Cougar came in to a bear call yesterday

[Okanagan]

One of my grandsons called a cougar yesterday when he was trying to call a bear.  Black bear season opened August 1, and he was trying to call in a bear for his fiance.  I got the story second hand from one of his brothers at a family dinner tonight, so I'm not sure which hand call he was using, nor how long he stayed on stand. 

He finished calling and stood up to leave, when the cougar popped up from where it was hiding about 50 yards away.  It looked at them and then ran off.   

[Hawks Feather]

Well, you know he can operate a call. Glad the cougar ran away rather than toward them. Sounds like he has found a great girl if she wants to go hunting with him.

[FinsnFur]

I just wanna know if you guys ate all the apple pies at the alleged, "family dinner".

[Okanagan]

I just wanna know if you guys ate all the apple pies at the alleged, "family dinner".

Two large deep 10" pies, every trace licked up. 😊

One was fresh blueberries picked earlier that day from our garden patch.  The other was 3/4 wild trailing blackberries and 1/4 wild mountain huckleberries, a superb combo that was gone quickly, before the blueberry.

I make them fairly tart so they have a strong real berry taste and go well with ice cream.  I use raw sugar (Demerara) which gives them a hint of husky molasses flavor that enhances the berry taste, and use bear lard and butter combo as shortening in the crust, for explosively flaky texture and good taste.

Umpqua French Vanilla ice cream, though several people like the pie straight with no ice cream.  Pure sweet whipping cream is good on this kind of berry pie.  I'm reverting to my growing up days of milking the family Jersey cow that produced a LOT of cream every day.  Homemade butter, home produced milk, and cream on many things from macaroni to canned fruit.  Poor farm people's food in those days.

I still haven't talked with the grandson who called the cougar. He has been working a lot, both too busy so far.

[Okanagan]

Finally got the story from my grandson who called in the cougar and there is more to it.

He and his fiance set up a calling stand on spec, with no bear sign but a good area in a partially grown up clearcut with three big burn piles of log debris.  He called intermittently for 30 minutes using a a rabbit distress hand call and some bear cub bawls.  They did not see or hear anything to suggest anything was coming.  He decided to sneak away with as little noise as possible to leave minimal disturbance of the good area they hoped to hunt again. 

As they sneaked back to the abandoned logging road, he called a few times to cover their sounds.  They were circling around one of the piles of log debris when a cougar came around the pile heading toward them, much closer than what I had heard. Both of the converging parties were surprised.  After a brief and startled stare, the cougar turned and loped away.