Rocksteady's 2014 Outdoor Hunting Escapades...

[rocksteady]

Since I have received a bunch of supportive PM's, asking me to continue documenting and posting my hunting escapades and adventures.

I will comply, however, if I start getting crapped on from people, that May cease...

So, to continue on from my post of the 2nd of January where I came face to face with a cougar while out coyote hunting....

After I got back to the truck and calmed the nerves, ii decided to be brave. Loaded the rifle, grabbed my video camera and tripod and snuck back over to the edge of the cliff, to try to get some footage. I have never mived so carefully or slowly in my life. Betcha it took me ten minutes to go 20 yards from the truck to the cliff edge.

I ever so cautiously, slowly peeked over the lip of the cliff, expecting to see tge cat

[Rackmastr]

This is gonna be good!!!

[rocksteady]

Nope, not to be seen, that concerned me, cause it was no where that I can see it, so WHERE is it??

After sitting there peeking around for another 5 minutes, finally the cat stood up, it had been laying in a huge juniper bush 40 yards away from me, but I could not see it....it slowly came out of the juniper, wandered off sidehill, away from me, then angled downhill (much to my relief) it went down another 50 yards and laid down beside the head of the roadkill, that it had buried, for a later meal.

I eventually got to a spot where I felt safe, as well as could get some video. I set up the video camera on the tripod and recorded a bunch of footage. When the cat would face away, ruining the footage, I would give a squeek on my rabitt call, to get its attention. I will download all of the footage to Youtube shortly.

After getting good footage, I had to come up with a plan... Pretty simple, back out, buy tag, wait for 2 days for the tag to be valid, come back in. I figured this cat was within 100 yards of the highway, so chances are no one would find his tracks and run him with dogs, lots of roadkill where the cat was, and nothing disturbing it.

The next 2 days were painful, I wanted to check on it so bad, but did not want to scare it out of there.

Finally, Saturday came along. I snuck in again in the late morning (did not want to go in there in poor light)....It had snowed a skiff overnight, with my binos, I could see cat tracks all over the place, but no cat.... A good sign, but after 30 minutes, I still could not see the cat, so I backed out again and went looking for yotes down the road...

[MB_Boy]

OKAY!!!! MODS!!! Shut er' down.....it's been an hour now!! Let's nip this in the bud right now.













<EDIT> Hahaha........maybe Rock is just a slow typist as we posted at the same time! Sorry Rock!!

[rocksteady]

About 3 hours later, I snuck back in, BINGO... Cat is laying right beside the roadkill head that I had seen it on 2 days ago.I Laid down right at the very lip of the cliff with Gun, Binos, Spotting scope and Tripod. Stared at the cat for about 15 minutes (with spotter), trying to igure out if I should take it or not...I glassed the surrounding timber a bunch to ensure that there was no kittens, if it were a female.

Finally, all systems were go. I was confident in the shot. The cat was about 90 yards away, laying straight up hill, facing me, but 100% slope. I dropped the bipod to get a steady rest, lined up on the very front of the chest, slipped the safety off and squeezed the trigger.

[rocksteady]

Cat jumped straight in the air, did a 180 turn and ran downhill onto the swamp flats, I quickly sent another round at it, hitting it just behind the last rib. It fell and was strugggling to get up, I put another between its shoulder blades and it was done.

I sat there or 10 minutes and just glassed the cat.. NO movement... Went back to the truck, grabbed my camera and put the binos etc all away... Very carefully made my way down the cliff/slope, always keeping on eye on the cat. I was sure it was dead, but did not want to risk going hand to hand with it. Eventually, I got to lay hands on it... WOW.... Cut my tag, checked its gender (female, with no boobs) and started taking pics... Being this was my first cat, I wanted to document it for later..... Bad luck bites me later, the next day...

Hiked back up to the truck, I knew I had to get creative to get this thing out of the bush..I had made a deal with my wife, I could kill a cat, but not just for the hide...SO I gotta get this thing up the 150 yard slope by myself to the truck.....Off to town I go, dig up every piece of rope I could scrounge, including borrowing some from buddies..Then I head back, it is now getting dark, so out comes the headlamp.... Put every piece of rope together, tied it to my bumper and over the bank I go... You guessed it... 50 feet short, so I dragged the cat that distance... wow, talk about a grunt.... Finally got it tied off, back up the hill again. Got in the truck, crossed my fingers that no ropes broke or cat got wedged and backed up 40 yards.... Rolled ahead til I could see slack in the rope, drove up to the edge, jumped out and retied the rope... Repeated this about 4 or 5 times, til the cat finally cleared the lip of the cliff...Now I had to get it into the truck, by myself, after going up and down that hill 2 or 3 times...I was sacked at that point, but a bit of stubborn effort got her loaded... Finally, relaxation....

Drove home, off loaded in the garage and started the skinning process.

[rocksteady]

I am by no means the greatest skinner, for taxidermy, so I did what I could, skinned it all out except for the paws and head... Rackmaster is gonna help me with the rest. Thanks Trev....

Butchered the meat and put it in my beer fridge (lost 1 front quarter to bloodshot), cleaned up a bit, had a cold beer and crashed....

The next day, I delivered the meat to my butcher buddy, who is gonna make me smoked cougar hams (yummy)....

Got all my hunting gear washed up and grabbed my camera to download pictures... I knew I had about 50, so should be a nice one or two, I thought.... Put the memory card into the card reader on the computer..... "Cannot access, corrupt card".... Tried numerous times, still nothing...

Got it CI'd on Tuesday morning, now its all froze up and waiting for the finishing skin job...




SELFIE!!!!

[rocksteady]

I have no idea what she weighed, but heavy, could be the belly of meat in her deer gut that made it worse...

Once I get the head skinned out I will do some measuring of the skull....

I never thought a cougar could have as much fat on her belly, chest, butt etc.... Probably 2 inches deep all over her.... Like a deer...


So, here is the disclaimer... My first cat, female (dry), not a boone and crockett, but done without dogs or anyone helping, so I am pretty satisfied with it... I know a lot of the hardcore cat hunters with dogs will scoff at the accomplishment, but that's fine. A lot of us do not have the time, effort, space, $$ to keep dogs for the exclusive purpose of running cats/bears...



A teaser for my next post....

[bighornbob]

Great job on the cat and keep the stories coming.

The memory card problem can be caused by just pulling out the memory card without first telling the computer to eject it. You can pull it out 100 times with no problems then the next time they are corrupted. I know you can fix some of the problems quite easily while other ones are pooched.

BHB

[d6dan]

Awesome Mike!. Congrats on a hunt of a lifetime and glad to see your back in the saddle. Great story and pic's although I think the cat looks better.