The big cats are coming back everywhere. The tree huggers have eliminated
every effective way of hunting them--you can't trap them, can't run dogs.
Anyone who hunts big game can tell you that there simply isn't any other way
to hunt these folks--they are much too wily and quick.
A few years ago (okay, a lot of years ago) I was bow hunting elk. The herd
I'd been stalking for the last five days was spending the morning in the
same meadow every day so I started there before daybreak. When the sun came
up enough to see, the elk were on the wrong side of the meadow, so I was
hanging out, waiting for them to leave so I could head to a good intercept
spot when I saw something moving that I first thought was a deer with a
broken back. It was making these short, kind of humpy movements. I finally
figured out that it was a cougar, about 50 feet from me. I decided to take a
shot since it was cougar season and even though I didn't have a tag, I have
a friend who buys every tag, every year even though he doesn't actively hunt
these things (yes, I know that's illegal, I'm a much finer person now). So I
took the shot. Must have been a little nervous because I shot over his back
and put the arrow into the bank 20 feet behind the cougar, and he whirled
and was on the arrow in a heartbeat.
Okay, I was probably a lot nervous--and guilt ridden. At that time I was
shooting every day and at fifty feet I can put five arrows into a one inch
circle with boring regularity. Still can, actually. The Cougar pawed the
arrow and sniffed it, then looked straight back at me, and vanished. I spent
the day watching my back. Did get a huge cow elk though.
A friend who is an extremely serious hunter later told me I was completely
suicidal or simply stupid to take a whack at a cougar with a bow without
backup. He told me about a time he was rifle hunting elk in Eastern Oregon,
and was glassing a nice bull at about 450 yards on the edge of a clear-cut.
He was waiting to see which way it headed, when he saw a flash of brown as a
cougar covered about 100 feet from the edge of the cover to the elk in a
couple of seconds and was on the elk's back. The cougar hooked the elk's
nose with a paw and bent the neck back. He could hear it crack from where he
was. The elk went from grazing to dead in less than five seconds. The cougar
picked up the bull elk (900 to 1200 pounds or more) and dragged it into the
cover.
He figured this had to be a monster cougar, so he went back to town and
found a buddy with a cougar tag. They went back to the kill and set up a
blind. Two days later they shot it--a healthy but unremarkable 85 pound
female.
Point being, these are very fast animals, nothing but muscle, claws and an
appetite. Nothing to mess with. While there have only been 8 known cougar
attacks in the last fifty years in Oregon, three of them happened in the
last two years. I think in California and Colorado the recency ratio is even
worse. They are the top of the food chain unless you have a .270, and even
then, watch your back.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@Autox.Team.Net [mailto:owner-fot@Autox.Team.Net] On Behalf
Of Group44TR7@aol.com
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 6:13 AM
To: gasket.works@gte.net
Cc: fot@Autox.Team.Net
Subject: Mordy's Wild Game Farm
In a message dated 1/15/2005 5:22:20 PM Pacific Standard Time,
gasket.works@gte.net writes:
Pintos, cougars, jaguars, panteras, mustangs, eagles, hornets, beetles,
scorpions, vipers, .... were will this end?
Mordy's Wild Game Farm with VIP Tours in Vintage Triumph Convertibles !!!
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