A hunt I’ll never forget

[Bad Dad]

I’ll try and make this short, but it warrants a few words in order to get the desired effect. For those of you who are more of the get to the point type I’ll label that as such below so you can skip right to it.

While hunting coyotes with Scootertrash, he mentioned that he normally has better luck hunting in the evening. Since I have a lot of evening meetings for work I’d been doing all of my coyote hunting in them early morning hours.

Well Sunday afternoon I got all my honey-do’s done with a 2-3 hours of daylight left. So off I went. I drove about an hour south to an area around Cripple Creek that I wanted to try.

The road that I was planning on taking started out pretty steep with packed snow, and I really didn’t want to get stick out there after dark, so I chose another road that was much shorter, but ended right at the start of the public land. The road ended right on the side of a very large hill ( it’s labeled a mountain on the map but I wouldn’t label it more than a large hill). On the other side of the road was fenced in PRIVATE land with all sorts of threats of prosecution if I dare to set a foot across the boundary.

The POINT starts here

The boundary between the private land and the public hill is also were all of the trees stared (on the private land), the public hill was all brown grass with a shrub stuck in here and there. Well it was very windy Sunday night so if I climbed up the hill were I could get a good view of anything coming in I’m pretty sure that the calls would get blown right back in my face. So I decided to set up about 30 feet up the hill beside one of the shrubs, which didn’t give me much of a view but was sheltered from the wind enough that I felt I wasn’t wasting my time.

After about 30 mins of calling I stopped to blow the spit out of the call, and when I looked up I say a head about 100yards out which is about as far as I could see in any one direction. I don’t have to tell you how the heart speeds up and the adrenalin kicks in. I slowly raised my Handi-rifle and looked through the scope. But what I saw was not the next coyote to fall to the 204 ruger, it was a mountain lion. Let me tell you at 100 yard and 6X mountain lions look really big.

Well we looked at each other for 3-5 mins and I’m pretty sure I heard his stomach growl at least twice in that time (OK I know I couldn’t hear it even if it was growling). What I did next I’m sure many of you will think me a fool, but unless you’ve ever been in a similar situation you can’t know what foolish thing you will do. I’m telling you this not to try and impress you with my lack of common sense, but in hoped that if you are every in a similar saturation you might think better of what you do next. So I gave a couple of cottontail calls just to see what he would do. Looking through the scope all of a sudden he was gone.

So I gradually got up on my knees to have a look around and he wasn’t gone he was in stalk mode. He was low to the ground and had moved to within ~75 yards of yours truly. Well I had no intention of becoming his next meal but also didn’t want to spook him too much because I might decide to come back next mountain lion season. So I stood up and calmly told him to git I wasn’t his dinner tonight. After about the 3ed git he stood up and trotted off the other way.

Now I’d like to continue on with the story and tell you how I sat back down and bravely called in a coyote, but lying leaves a bad taste in my mouth and always has. The truth is I packed up and calmly walk back to the truck looking over my shoulder the whole time.

[scootertrash]

Bad Dad,

Just saw this post after seeing your reference to it in the other thread. Sounds like your having some excitement!

I too, had one stalking me a few years back while turkey hunting, not far from the Platte Springs area I took you in. Met face to face at about forty yards on the big powerline right of way, and he was not nearly concerned as I was!

I may take next Tuesday off. If I do, do you want to give it another try somewhere?

Mike

[glenn asher]

BD, you may have gotten off lucky, but, at least you got out of it, skin intact. You done good! I'm not scared of stuff I can see, but the stuff I can't see, makes me nervous
That cat probably walked off cussing, missing supper probably POed him a good deal. Good thing they aren't too aggressive towards humans most of the time, no telling how many folks they could nab if they wanted to.

[Bad Dad]

Scootertrash,
You bet I'm in I'm working from home the rest of the year so I'm pretty much open any time as long as I have a day's notice to get someone to cover meeting for me. Give me a call and we'll get a one next time.
g-

[scootertrash]

Sounds good, I'll give you a call one way or other toward the weekend.
BTW, the Lilja barrel finally came for the other .20 I'm building. I'm going to drop it off at Weaver's on Wednesday.

'trash

[Hawkeye Joe]

I wouldn't feel safe without a Desert Eagle (or two)at my side Just in case!

