Hunting | Outdoor Life

This story, “The Silent Hunter,” initially ran within the July 1967 challenge of Outdoor Life.

I WAS ONLY NINE or 10 years outdated after I acquired the perfect canine I’ve ever had. Tip was a Boston bull and German shepherd cross, however not one of the hounds I’ve owned since may equal him at searching cats. I began Tip as a pup on floor squirrels and rabbits, however he shortly confirmed a powerful choice for home cats, and from that quarry it was solely a brief step to bobcats. Around Vernon, in British Columbia 100 miles north of the U.S. border, the place I grew up on a farm, there have been sufficient bobcats to satisfy the wants of a boy and his canine properly. Tip and I did all proper. 

The winter after I turned 12, I made a decision to develop into a cougar hunter. I had learn every thing I may get my palms on concerning the sport, and many of the tales mentioned that cougar hunters led their canine on leash till they hit a recent monitor. That was what I’d do. 

I used to be on snowshoes, and I led Tip for 4 hours. In that quick time I discovered an important deal about cougar searching that I had by no means seen in a narrative. Every time I began a technique round a tree, Tip went the opposite. If I climbed over a windfall, he crawled beneath.

Finally I unbuckled his collar and mentioned, “Go get ’em!” 

And darned if he didn’t! He discovered a recent monitor—he will need to have identified about all of it alongside—and simply half-hour after I turned him unfastened he had an enormous tom cougar up a tree. I received there as quick as I may, and nothing that has occurred to me on a hunt since may start to match that minute for thrills.

I used to be somewhat under-gunned with my .22, however I used to be lengthy on confidence. The cat wasn’t up very excessive. I clipped him on the butt of an ear, and he got here down simply as lifeless as any bobcat I had ever shot.

Before the day was over, Tip treed a second cougar, a smaller tom, and I killed that one, too. That was the start of a lifetime of cougar attempting to find each Tip and me. He’s been lifeless a few years, however I’m nonetheless at it.

At first it was executed in secret—I began enjoying hooky from college. I’d cache my .22 the day earlier than, depart for college within the morning with Tip trailing alongside, and decide up the rifle, after which away we’d go. 

When my mom received clever, she offered the canine to folks residing 12 miles away, on the opposite aspect of the Shuswap River. It took him six months to seek out his means again. The new proprietor got here after him, took him residence, and turned him unfastened, and that point he was again at our home the following morning. When I promised to play hooky no extra, the person gave him again to me. 

Tip would hunt something I put him on—bobcat, lynx, cougar, or bear. I took 65 cougars with him, however when he was getting outdated and wasn’t so fast on his toes, he ran one in deep snow and overtook it on the bottom. The cat killed him with one swat of a paw. 

I anticipate to go on cougar searching so long as I can comply with canine. I’m 40 now, and meaning I’ve been doing it for 28 years. I’ve put within the hardest days of my life on such hunts, strolling till I used to be certain the following step can be my final, then strolling 10 or 15 extra miles again to my automobile lengthy after darkish. More instances than I can keep in mind, I’ve began out once more at daylight the following morning, too. And I’ve loved each minute of it. 

I’m now a conservation officer and dwell with my spouse and two women, Gail, 9, and Joyce, 8, at Williams Lake, 250 miles north of Vancouver. Before I took this job, I labored for the British Columbia Fish and Game Branch for 9 years as a predator hunter. I haven’t stored a whole rating of my cougar kills, however they complete over 100, and the large cats are nonetheless my foremost outdoor curiosity. 

For me, no different trophy animal in British Columbia, the place I’ve executed all my searching, can maintain a candle to them. The mere sight of an enormous one’s monitor—on new snow, some are the scale of small saucers—begins my coronary heart beating double time. 

Those nice spherical pad marks inform a narrative that tugs at any hunter’s creativeness: right here, within the black of evening, walked one of the vital stealthy and mysterious animals in North America—an impressive cat padding furtively and silently by means of the darkish timber, a cat seen by few people apart from those that comply with canine to the top of his monitor. 

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I discover extra thrills, pleasure, and anticipation in searching the cougar than in going after moose, caribou, mountain goats, or every other recreation I’ve tried. No matter how effectively a person is aware of his canine, he can by no means ensure simply what kind of cougar he’s after till he will get to the tree, or what’s going to occur on the end. Hound males are an incurable lot anyway, and as soon as this searching will get of their blood, they’re hooked.

