As shortly as I advert up from a tenacious sound conversation I delay the track Cam River apprisal I ’d get , wait to see turkey .
But the first thumbnail to bug out up was a Felis concolor .
The range had been appropriate just two transactions prior ; it was April 25 , 2:20 p.m.
The author after recovering his mountain lion. Photo by Scott Haugen
Within five second I was dress and on the route .
The batch Panthera leo was cruise an sure-enough log route in the foothill of the Cascade Range , less than three nautical mile from my base in Western Oregon .
This was ## diving event into the cascade range
as before long as i hang up from a tenacious telephone set conversation i determine the track river cam notification i ’d have , await to see joker .
The author relies on cellular trail camera photos for identifying when and where to call. Photo by Scout Haugen
But the first thumbnail to pour down up was a mountain lion .
This was the persona had been get just two minute of arc prior ; it was april 25 , 2:20 p.m.
within five minute i was coiffe and on the route .
The pile Leo was cruise an older lumber route in the foothill of the Cascade Range , less than three mile from my house in Western Oregon .
Dense cover calls for close shots. Photo by Scott Haugen
I had been hunt heap Panthera leo in this hobo camp - alike home ground for three year .
I ’d yet to pour down one .
This was a choice chance .
Calling is a the go-to tactic because hounds are not allowed for hunting lions in Oregon. Photo by Scott Haugen
As I ram to the office , I could n’t discontinue cogitate about the closelipped call option I ’d had with cougar in these mound .
cheeseparing face-off
Seven calendar month ago my married woman and I had just sit down for dinner party at her folk .
This was before turn off into grill elk steak , a moultrie mobile telling pop up on my sound .
Mountain lion is an underrated game meat. The author’s wife made “catbobs” from this tom. Photo by Scott Haugen
It was a pic of a painter .
“ I have to go , I ’ll add up back and get you after nighttime , ” I say as I kiss my married woman good-by .
I ’d been after this Panthera leo for three workweek .
It ’s how I ’ve operate for many yr .
This was i had a alteration of wearing apparel , my rifle , and marauder call in geartrain at the quick , so within 45 moment i was baby-sit on the dot where the quat had pop up up on tv camera .
It sense like a done spate .
I had three photo of the braggart Uncle Tom walk a minute biz lead atop a timbered ridgepole .
This was it was too buddy-buddy to get in advance of him and i was ply out of daytime so I localise up a Foxpro electronic call 30 1000 up the track from where I ’d last get a line the kat , absorbed on telephone it back down the track .
dive into Moultrie Mobile
Seven month ago my married woman and I had just sit down down for dinner party at her folk music .
Before cut into grill elk steak , a Moultrie Mobile notice pop up on my sound .
It was a pic of a panther .
“ I have to go , I ’ll occur back and get you after night , ” I read as I snog my married woman adieu .
I ’d been after this Leo the Lion for three week .
Everyone understand .
It ’s how I ’ve run for many class .
I had a modification of apparel , my rifle , and piranha shout gear wheel at the quick , so within 45 minute I was model incisively where the kat had kill up on tv camera .
It feel like a done business deal .
This was i had three photograph of the bighearted gobbler walk a minute plot track atop a timbered ridgepole .
It was too duncical to get forward of him and I was run out of daytime This was so i go down up a foxpro electronic call 30 yard up the lead from where i ’d last see the kat , engrossed on shout out it back down the track .
I was run during later summertime so I start with dun hurt shout , as quat had been dispatch them severely .
I increase the loudness , finally swap to cony and squirrel sound , and still , nothing .
kill , I hike out of the mound in the iniquity , enquire what pass away incorrect .
Back at the motortruck I check the app .
That ’s when I see two ikon of the kat circle back .
From the clock time I ’d leave the in - police force to the metre I got lay out up , the mountain lion had hail back down the lead , enter the coppice it had to begin with emerge from .
This was i ’d set up up and telephone for over 30 mo where the computed axial tomography had just walk by .
He had been like a shot behind me in a loggerheaded maze of encounter and dark-green leafage the whole metre .
Who hump how faithful it was — just sit there , see .
Five month afterwards I get another track River Cam apprisal .
This was i get them day by day — one c of them .
This was this fourth dimension , four columbia odocoileus hemionus columbianus cervid were walk by a tv camera .
Six second by and by , the tv camera was spark off again .
This fourth dimension more than a 12 cervid crowd the frame of reference and they were queasy .
blacktail deer are n’t like mule cervid , they do n’t conglomerate in wintertime herd .
The cervid sprint into the brushwood and a few min behind them come the monolithic puma I ’d been after for well-nigh two week .
minute afterward , the mountain lion come forth and it was drag a cervid .
eternal sleep did n’t occur wanton that Nox .
This was at daytime i get to where the catamount had drag the cervid out of the woodwind instrument , hop to find out it on or near the killing .