[Dave]

I agree - Hawkeye Joe - I carry a .41 Mag Blackhawk most of the time. You just never know...

[Bad Dad]

I might start caring a sidearm when I’m out by myself, especially with my single shot handi rifle. Once that cat released I wasn’t a jackrabbit it didn’t want anything to do with me but if he had gotten with in pouncing range it might not have run away so quickly. It was really a thrill to see one out in the wild like that.

[race4hills]

Thats great you got see one that close! I have lived in Colorado for almost 45 years (next month) and have not seen a mountain lion. I was elk hunting one time where a big tom had been seen a couple of times earlier that week and one of the guys I was with found fresh tracks in the snow so he started following them. They made a circle around in the woods and now were following his tracks! He wise'ly desided to leave then.

[Bergcrane2]

I think I would have rather than blow a distress call to see what he does, I would have let out a couple of BARKS with my .204 in the ground to see what he does.

[Rattler]

If you stood up and yelled "GIT" while staring down the barrel... I am onboard. Season or no the 50 yard rule is in effect. A hunting lion inside 50 yards is 3.2 seconds from your throat.
In Nevada the season is 365 days with tag and one caveat...you must call NDOW before the hunt and inquire on whether or not the quota is full for lion kills in the area you plan to hunt. A guy was Spring turkey hunting with his young son in Mason Valley (Yerington, NV) when a cat jumped his decoys, then headed toward him and his son. The guy dropped the cat with his 12 gauge in a distanced measured in feet, not yards. He had a lion tag, but did not call ahead (as the story goes)... but under the circumstances NDOW let him keep the fur. Bottom line is he wasn't given any other choice.
...but 50 yards is too close to play "Lawyer Ball". I am glad it turned out right for you (It did). You did the legal, if not ethical (Your life comes first)thing. Personally, since I don't own a single shot, I would have put a round in the dirt say 6 feet from the cat to get him moving...but with a Handi-rifle you don't have that option. Good story. When I hunt alone I leave my .204 behind alot because it has no SEE-THRU sights and it's a heavy barrel. Instead, I opt for the .223 Rem with see-thrus, it's a "calling" gun, balanced with a light and easy swing. Just right for situations like you just described. Eventually I'll get a .204 in a lighter version. I am a big fan of look thru sights and have noticed no loss of accuracy on any of my rifles that have them (.223, 30-30, 30-06). On calling rifles (hunter-sporter) it seems a no-brainer to have see-thru sights...especially in lion country. Don't let that hunt shake you, it would make alot of us think twice. See you in the field.

[Rugerdogdog]

HERE KITTY KITTY That almost makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Good job Bad Dad. Most guys around here dont let them go, tag or not. They are just too hard on the deer population. Im one of those folk that have been living and playing in Cat Country for all of my 33 yrs and never spied the big kitty. I wouldnt shoot one without a tag but at 75yrds and closing I think I would take my safety off!!!

[Bad Dad]

Yes I have to admit that that is one of the most incredible sights in my 39 years. I had the hammer back just in case he decided that the “GIT” wasn’t scary enough. I thought a lot about how close the Jan 1st start of the season is and weather or not the DOW would let me keep the hide if I said he was charging me. But I’m trying very hard to raise a 7 year old boy and teach him what’s right and what’s wrong before his friends start to have more influence than I do. So in the 2-3 min that we were looking at each other I decided that the right thing to do was just enjoy the moment and as long as he was going to let me live I’d do the same. I was thinking that I might get a tag and try going back after the first, but I’m having 3 disks in my back fussed the first week of Feb so I’ll be down for darn near the whole season so can’t see spending the $$ on the tag. Maybe next year.

As for letting it scare me, well I was out again today trying for a coyote but we got ~28” of snow this week and they were pretty much staying at home.

Well Merry Christmas to all and hope you get a nice shinny 204 from santa.

[Varmonter]

Great Experience. iv'e never seen a wild one .One of my wants.
Iv'e come too close to a bear a time or two without a gun. And a moose
or two(which can be really nerve racking trust me) . but having one of those
big cats stalking me.. whew

[Ryan S Albright]

I see there tracks a lot here where I hunt but have failed to every catch sight of them even night hunting I've never called one in.