Big10gauge
New member
Thought I would share a experience from earlier last week.
An old hunting buddy came up to the place earlier this week and wanted me to call in a bear for him so we took off in my jeep up to the start of a old skid road that lead up to a 8 yr old clear-cut on a steep hill. I decided to take my bow since he carried his 300 win mag in case of a elk or nice buck showed up. Once we reached the clear-cut both of us sat down and started to watch for any activity and about two minutes into this I thought I heard a cow elk talking so I pulled out my diaphragm call and gave a couple of cow calls but no response so I thought maybe I just mistook some bird call for a elk. After about thirty more minutes of sitting at the lower edge of the clear-cut and not seeing much it was time to move into a calling spot for bears. After walking further up the skid road I just happened to look up the road and a cougar walks across the road and into the brush about 60 feet ahead of us. I tell my buddy and we go up to where it crossed and start scanning the hillside, my buddy spots it on the hillside about 70 yrds away and points it out to me, the cat was going thru the fairly thick brush but could catch a glimpse of it every now and again. We started talking about what a great surprise that was when all of a sudden about 15 feet behind us a cougar comes out of the brush and scrambles across a old log in the road, I give chase to try to tree it but I guess the cat figured I was a 204 lb weakling and so wasn’t intimated in the least . After cleaning ourselves up a bit after that encounter we figured that the 1st cat I saw had crossed the road and was crouched down in the thick brush just off the road all the time we were standing there. I remembered that the Foxpro had some cougar sounds on it so we set up to try to call in one of the cats. The call ended up exactly 51 yrds from where we decided to sit but at a somewhat steep downward angle but couldn’t find a better spot without exposing ourselves in the clear-cut. I found a sound called a cougar whistle so I played it once (realizing that was what I had mistook earlier for a cow elk) and also got a immediate answer from 2 different locations on the hillside where we glimpsed the one earlier going thru the brush. So now we had three cougars in the area that we knew of. I used the cougar whistle several times over a twenty minute period and got responses back that were closer each time. After about the thirty five minute mark using the whistle wasn’t getting a response and I was wondering if they might be near the call but just crouched down and watching kinda like what a bobcat does so I tried a sound called cougar in heat, immediately a cat came screaming and growling out of the road it’s ears laid back and was eyeing my Foxpro like “what the heck is this”? The cat was so intent on the Foxpro I stood up and pulled back, put the 50 yrd pin right behind its shoulder and watched the arrow as it sailed 1 inch over it’s back. We called some more but nothing else came in. I went and retrieved my arrow and let my bud give me a hard kick in the [beeep]. When we finally settled down I told him that I really didn’t mind that much about missing since bringing home a cougar would have only been a small part of a overall great experience and he was in total agreement. But I think I am now hooked on calling cats and may have found this winter’s sport.
An old hunting buddy came up to the place earlier this week and wanted me to call in a bear for him so we took off in my jeep up to the start of a old skid road that lead up to a 8 yr old clear-cut on a steep hill. I decided to take my bow since he carried his 300 win mag in case of a elk or nice buck showed up. Once we reached the clear-cut both of us sat down and started to watch for any activity and about two minutes into this I thought I heard a cow elk talking so I pulled out my diaphragm call and gave a couple of cow calls but no response so I thought maybe I just mistook some bird call for a elk. After about thirty more minutes of sitting at the lower edge of the clear-cut and not seeing much it was time to move into a calling spot for bears. After walking further up the skid road I just happened to look up the road and a cougar walks across the road and into the brush about 60 feet ahead of us. I tell my buddy and we go up to where it crossed and start scanning the hillside, my buddy spots it on the hillside about 70 yrds away and points it out to me, the cat was going thru the fairly thick brush but could catch a glimpse of it every now and again. We started talking about what a great surprise that was when all of a sudden about 15 feet behind us a cougar comes out of the brush and scrambles across a old log in the road, I give chase to try to tree it but I guess the cat figured I was a 204 lb weakling and so wasn’t intimated in the least . After cleaning ourselves up a bit after that encounter we figured that the 1st cat I saw had crossed the road and was crouched down in the thick brush just off the road all the time we were standing there. I remembered that the Foxpro had some cougar sounds on it so we set up to try to call in one of the cats. The call ended up exactly 51 yrds from where we decided to sit but at a somewhat steep downward angle but couldn’t find a better spot without exposing ourselves in the clear-cut. I found a sound called a cougar whistle so I played it once (realizing that was what I had mistook earlier for a cow elk) and also got a immediate answer from 2 different locations on the hillside where we glimpsed the one earlier going thru the brush. So now we had three cougars in the area that we knew of. I used the cougar whistle several times over a twenty minute period and got responses back that were closer each time. After about the thirty five minute mark using the whistle wasn’t getting a response and I was wondering if they might be near the call but just crouched down and watching kinda like what a bobcat does so I tried a sound called cougar in heat, immediately a cat came screaming and growling out of the road it’s ears laid back and was eyeing my Foxpro like “what the heck is this”? The cat was so intent on the Foxpro I stood up and pulled back, put the 50 yrd pin right behind its shoulder and watched the arrow as it sailed 1 inch over it’s back. We called some more but nothing else came in. I went and retrieved my arrow and let my bud give me a hard kick in the [beeep]. When we finally settled down I told him that I really didn’t mind that much about missing since bringing home a cougar would have only been a small part of a overall great experience and he was in total agreement. But I think I am now hooked on calling cats and may have found this winter’s sport.