The hunter who kills one of many huge cats has, on high of the suspense and motion of the hunt, a powerful and delightful trophy. I do know of nothing extra breathtaking than a full mount of an enormous tom cougar. It speaks of rugged mountains, deep woods, and shadowy trails. Even a cougar rug is one thing to have a look at twice. I’ve by no means puzzled why the pioneers favored to make use of the pelts as sofa or mattress covers, and generally whilst lap robes. 

Speaking of the cougar as a trophy, one factor that surprises many hunters and causes frequent arguments is his trustworthy weight. The cougar is smaller than his fame signifies. Full grown and in good situation, the toms normally weigh 135 to 165 kilos. The largest I ever placed on the scales was seven toes three inches lengthy and weighed 187 kilos. Females are normally 75 to 135 kilos. 

Over the years a number of actual whopper toms have been reliably recorded. Teddy Roosevelt killed one close to Meeker, Colorado, in 1901 that weighed 227. The cranium of that one is listed as No. 1 within the 1964 version of the Boone and Crockett Club’s ebook, Records of North American Big Game, and was solely just lately topped by a cougar taken in Wayne County, Utah, by Garth Roberts. Another tom, killed in Colorado in 1927, weighed 217 kilos discipline dressed. But these are uncommon exceptions. 

The lion is completely unpredictable, and no two of my hunts have been the identical. I’ve identified a cat to kill a seasoned hound at some point, then tree forward of a inexperienced pup the following. I may practice a poodle to hunt cougars if he had the nostril for it, and if he’d bark he would tree most of them. But ultimately he’d overtake one which didn’t really feel like climbing, after which I’d must get one other poodle.

I’ll admit that, with good canine, some lions are pushovers, resembling these first two Tip treed for me. But most instances they’re something however peaches and cream. A giant tom carrying surplus weight is normally fairly short-winded as soon as he’s jumped and pushed exhausting. If he has just lately eaten all of the deer or elk or moose he can maintain, he’s more likely to tree inside 1 / 4 of a mile. 

But a gaunt feminine with an empty stomach could also be good for a 5 or 10-mile chase by means of damaged rimrock, tough canyons, thick timber the worst going she will be able to discover. And if canine are put down on a chilly monitor and the cat hears them coming and contours out with begin, each the hounds and the hunter can anticipate plenty of train earlier than they see that cougar in a tree. 

In late winter of 1962, within the Black Creek space alongside the Horsefly River 50 miles east of Williams Lake, a cougar monitor was seen close to a distant nation college. Alarmed for the protection of the youngsters, the residents wished the cat hunted down, and I used to be requested to go after it. 

I took two pals alongside—Manley Hanks, a information, and Fred Jones, a rancher and trapper who additionally did some guiding. Both have been from Horsefly. We had three dogs-two of mine and one in every of Fred’s.

There was 18 inches of snow on the bottom, making it a should to make use of snowshoes. We picked up the tracks 1-1/2 miles from the varsity. They indicated an enormous tom however have been too outdated to show the canine unfastened on. If we’d executed that, the hounds would have gone out of listening to and the cougar overseas. 

We walked all that day with out getting shut sufficient to warn the cougar that he was being adopted, and by the point we received again to Fred’s ranch after darkish, we had put 25 miles behind us. Right after daylight the following morning, we picked up the place we’d left off. That turned out to be as attention-grabbing a day of monitoring as I’ve ever executed. 

The cougar, nonetheless unaware that we have been after him, swam the Horsefly River thrice. He’d leap off a shelf of ice alongside shore, cross the open channel within the center, and climb out onto the ice on the far aspect. Each time, in an effort to comply with him, we needed to search for a spot the place the river was frozen all the way in which throughout. 

That day our cat proved {that a} cougar will feed on carrion readily if he must. We discovered the place he had dug out seven completely different moose heads, left by hunters the earlier fall, from beneath the snow and eaten a snack from every.

That was one other 25-mile day, however we have been closing in. When we left the monitor at darkish, he wasn’t far forward, and it appeared possible he’d keep within the space for a day or two. 

We drove out, the third morning, in Fred’s jeep and made an enormous circle round that space. No monitor got here out. We went again, took the monitor, and adopted it, assured that we’d leap him. 

We caught up with the cougar in late afternoon after discovering his first kill, a moose calf. There have been recent tracks all over, and the canine went frantic. We turned them unfastened, and so they began him lower than half a mile away. 

