Well, here goes the story as best as I can remember. My buddy and I had scheduled a day to go and find some coyotes to blast, but when the day came the weather was far less than desirable. It was raining when we left the house, and barely cold enough to snow by the time we got out towards the desert. There was only an inch or two of snow on the ground when I slammed the brakes on a gravel road. There were fresh tracks, and I knew they looked to big for a dog.
So we parked the truck and headed out. I had just bought my .204 but grabbed my .270 since we were tracking a kitty. Plus, you can only shoot a cougar with .22 cal and above in oregon.
So we tracked this cat for about 1.5 miles in the nastiest sideways blowing wet snow that you've ever seen. It actually hurt as the snow smacked against our eyes.
Then, as we were fully soaked in and out, the cat jumped from a small cave in the lava rock not 20 feet from me and ran out to about 80-90 yards and stood there looking at us. I yelled cat to my buddy who was on top of the some rocks, and he promptly slipped and fell on his hind end as I was wiping the snow from my scope so that I could pull the trigger on this blurry cat.
I shot free hand and nearly miss hitting her in the leg. There was a small bit of blood in the snow, and we tracked her into another cave about 200 yards away. I poked her with sticks as she growled at me while my buddy had me covered with his gun. Probably not the most intelligent thing I've ever done.
We couldn't get her to come out that way, so I backed off and we waited for about a little while.
Then, when she finally showed her face, we both put a massive end to her life. (we wanted to put her out of her misery, but it probably was a little much. However, I don't like being growled at.) The pictures with us included didn't turn out well, since the camera was soaked, along with everything else. But here is one of where the cat fell.
We split the trophy by me getting the rug, and him getting the skull.
Thanks for posting the pic.