that direction. He had a better angle than D and saw a cougar sitting up 25 yards uphill, so he raised his rifle and shot it. He aimed at the front of its near shoulder as it quartered toward him. It leaped 20 yards downhill in one bound and tore off down the mountainside. At the shot my son, who was sitting below and to one side, saw a lion race past him downhill.
No blood, no sign of a hit, and no snow on that slope. They took nearly an hour to track it by scuff marks 200 yards downhill, where they found tracks in mud where it came down a bank onto an old skid road. They stopped to eat lunch and give it time, then followed it into thinned young forest strewn with cut trees. R almost stepped on the cougar. It jumped out from under brush 6 feet from him, running away. No shot. They left it for another hour, went back to their vehicle and moved it to the closest point on the logging road below. When they came back they found the lion dead under the heaviest and deepest pile of cut trees, 20 yards from where they had jumped it.
6.5 Creed, Barnes bullet. Instead of hitting the near shoulder he was a couple of inches off, which put the bullet into the front of the offside armpit and out behind that offside shoulder. The bullet never entered the rib cage but lungs were damaged, evidently by expansion and contraction of the wound channel.
Young adult tom, probably 80 lbs. or a little less.
This friend, D, has only made two calling stands, and called a lion to both of them. Both were tagged. He hasn't hunted any big game for ten years due to HS football coaching, and had never seen a cougar in the wild till the one he shot four days ago. R has been in on some with his Dad but this is the first he has shot. In the pic above are the antlers from the two bucks he shot this Fall, one whitetail and one blacktail. He also got a dandy bear, so he's had a great Fall season.
(https://i.imgur.com/QENwdER.jpg)
Very nice! Congrats to the young man. Nice write up too. I enjoy reading your posts.
Hes on a roll!
Thats awesome. Thanks for the read. :readthis:
That cat looks like hes been eating well :sneer:
Tell him congratulations on the lion. It does look like a beautiful animal.
On another matter. Tell him that the mask goes over his nose and mouth, not his eyes! :alscalls: :alscalls:
Thanks for the story and the pictures.
Wow! Great story. Congrats on the lion.
Quote from: KySongDog on December 28, 2020, 09:22:22 AM
Very nice! Congrats to the young man. Nice write up too. I enjoy reading your posts.
Thank you.
Quote from: FinsnFur on December 28, 2020, 09:53:17 AM
Thats awesome. Thanks for the read. :readthis:
That cat looks like hes been eating well :sneer:
He had quite a bit of fat on him.
Very cool and great story! I like seeing lion pics. We don't have any around here.
(https://i.imgur.com/otcm7co.jpg)
They prop a stick in the lion's mouth to keep it open during rigor, as requested by the game department. That makes it easier to pull a tooth when the game warden checks it, and all cougars must be checked within a few days of the kill.