He headed downhill in an space of open timber, and I noticed him 300 yards away, working straight for me. He got here inside 30 yards, climbed six toes off the bottom in an enormous pine, and stood wanting again within the route of the canine. 

I had been responsible of a foul oversight that morning. Climbing into the jeep, I had forgotten my rifle within the automobile we’d used the day earlier than. Now I used to be armed with nothing however a small hand ax. 

My favourite cougar gun, by the way, is a Browning pump-action .22. It’s gentle, simple to pack, and all of the rifle I would like. I exploit long-rifle hole factors, and if I wish to save a cranium intact for measuring, I place my shot within the lungs. Hit there, most cats cling on till they wilt and are available down lifeless. 

BUT THE SHOT I choose, to ensure my canine don’t get clawed, is within the entrance of the top, between the eyes and ears and half an inch off heart. A .22 hole level there kills so shortly that the cat typically hangs up in a fork and I’ve to climb to get him down. 

On all my cougar hunts I additionally carry a compass, digicam, knife, hand ax, and twine, plus meals and a tin to boil water in. The days are more likely to be lengthy.

I had no gun when that huge tom went six toes up the pine and stopped, so I yapped like a canine. I’ve by no means seen a lion climb quicker. He went up the tree in lengthy jumps, sending bark flying, till he was about 30 toes off the bottom. Then he stopped and seemed right down to see the place the additional canine had come from. I’ll always remember the look on his face when he found what had executed that close-up barking.

Our three hounds have been there in a minute, after which Fred and Manley got here together with their .22’s and shot the cat out. We skinned him and hiked to the closest ranch, and the rancher drove us again to our jeep. We received residence in time for a late supper.

In these three days, we had snowshoed 65 to 75 miles. Any animal that can provide three males and three canine a hunt of that sort is not any small potatoes. 

In virtually any gathering of hunters, you can begin a energetic argument by citing the topic of how a lot injury the cougar does to a deer inhabitants. Many sportsmen fee him the mortal foe of whitetails and mule deer, and even of elk and moose. This angle—coupled with the hostility that stockmen really feel towards him due to his raids on sheep, cattle, and even horses—is mirrored in year-round open seasons in most states and provinces the place he’s nonetheless discovered, and within the cougar bounties which have lengthy been paid in lots of locations. 

On the opposite hand, most recreation managers and even some hunters consider that the large cats render a serious service by serving to to maintain antlered recreation in steadiness with its meals provide. 

“In rough country and wilderness areas, the lion is the deer’s best friend,” wrote Jack O’Connor in Outdoor Life plenty of years in the past. I agree with him. 

I’m certain of 1 factor. Cougars don’t “chase deer out of the country,” as hunters typically contend. I’ve discovered deer feeding as shut as 75 yards to a lion that was sleeping after a kill, and so they will need to have identified he was there. While there isn’t any denying the large cat’s fondness for venison and his talent in searching it, it’s removed from being his solely meals. In many areas, rabbits are his bread and butter. 

In seven years of cougar searching within the Cariboo district of British Columbia, I stored a document of the abdomen contents of 39 of the cats, all killed within the fall and winter. Rabbits made up the largest share, 26 p.c. Deer meat was second, at 23 p.c. Then got here carrion, 13 p.c; and moose, home sheep, and porcupines, every accounting for eight p.c. In two circumstances, the cougars had eaten different cougars. 

These cats don’t hesitate to show cannibal if given the proper alternative. I’ve discovered two clear-cut cases of this. In the primary, close to Horsefly in December 1960, I skinned a male and per week later killed a feminine that had been feeding on his carcass for a number of days. She was in good situation, and there have been loads of deer and moose within the space, so starvation may hardly have accounted for her habits. 

In the second occasion, an enormous cougar intentionally killed and consumed a smaller one. That occurred in March 1961 alongside the Horsefly River. There was 14 inches of snow on the bottom, and the tracks advised the entire story. 

Both animals have been toms. The huge one had trailed his sufferer for a long way, each had swum the river, after which the pursuer received shut sufficient to make a typical cougar rush. They fought briefly on the fringe of a gap, leaving somewhat blood on the snow, and separated. 

The smaller tom ran about 50 yards after which walked in an enormous circle. The different one crept to the highest of a knoll, waylaid him, and attacked once more. That time they fought viciously over a 40foot circle, trampling bushes and breaking willow branches. We discovered the small cougar mendacity there, his neck damaged and a 3rd of him eaten. 

