Since I'm tagged out I decided to go for a hike with the pup in my sheep unit. I get near the ridge, but had to angle through the timber to get to the top. On my way through the timber I could smell cat urine and very strong, pup was acting extremely nervous, so we angled away from that area to get to the top. Finally reaching the top I got out on a rock ledge to check out the area where I saw a bunch of sheep. So I figured I'd start back to the truck, came off the rock ledge and started walking around it when this mtn lion stood up in front of me at about 20 feet, turned and basically walked away (he was laying there.) Never knew he was there. Needless to say 44mag was out of holster until I got out of the timber. So was he checking me out or stalking me. I was about 300 yards from where I smelled the urine.
Curiosity or stalker
- Thread starter Huntkook
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EYJONAS!
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Only the lion knows....
Matsprt
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Cats are sneaky. Never assume.
Hilljackoutlaw
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Practicing his skills... they are very calculated I highly doubt he ever had intentions of unloading an attack. Unless you or the pup showed a weakness.
Flatbrimmer
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Agree. Although I have no professional experience or knowledge, I’d guess he was just making sure “he could” or whatever was encroaching what it’s protecting with its urine isn't a threat. Buddy lost an elk to a mt lion and it peed on the whole thing. Even a griz wouldn’t touch it covered in cat piss
Wildabeest
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I had one stalk me all the way up a mountain a few years ago. I was following a large deer track in fresh snow and had no idea until I lost the deer track in some thick sage brush and started back down. Cat track veered off about 30 yds below where I turned around and had followed my tracks pretty much from where I started on the deer track - about 1/2 mile total. There was some major pucker factor hiking out of there. Never saw it though.
A couple years ago I took my wife elk hunting with me. She is an amputee and has a prothsteic leg. I found a spot she could walk up the mountain and hunt with me. She was able to watch me shoot my bull but he died in a place that was just too rough for her to get to. I made her a comfortable nest out of the wind under a juniper tree and told her to hang out while I took care of my elk. Each load I brought up she kept telling me she saw eyes and something kept getting close. I assured her that it was most likely mule deer. The weather turned from drizzle to wet snow so I told her we need to chain up and get out and I would come back tomorrow and pack the rest of the elk back. I came back and right close to where she was the night before was lion tracks! It had been pacing back and forth right below the rige where she was sitting. Not sure if me passing by off and on kept it from her or if it was just being curious.
2rocky
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I'd say you walked into that cat's hunt, or recent kill. There are plenty of folk who have had a staredown with a cat that wasn't hungry enough or feeling trapped enough to be aggressive. Like others I feel obliged to share my cat story...
I’d just returned from packing in groceries and propane on horseback with a 6-horse string from the trailhead downstream on the St. Joe River. We didn’t have any clients in camp and it was about an hour or two before dark. I had unsaddled and fed all the horses. I was walking back to the lodge and saw a coyote in a large clearing on the way back to the main camp from the horse corral. The coyote was barking at the tree line and acting pretty agitated. About 500 yards to the left along the river a couple of horse campers had set up camp and had staked out their horses. I figured they were close to the coyote’s den and that’s what had the coyote agitated.
As I walked closer to the coyote, it would look over its shoulder at me, then turn and look at the tree line and yip and bark. It did this three times. Each time it barked and looked away from me I moved closer. Pretty soon, I was 50 yards from this coyote. As it looked over its shoulder one more time, a cougar came bursting out of the trees, after the coyote. The song dog just about turned inside out and ran to my right, directly through the Lodge compound, between the lodge and the clothesline, and out the front gate with the cat right on it’s tail.
I was standing there amazed at what I had just seen. Two secretive animals had just been seen feet from where we slept each night. It was then that I realized that it was as wild and untamed a place as I might ever be, despite the 70-year-old log buildings we used as our headquarters.
I’d just returned from packing in groceries and propane on horseback with a 6-horse string from the trailhead downstream on the St. Joe River. We didn’t have any clients in camp and it was about an hour or two before dark. I had unsaddled and fed all the horses. I was walking back to the lodge and saw a coyote in a large clearing on the way back to the main camp from the horse corral. The coyote was barking at the tree line and acting pretty agitated. About 500 yards to the left along the river a couple of horse campers had set up camp and had staked out their horses. I figured they were close to the coyote’s den and that’s what had the coyote agitated.
As I walked closer to the coyote, it would look over its shoulder at me, then turn and look at the tree line and yip and bark. It did this three times. Each time it barked and looked away from me I moved closer. Pretty soon, I was 50 yards from this coyote. As it looked over its shoulder one more time, a cougar came bursting out of the trees, after the coyote. The song dog just about turned inside out and ran to my right, directly through the Lodge compound, between the lodge and the clothesline, and out the front gate with the cat right on it’s tail.
I was standing there amazed at what I had just seen. Two secretive animals had just been seen feet from where we slept each night. It was then that I realized that it was as wild and untamed a place as I might ever be, despite the 70-year-old log buildings we used as our headquarters.
My buddy and I went on a two mile hike to a small lake. There was about four inches of fresh now on the ground that morning. When we decided to leave the lake and went back to the trail there were two sets of cougar tracks right in our tracks. It turned out that one of the cats had followed us all the way from the road and the other had joined in about halfway along. My friend, to this day insists were being stalked. I contend that since the trail was the path of least resistance the cats were on it for the same reason we were.
Along with the first set of tracks there would be a tiny spot of blood in the snow about every hundred feet or so. Having been around plenty of house cats when they were in heat, I suspected that would indicate this was a female in heat. That would no doubt make the second set of tracks a male tracking her and I guarantee that he, at that time, had no interest in the stupid two legged critters on the trail ahead of them.
Along with the first set of tracks there would be a tiny spot of blood in the snow about every hundred feet or so. Having been around plenty of house cats when they were in heat, I suspected that would indicate this was a female in heat. That would no doubt make the second set of tracks a male tracking her and I guarantee that he, at that time, had no interest in the stupid two legged critters on the trail ahead of them.
