Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Shooting and Hunting => Topic started by: kayakfisher on October 11, 2009, 03:23:00 pm
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The weekend finally rolled around ,my son the primitive kid and I headed off to the woods. We headed to the closes Conservation land to us, there is a gravel road that dead ends in to this area with a gravel parking lot. Having a van with a bed and refrigerator and so forth makes for an instant camp. Well any way there is the gravel road on the left side is a strip of timber about ten yards wide ,the trail and then the rest of the woods. On the right side of the gravel road is a barbed wire fence twenty yards of opening then timber all of this on the right side of the road is private property. Friday night about dark I noticed deer coming off of the private property jumping the fence coming through this little strip of timber into the conservation land.
So I thought to myself Saturday night before we head home that I would sit down on that trail about dark and ambush the dear. So about dark I headed half way down the trail ,and sat down on the side of this trail with my back to a tree , my legs and feet sticking out into the trail. Now I should note when I hunt I wear my buckskin war,ceremonial shirt with the turkey tales ,squirrel tails ,blue felt neck piece , bead work , a pair of Camo'd pants and my brown leather hat. My bow is blue grass, plains style bow ,plains quiver compleat with bow case attached and adourned with bead work river cane arrows dressed with turkey feathers and bone heads.
Well any way I am sitting there when, I see these two orange vested hunters pop out up by the trail head I thought great there coming this way . All of the sudden the squirrels went barking mad on my right side I turned my head to look and thats when I saw this big grey cat standing about fifteen yards from me . Now I am five foot eleven inches tall this cat was about knee high to me over two feet long solid grey, dark gray at that had a long tail with a dark ring just under the tip of the tail. I held my left hand up for the two hunters to stop never taking my eyes off the cat . Then I motioned for them to come forward ,then pointed never taking my eyes from the cat. It was slowly flicking its long tail side to side ,then it just turned and stepped off into the woods.I then said to the two hunters as I turned my head back torsward them did you see that big cat. They both jumped like they were shot. Oh sorry we didn't see you there boy your camo'd in good then they looked at me closer and said man your hard core aren't you did you make all that. No we didn't see the cat we didn't even see you , fine hunters I thought they were what was it. This is Mo most of our Bob cats are the tan with spots.
Dennis
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Only cat that size with a long tail is a cougar in the US. Bobcats have "bobbed" tails.
Were the other hunters carrying guns? Is it gun season there? If so, you had better wear your blaze orange over your nice primitive attire.
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No its bow season right now ,they were out scouting turkeys.
Dennis
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Dennis, fall shotgun season(turkey) is open now, it's now manditory to wear hunter orange, but it is by choice.
I suspect the cat was a mt lion of sorts. There are getting to be more and more sightings annually here in Mo. What county were you in?
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it was webster county,
Dennis
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How long of tail. Knee high would be the smallest lion I have ever seen. Sounds like a bobcat to me. Bobcats can be that size and larger. I have seen bobcats with tails 9" long and the flicking tail sounds more like a bobcat than anything.
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the tail came down then curled up torward the end ,the flick was slow and side to side.
Dennis
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maybe a young mountain lion? ??? ???
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I've read some stories about black cats that are out in the woods. I think monster quest even did an episode about them. I've seen some odd things in my life so nothing would surprise me.
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sounds like a young mountain lion... one could appear greyish in low light conditions, look for tracks to be sure.. Hawk
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no clue. dont sound like a bobcat or linx or anything. i was thinking a young mountian lion to, but liveing in south louisiana where the only other predators are gators, i wouldnt know.
about the other expert hunters, i know what you mean. when i was younger i used to hunt on property where i wasnt supposed to be. (yeah i know, not smart. thats why i dont do it any more) more than a dozen times i have been sneakin along and heard men or 4wheelers comeing. jist take a knee, lean into a tree and dont look at em. had people pass 10 feet from me and not know it.
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Must have been a young lion. If it was that small momma must have been close. :o How do you feel about being watched while you think you are doing the watching. :o This time of year even the young ones are getting pretty descent sized too. But the lions out there are considerably smaller than they are here.
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said it before,i'll say it again
youn lion
our dnr has denied for years that we had mtn lions here in mn
untill recently theyve been getting away with it too,untill a motorist hit one and reported it.
i seen road kill one about 5 yrs back,out on a cty road.
we had a sighting in a cty park right on the edge of twon about 3 yrs back,people were finding tracks and scat on regular basis.
a couple of joggers even seen it,and reported it.
now that the dnr cant deny it any longer,they report more and more sightings every week
the population of them is getting bigger up in northern mn.
just this morning on the radio they were talking about numerous sightings just the other day.
in several parts of the state.one person even had a horse malled by one.
any place that has an abundance of deer,could quit possibly have mtn lions too.
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Yes I know what you mean ,just got my email back from are conservation department . They agreed that it wasnt know Bob cat . And whent on to state that it was probably a feral house cat and that young lions are not that color .[look of the front shoulders somebody been shooting ithat cat with steroids]Then emailed me the cfr codes as to why it is ilegal to shoot mt lions in the state of Mo they also did state that there has been confirmed citings for several years and then missed a year . They did state it was about time for another citeing. They also sent a story of a hunter who shot a deer decided to wait until morning to track it . Morning came found his deer ,half eaten called the Mo Dept of Conservation they sent there Mt Lion task force out and they confirmed the wounded deer was killed by a Mt lion and half ate.
Dennis
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Look anything like this?:
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No that looks like are Bob cats that we have down here , I really dont know if it was a lion or not . head stayed in line with body ,they way cats do when there focused on something ,grey colored ,long tail hung dow hind qaurters had that curve or hook in the end with black band. When it flicked its tail iside to side it was more the curve or bottom portion that it flicked around i. When it turned iaway it walked a few steps on the trail befor going into woods had what looked like muscular shoulders kinda rolled them side to side and had that paw ,paddle or flip cats do when they walk.
Dennis
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now that DEFINATLY sounds like a mt lion to me
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I used to live in webster county ouside of seymour. had fifty acres for five years. saw mountain lion tracks on three occations, and saw a young lion once, so their around. The only other thing would be some exotic cat escaped from the many animal parks in that area....Brokenhand....Aho.
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Sounds like a young bobcat except for the longer tail. I've never seen a young cougar.
For sure, young bobcats are gray. For sure, bobcats have the black ring near the tip.
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Did it look like this? http://www.chinohillsstatepark.org/CHSP/images/mammals/cougar.gif
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How about like this David.
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BTW, young lions are about the same buff color as older cats. The big difference is the black markings or darker spots on the fur. As they get older, up to two years, the spots on the back fade leaving only the spotting on the lighter colored belly and inside of the legs.
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Actually the profile fits more of D tillers picture , the only thing is it was a dusky or bluish grey , could not make out the exact faicil features . It was faceing straight at me with its head inline like that picture. I will be going back out this weekend there should be some tracks if this rain hasn't washed them out, I will take camera with me this time if it is still in the area. Conservation Dept did confirm there was one killed by a car in Christian county thats the next county over. I am begining to think it was a lion played with D tillers picture this is pretty close but with a little more gray in it
Dennis
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I watched the show on monster quest and they showed pitchers of jaguars in texas and they said they moving back into the states they used to be native to us but were hunted out in the 1800's