Manley Hanks and I treed the large one solely 150 yards away, after he had stayed close to his kill for 2 days. He had suffered just one claw lower within the battle, on his chest. He was 87 inches lengthy (his sufferer was 78) and was the older and heavier of the 2. As within the different case, there have been loads of deer and moose round. 

ACTUALLY, the cougar eats virtually something he might discover, from grasshoppers to moose. This consists of squirrels, rabbits, beavers, skunks, turkeys, fish, and generally even bobcats, lynx, and coyotes. Frequently he additionally shows a liking for mutton, beef, and colt meat if they’re out there. 

In flip, the large cat himself is alleged to be good desk fare. I can’t supply a lot firsthand testimony for I’ve tried it solely as soon as, however I actually loved it that point. 

I had put in a tough day, from daylight till virtually darkish, following a cougar in 18 inches of snow. The canine lastly treed the cat, and I shot and skinned him. But by that point it was full darkish, and I used to be too drained to hike again to my jeep, 25 miles away by highway, so I camped beneath a tree for the evening.

I had carried no lunch and had eaten nothing since breakfast. I used to be taking the cougar’s head and pelt residence, and I lastly lower out the tongue and broiled it over my hearth. It was the perfect piece of meat I ever ate, however there wasn’t sufficient of it.

ONE OF the good mysteries concerning the cougar is his skittishness towards people. Shy and secretive within the excessive, he is likely one of the least often seen animals, and even when treed or dropped at bay by canine he shows little of the slashing fury of different huge cats. And it’s near unattainable to impress him into preventing again at a person. He’s able to doing horrible injury however simply refuses to deal it out. 

We don’t typically do that in British Columbia, however in lots of locations guides climb right into a tree with a lion, work a loop of rope over his head, pull him off his perch, decrease him to the bottom, tie him up, and take him residence alive. It’s no marvel that he has acquired a fame for being a coward. 

Yet the idea that man has nothing to concern from him, no matter circumstances, is a mistake. A feminine cougar defending her younger is more likely to be harmful, and now and again excessive starvation goads one of many huge cats into making a daring and decided assault on a human. This is very more likely to occur if a cat has been injured or caught stuffed with porcupine quills and not can hunt its pure prey. 

I’ve investigated three such unprovoked assaults in British Columbia within the final 25 years. 

In October 1942, Jack Carson, now a retired trapper residing on Horsefly Lake, was taking in winter provides for his trapline between that lake and Quesnel. His primary cabin was 4 miles north of Horsefly Lake, and he was making two journeys there a day. 

Moose have been rutting, and he carried his rifle, a 6.5 mm. Mannlicher, on all his journeys. But when a number of days glided by with out his seeing a moose, he concluded that the rifle was extra baggage. To make his hundreds lighter, he’d depart it on the cabin. At the final minute, nonetheless, he modified his thoughts and took it alongside. It’s factor he did. 

He had coated about half of the four-mile hike to the lake when he heard a loud racket in thick brush and younger cedar simply forward, and realized that some giant animal was coming straight for him. 

There have been no huge bushes useful for cover, so he stepped behind a small lodgepole pine and waited. His first thought was that he was being rushed by a surly bull moose. Then he caught a glimpse of one thing tawny and determined that it was an off-color deer. 

The subsequent factor he knew, an enormous cougar tore out of the comb solely three or 4 steps away and jumped at his face. The small pine was between them. The cat slammed into it and dropped to the bottom at Carson’s toes, and he threw his rifle up for a shot. 

But the day was wet, and whereas cleansing and drying the gun again on the cabin, Carson had uncared for to bolt a shell into the chamber. Now the hammer clicked sickeningly. 

He thinks that the cougar didn’t have fairly sufficient guts to complete her assault from the foot of the tree. Instead she bounded up onto a windfall 15 toes away and crouched, readying herself for one more spring. 

“Her big, long tail was really lashing,” Jack recollects. 

But earlier than she may pounce once more, he jacked a shell into the chamber and drove a delicate level into her head. She fell off the windfall and by no means moved a muscle. 

“It takes quite a while to tell the story,” Carson advised me lengthy afterward, “but I’d bet it wasn’t more than four or five seconds from the time I first heard brush crack until she was dead.” 

The cougar was an enormous feminine greater than seven toes lengthy and in prime situation. Cougars breed the yr round, as home cats do, and the younger are born in any respect seasons. This incident occurred in October, and when Jack skinned this cat he discovered her udders stuffed with milk. Her kits have been most likely close by, and it’s my concept that she attacked in an effort to shield them. 

