# Cougar



## mikevanwilder (Nov 11, 2008)

I thought I would share my cousins cougar hunt. He had drawn a SE Manti tag on my recommendations, which I was told from some houndsmen I work with is a good unit.
We had been hitting the hills hard since it opened in Nov. We didn't have the use of dogs to often so we put alot of miles on the boots. We had a few houndsman basically on standby if we found a decent enough track. 
We tried to make calling stands because it would be awesome to have a lion come into a call and get it on video. Plus the three of us the was hunting also had bobcat tags and its never bad to kill coyotes! 
We battled some of the coldest temps I have ever been in and the deep snow didnt help much at all. But I was loving every minute of this hunt. 
We would set bobcat traps on our way to the cougar areas just to give us something to do.
Well we decided to go out one day and just look for tracks and see if we can get some dogs going. We went up on the mountain and spent most of the time getting people and ourselves unstuck. We decided to go lower and thats when we ran into Brett, a houndsman that was helping us. He was with another hunter and had just got a huge lion. (this can be seen here viewtopic.php?f=57&t=46987)
The next weekend we went out again and first checked traps and had a bobcat in one, which was pretty cool. After getting it taken care of we grabbed the ATVs and headed to an area that the previous day a houndsman had found some 2 day old tracks. 
We bundled up and rode in and made a quick 1 hr stand near those tracks and nothing came in. We rode further down the trail and came upon some huge pretty fresh tracks going up the road. We followed them as far as we could before the drifts got to deep to even walk through. 
On the way back toward the vehicles my cousin wanted to make on last stand, we got on top of the ridge and was just about to go down the other side when my cousin just takes off, dropped everything but his gun and ran down the hillside. I knew he had seen something but figured it was a coyote or even a bobcat. When I finally caught up to him he was watching the far hillside and saying "did you see it, did you see it? the cougar did you see the cougar?" I didn't believe him, but as I was about to call him a liar the it was standing in the open on the hillside. 
We both determind it was a pretty big cat and he knelt down and fired. The cat jumped and then rolled into the little canyon out of site. I asked where he hit it and he kinda looked sick. He tells me he thinks he it far back. 
We got on its track and there was good blood but after about 1 hour of following it it was to dark to see. We GPSed the last tracks and headed back to the truck. 
We got back to town and we got ahold of Brett and he said that we could come and grab his 2 best dogs in the morning and put them on the track. 
The next morning it was -32 when we unload the ATVs and not one of them would start. We finally got them going and headed in. Once the dogs were on the track it only took about 5 minutes and they had it treed. 700 yards away straight up hill. :shock: 
When we finally got to the tree and saw the cat, I just kept praying it was a male. But to our dismay it was a big female. There was no choice he finished her off and we got her off the mountain. 
When we got her down and was looking at her I pulled up her lips and she only had k-9s! her other teeth were all practically gone! And her k-9's were practically round. So that eased the fact she was a female. 
I know you houndsman hate when a female is killed, but this female was very old. 
All in all it was a blast, we got 2 bobs and a cow elk while hunting for lions.


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## Iron Bear (Nov 19, 2008)

I'm impressed. :O||:


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## martymcfly73 (Sep 17, 2007)

Cool story.


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## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

Sweet! Brett was starting to tell me about this Saturday. He got to the part of "He hit a cougar..." and then we saw elk...so well, priorities! Glad to get to hear the rest of the story! Awesome cat(s).


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)




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## dark_cloud (Oct 18, 2010)

Its to bad you had to use the dogs to tree it after it was shot. Not to many people can say they got a lion with out dogs. Cool story, and lots of determination on this hunt. I would love to hunt a cougar, but don't even have a clue where to start putting in for one. I see alot more bears then cougars. Nice bob's too. I think they are better looking then a cougar. Something about that face  CONGRATS ON GETTING SOME FUR :mrgreen:


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## 90redryder (Oct 10, 2011)

Cool story.


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## swbuckmaster (Sep 14, 2007)

nice


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