Caller Safety: Situational Awareness

A big welcome to the forum SDH!!

If you watch the videos of Jim Hamm on CBS5 you come to realize just how lucky he is thus far.

First off, the back pack saved him from certain instant death ...... the cat grabbed his head instead of his neck.

He had great composure ...... reasoned things out under great durress. This served him very well.

And finally, he MARRIED WELL!!!! Her efforts through the attack and in the immediate aftermath are nothing less than STELLAR!

Without ALL of these atributes working for him simultaneously .... he would have been ... like you say ..... a pork chop!

I am sure it's illegal in California Parks but a decent handgun would have brought this ambush to an IMMEDIATE END.

Regards

Three 44s
 
Thanks Roy!

Well that WAS true! But the blade to that pen knife broke!

..... and when I went back to replace it ..... I spotted a nice shiney gun on sale .....

Three 44s
 
Last Thursday about sundown in heavy fog, down to 30 yard visibility at times, a partner and I had a cougar slip up behind us. I would never have known it was there if it hadn't called.

We'd hit fresh wolf tracks a mile away, hustled to where we thought we were ahead of them (we were wrong as tracks on another road proved later) and set up a canine stand. I knew we were giving away the best spot for a cougar to sneak up on us but we focussed on wolf.

We sat 60 feet apart below the top of a knoll in a clearcut, around the curve of the hill from each other. We hurried because as we set up, a herd of elk came running toward us out of the fog from the direction we thought the wolves were, spooked and pausing to look back once in awhile.

Sure enough, 25 minutes into the stand a cougar called from the top of the knoll. My guess is 70 feet from us. No problem, but I usually guard my back better when I sit to call in cougar country. This time I just didn't think about it, in a hurry with wolf on the brain. No harm no foul, eh?

FWIW, this was one of two cougars I'm confident that we called in two days, using the M1. We didn't get a pelt to prove it and didn't have snow to confirm tracks, so they count as mere probables.

So, to correct my first statement: Last Thursday a partner and I probably had a cougar slip up behind us. We both confirmed that we heard whatever it was make a cougar sound. I'll probably sit in a safer spot next time.
 
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Okanagan,

Thanks for sharing again!

Were both you and your partner facing the same direction with higher ground to your rear?

I understand the "hasty" setup due to the presumption that wolves were closing fast.

In hindsight do you think that this cougar was the actual chaser of these elk?

You mention a caller named M1. What is an "M1"?

Thanks in advance.

Three 44s
 
Quote:
Okanagan,

Were both you and your partner facing the same direction with higher ground to your rear?

In hindsight do you think that this cougar was the actual chaser of these elk?

You mention a caller named M1. What is an "M1"?

Thanks in advance.

Three 44s



Three 44s,
Direction facing? Yes, my partner and I were both facing the same general direction, covering about 270 degrees, or 3/4 of the way around. We were covering all of the directions we expected a wolf, whether the pack of four came on a run or sneaked in to get our wind. On the curved hill face, I was facing NW and he NE with a bench below us, wind crossing to my NW end of the bench. The top of the rise was behind and between us, and a perfect spot to sneak in and peek down at the caller, which was below and in front of us.

Cougar after the elk? Yes, in hindsight, it is most likely that the cougar was what spooked the elk. I'd guess it missed killing one and when it heard our call, circled around to the spot above us in the fog.

M1 call: It is a Minaska Bandit, their small sized M1 model. It has great volume and quality, easy loading of my own sounds and easy remote, and fits in a parka pocket. With a couple of exceptions, I mostly pick one of the 100 sounds that came on it and use that. For the stand for wolves when the lion came in, I used mostly Minaska's Fawn Bleat, but started with the Frantic Jack because I can get more volume to carry farther, and it is desperate rather than merely plaintive. I like to set up the remote Sidewinder decoy for cats, but didn't have it going on the wolf stand.

We hiked from a quarter mile to a mile from the vehicle to most of our cougar stands. This wolf stand was a 100 yard scramble over a hill from a logging road.
 
Okanagan,

A "frantic jack" ...... LOL!!

My friend .... yakamabreed ...... does frantic jack justice with a mouth squaller. In his post in this thread he told of it's outcome.

When you hear him ...... you almost squint for flying unmentionables!

And the cougar that came in behind him and just sat there at 35 yds. in wide open darkness bought it too. But alas, his Lightforce light needed just a bit more fine adjusting and the cat would not play anymore!!

Whenever I mount my Lightforce on a weapon, I visualize him and that situation ...... and he does the same.

Have you ever tried a dog on a stand?

My friend did once, I think since it's his wife's little dog he's reluctant about losing him .... but it sure worked even on the first run and the dog ... no worse for wear has begged to go with "daddy" eversince!!!!

What's life good for without some excitement???

Three 44s
 
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