Have you ever been attacked by a cougar?

Yikes! sounds freaky. I've never been attacked but was growled at once while walking back from turkey hunting at dusk one time. Never saw the critter but the growl made the hair on my neck stand up. I reloaded my shotgun.
 
We were out on a morning run. I had exactly zero forms of defense except my shrill voice and marshmellowy Hoka shoes (which I kicked it with).
Don't feel bad. One time in the pitch dark on my way to my deer stand, my headlamp caught two pairs of eyes charging at me from about 15 yards away. All I could muster was a flinch and a "HEY!"

It was the neighbors springer spaniels.
 
NR hunters are all the same. Trigger happy tourists with low standards. Out of towners are the prey of the local cougars..
I know this is a double entendre, but I truly am not a fan of felines of any size. Just look at how many likes I've given out on lethal removal in feral cat threads.
 
Pro tips for defending yourself against a cougar attack:

1.) Scream like a little girl. It will confuse them. Nobody really wants to hit a little girl. Even cougars. Mostly. There's always that one asshole though. So, it's most likely going to work.

2.) Pray to Whitesnake. Then start singing Here I go Again on My Own. It's the song of the cougar's people, and it will evoke parlay.

3.) Don't parlay with a cougar. Even though they demand it. Use it as an excuse to remind the cougar you just scream like a little girl, not actually speak cougar.

4.) Never go in to the woods w/o knowing how to negotiate using Jack Donaghy's Negotiate to Win tactic.
 
A good friend of mine from high school and I were on a weekend backpacking trip probably 20 years or so ago, and he brought along his new lab that had just gotten back from training camp. Sitting around the fire one night the pup perked up, staring into the the dark and growling. My friend and I went to grab flashlights and start looking just in time to see one jump into the firelight, smack the pup across the face, bite it behind the neck, and drag it off.

I didn't sleep that night.

We found his pup up a tree about 300 yards from camp the next day. Long quiet pack out. I bought my first pistol the next day - even though in that instance it would have done no good what so ever.
 
A good friend of mine from high school and I were on a weekend backpacking trip probably 20 years or so ago, and he brought along his new lab that had just gotten back from training camp. Sitting around the fire one night the pup perked up, staring into the the dark and growling. My friend and I went to grab flashlights and start looking just in time to see one jump into the firelight, smack the pup across the face, bite it behind the neck, and drag it off.

I didn't sleep that night.

We found his pup up a tree about 300 yards from camp the next day. Long quiet pack out. I bought my first pistol the next day - even though in that instance it would have done no good what so ever.
If a cat ever tries to do that to my dog, I’m gonna turn it into this hat to assert my dominance over the mountains.

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Your a little old to be calling in cougars now , unless you hit up the retirement home ! 😜
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Damn that hurts! Hey Chris I’m not THAT much older than you… I digress, yes I am 🥺

But a retirement home?? Dude that’s like hunting over a feeder c’mon man give me a few props!!!!🤣
 
Neffa glad you are OK. Don't worry looking over oyurshoulder all next week is normal

We are having more and more sightings in our Rural/Urban interface.

My only up close and personal Lion sighting was on a summer job:

I spent the summer of 1993 in Idaho while attending the University of Idaho, as a packer and guide for St. Joe Hunting and Fishing camp, now known as St. Joe Outfitters and Guides. Will and Barbara Judge tutored me in the skills necessary to be a proficient backcountry horseman. For that I am eternally grateful. Here is a story that ranks as one of the strangest occurrences I have seen in the backcountry.

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 it’s 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.
 
You made foot contact with an MF’ing big cat?! That’s a rad story now that you’re away from the beast, safe and all.
As i felt my balance wain with the effort of the kick, with barely grazed the cat, I immediately regretted my decision, but thankfully it was blinded by the spotlight and didn't capitalize the one moment of weakness.
 
As i felt my balance wain with the effort of the kick, with barely grazed the cat, I immediately regretted my decision, but thankfully it was blinded by the spotlight and didn't capitalize the one moment of weakness.
The bar version I’m reading here between the lines is “I kicked the sumbitch right square in the kisser and it let loose the squeal of a thousand hell-bound banshees then ran off into the darkness to lick its wounds.”
 
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