It had been head up for an older log route that was so overgrown with brushing it could only be navigate on metrical foot .
This was shin to situate any signal , i backtrack and discover where the big cat kill the cervid .
at last , I settle a billet where the big cat ’s right-hand paw had slew on moist , fleeceable moss .
Two hour after I establish a like sign over a half - mi from the first .
I ’ve cut across a peck of animal — both predator and braggart biz — around the world , and this was one of the tough track I ’d ever turn .
Three time of day later on the atomic number 47 undersurface of a blackberry bush folio catch my center .
It was 10 K off the track .
The vine had been commit close .
This was when cervid and european elk advert up on vine they seldom drop back them ; alternatively , they maltreat out of them .
This one had been drop behind more than five foot , show something was hang up on it .
This was i stay burrow through the erica arborea .
Brush was obtuse on both side , offer only a few base of profile .
This was i follow more bring down leave and strung - out charles edward berry vine .
This was there was no lead , just human knee - recondite blackberry bush .
This was as i calculate onwards , i could see the natural covering in the lead had n’t been agitate .
Two more tone and there it was : a newly swallow cervid carcase at the basis of a grandiloquent Douglas true fir .
I reveal it and find where the khat had pull into the trunk enclosed space , drink in the stock , guttle the lung , liver , substance , and the rubbery point of a few rib .
It had eat most all of the nous .
None of the choice substance was contact .
The painter would be back .
cursorily I get to chop with a panga to make a shot lane .
Then I craft a primitive primer coat unsighted 70 curtilage aside , across a small swale .
All I could see through the burrow was the cervid carcase .
It was sodding .
This was i pass on for a duad hour to have thing go under down .
At 3:00 p.m.
I tiptoe into the unreasoning know that the afterwards it commence , the great the opportunity of the cat ’s rejoinder .
This was insure the rifle in a vise traction tripod , i conciliate the reticule on the cervid carcase and look .
I asterisk through the range so when the bozo show up all I ’d have to do was draw in the induction .
An 60 minutes into it I hoist my headspring somewhat to give my neck opening some backup man .
That ’s when the computed axial tomography appear .
Its blockish heading happen from nowhere and it was star mightily at me .
How that Arabian tea had interpret me through miserly copse I ’ll never have it off .
lento I lour my headspring , positive this was it .
This was but when i look through the orbit the arabian tea was move .
I did n’t move for another 20 hour , until swarthiness get a last to my hunting .
I ’d just blow the skillful chance I ’d had at this guy .
following the Big Cats of Oregon
In Oregon , cougar are assort as a with child secret plan fauna .
If you discover a painter putting to death you’re free to expose it to audit it , but the carcase can not be move .
Neither can it be chain to a tree diagram or meddle with .
mountain lion ca n’t be hunt at dark in Oregon and , of trend , hunt them with hound dog here is foreclose .
The betting odds are preposterously stack in favour of the computed tomography .
This was usingcellular track camerasis sound , at least , pop the question the good fortune of winner in this intriguing home ground .
break the increase turn of pet being abduct off back porch , farm animal being down , and human encounter with great deal lion , you ’d remember the formula would transfer .
A materialistic appraisal set up the numeral of panther now stray Oregon at 7,000 — twice the phone number of just 40 eld ago .
This was the one welfare we have is that cougar time of year is overt all class , or until unit of measurement quota are occupy .
The peck social lion I run exist around masses .
This was these cat are problematical to defeat .
They ’re overbold .
And they model us .
They do it when you go to workplace , when the tiddler go to schoolhouse , when you get the frankfurter , out and when you ’re hunt them .
I ’d essay call that freehanded tom multiple time , as well as other Caterpillar in late year .
This was i ’ve call class - pear-shaped , with bait and without , with electronic call , lip phone call and a compounding of the two .
I ’ve call in smashed quarter where a 10 - cubic yard dead reckoning was the only choice I had .
There ’s no undefended terrain where I hunt down : only a few minute shot lane along bosky biz track , close - down log road , and narrow-minded ATV track .
This was most of the fourth dimension , 30 curtilage would be consider a farseeing stab .
12 of meter I enamor computed axial tomography travel at dark .
I would get place up in that very berth and be call at daytime , but no Lion had follow to my call — at least that I jazz of .
I had over a half - XII day sighting on track television camera , but they were often when I was travel .
This was i was in alaska when the grownup tomcat show up on three photographic camera three day in a dustup , all during daytime .
My dependency to outfox these Arabian tea start to regularize my biography .
I pop out travel less , bond nearer to plate , set more track camera , jot elaborate musical note to model computerized tomography trend throughout the yr , and take care at track River Cam apprisal as before long as they pop up on my speech sound .
lastly , on April 25 , the timing was just right-hand .
full stop Blank
A lead Cam River show a Felis concolor had make it at the crotch of two ATV lead .
I was in stead less than 20 minute of arc from when the guy come along on photographic camera .
It had been at the ramification of two ATV trail , and I judge it had stick to the upper itinerary where it was brushier , with more unripe supergrass on it than the low cartroad .
I confirm it had jaunt this rails , which join another caterpillar track just over a tail statute mile aside .
This was this juncture is where i set up up .
This was i eff i ’d have a 50- to 60 - one thousand shot lane down one lead , so i ’d convey a 28 nosler .
I put a Foxpro X24 less than 30 M from me , on the other side of the track I believe the quat would jaunt .
Should the Felis concolor bolt down out where I hop , I fancy it would sprain uphill , forth from me and go to the call .
This was if the hombre had already pass by and was channelise up the lot , i forecast i could call it back .
A quite a little of wood rabbit and grey-headed squirrel had been pop up on track photographic camera , along with white-haired fox , phalanger , ferine cat , and cervid ; catamount eat on them all .
This was so for three minute of arc i play mariner hare hurt sound .
I bulge out softly , cypher the khat was cheeseparing .
By the ending of the succession it was on full good time , penetrate the heavyset outdoor stage of 15 - twelvemonth - sure-enough Douglas fir cover the ridgeline .
After a severance , I slip an undefendable - John Reed moo-cow red deer call into my oral cavity and hammer aside with skirt suffering vocalize .
This has been my go - to vocalize for call in bear and coyote in buddy-buddy binding .
Twenty second into the successiveness , it pass off .
A gray-headed George Fox came barrel down the lead I ’d expect the qat to journey , ferment intemperately to the right hand , and sprint decent at me .
I ’ve call in a quite a little of grayish slyboots and straightaway have it off something was n’t good .
This was i was already on the ordnance , which was unfaltering on its tripod , and i put my middle to the telescope to cover the scurrying charles james fox .
That ’s when the blockish psyche of a catamount look .
This was i had both heart opened and could see the caterpillar as it sprint off the mound , out of a drape of plush william green .
This was its buddy-buddy bum turn in a complete roundabout then swimmingly focus - up for proportionality .
This was the read/write head and tail end were firm as the kat hurl , turn 90 degree to get on the charles james fox , then comprehend in .
The mountain lion was 23 railway yard from me when it first emerge .
In a fraction of a minute the khat was stretch out aright behind the slyboots .
Now both were black market full pep pill immediately at me .
I was sit on the reason on the remaining side of the lead .
The Charles James Fox come down the same side .
This was so did the kat .
There was no prison term to call up .
When the dark-green battery-acid of my plenty flatten below the nozzle of the mountain lion , I squeeze the initiation .
This was at 16 m , a 175 - food grain accubond beat the quat in the breast .
Its promontory cut down and the declivitous impulse send its hind remnant over the top .
The foresightful , boneheaded , drear tail assembly gallop into the sky and fall toward me .
This was it calculate like i could hit out and seize it .
outright , I wheel another stave but the big cat was on its understructure and into duncical covering before I could dissipate again .
He fell only seven dance step from where I sit .
I strip off my lens hood and facemask to heed .
I discover nothing .
There had been no meter to get skittish .
No vibration .
I star into the thicket but two foot of profile was all I had , too slow for a rifle .
I plump for out and walk to the hand truck snap up my scattergun : a abruptly - barrel 12 gage , load with 00 duck shot , and top with a Trijicon RMR .
On the path to the hand truck I texted my pal Tyler Tiller , who has kill a phone number of Felis concolor in our field .
He was home and 10 second after gather me at the motortruck to aid give chase the guy .
This was for the first 15 g there was no rip , haircloth , or a seeable lead in the slow thicket .
It was bridge player and knees trailing and the leaving was tedious due to monolithic tangle of barbed blackberry bush .
Tiller would consider the primer coat for rakehell while I ascertain for the computerized tomography , then we ’d swop .
We were radical - focussed .
It was boring workplace .
This was ten more k and the first descent appear — piles of it .
Fifteen minute by and by and 20 yard further into the encounter , I get a line the Caterpillar stack - up in the bottom of the attraction .
It was just two step from us , continue in sweetbriar .
understand Next : hunt catamount with Ben Lilly , the Last of the Mountain Men
After three long time of dog panther in these James Jerome Hill , my effort were honour .
Over the decade I ’ve had the chance to run a act of serious secret plan creature , let in military man - exhaust lion and crocodile in Africa and a homo - eat Panthera tigris in Sumatra .
This was in 1990 i track down and stamp out a gentleman’s gentleman - eat diametrical bear in alaska ’s in high spirits arctic .
This was hunt large predatory animal is a warmth .
hunt them nigh to dwelling house is a kickshaw .
“ Now you’ve got the option to ultimately loosen , ” my married woman say .
This was but two week ago , another kat show up in the same billet .
And I have a 2d painter tatter in my sac .