That would additionally account for her noisy rush by means of the thicket, which was extremely uncommon cougar habits and was most likely meant to frighten the person away. Whether she would have accomplished the assault if she hadn’t been shot stays an unanswered query. But Jack Carson has no doubts that she would have, and the opposite two circumstances bear him out.

The subsequent one occurred at Victoria Lake, close to the north finish of Vancouver Island, in March 1953. Two males—Buck Richmond, supervisor of a lumber mill at Port Alice, and the late Gerald Walters, a woodsman and information then working for Richmond as a millwright—have been fishing on the lake. They went ashore for lunch and constructed a hearth. 

Walters, 43 on the time, walked into the timber for wooden. He was bending over to choose up dry branches when he noticed a cougar crouched behind a log, able to spring. It spit and launched itself. 

The man met the assault with a smashing blow of his fist on the cat’s nostril, exhausting sufficient to knock it to the bottom and break his personal finger. The cougar, a feminine, grabbed one in every of his knees in her enamel and clawed that leg from hip to ankle. Walters received her by the throat and screamed for assist. 

At first Richmond thought his associate was yelling for enjoyable, however when he caught the phrases, “A cougar’s got me,” he grabbed a hand ax and ran to assist. 

When he received there, man and cougar have been rolling and twisting on the bottom. Walters was attempting desperately to strangle the cat, and she or he was biting and clawing at his palms. For a number of seconds, Richmond couldn’t use his hatchet. Then he noticed a gap and drove the blade into the center of the cougar’s again, throughout her backbone. Even that didn’t break up the battle, however Walters managed to twist her head to 1 aspect, and three exhausting blows with the again of the ax ended the affair. 

The lion was 5 toes seven inches lengthy, very skinny, on the verge of hunger, and crazed by starvation.

The most up-to-date assault got here in March 1965. Jim Baker, a 43-year-old rancher residing close to Loon Lake, a number of miles east of Clinton, was constructing fence with the assistance of 15-year-old John Simpkins, who had stop college to work for Baker as a result of he thought he’d like ranch life. 

The boy was about 60 toes downhill from Baker when the rancher noticed the top of a cougar emerge from behind an enormous juniper clump between them, only some steps from younger Simpkins. 

“There’s a cougar behind you!” he yelled. But the cat jumped earlier than the boy may flip his head, clearing 16 toes in a single leap. It landed on his again and knocked him flat.

Tracks confirmed that the cougar had stalked its prey precisely as it could have stalked a deer. It had come across the hill in an open space with few bushes, making the most of each bit of canopy and creeping inside placing distance behind the juniper clump. 

The startled youth threw up his hand to guard his face and throat. The cougar bit by means of the hand after which went for the top above the eyes, tearing at pores and skin and scalp. Baker, realizing that one chunk within the throat can be the top, shouted to Simpkins to maintain his chin down and on the identical time began for them. 

He jumped astride the cat and did his greatest to pull it off, nevertheless it wouldn’t let go its maintain. Baker then jerked out a pocket knife and jabbed the blade deep into its throat. He missed his mark, the jugular vein, however the wound was an excessive amount of for the cougar. It left Simpkins and crouched behind a brushpile. 

The rancher grabbed up a hammer and began for the cat, and when he was solely 4 toes away, it whirled and scratched its means up a tree. 

The boy was bleeding badly, and Baker rushed him to the hospital at Ashcroft. It took 30 to 40 stitches to shut the injuries on his face, head, and arm, however he got here out of the hospital after 10 days in fairly fine condition. 

It was after darkish when Jim Baker received residence from his journey to the hospital that evening. The subsequent morning he went again to the scene with a neighbor, however the cat was gone. 

Twenty 4 hours later Frank Richter, a conservation officer from Kamloops, and I began to hunt it down. We picked up the monitor greater than a mile from the place the place the cougar had leaped on younger Simpkins. The animal had lain beneath a tree there, however the floor was half naked and patched with crusted snow, and the canine couldn’t comply with the monitor. 

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, nonetheless, we received an surprising break. Richter noticed a gaunt, smallish cougar cross the highway about half a mile from the scene of the assault. We put 4 canine down, and so they treed solely 100 yards from the highway. 

It was a feminine about three years outdated, and she or he was simply pores and skin and bones. More than six toes lengthy, she ought to have weighed 100 to 125 kilos. Instead she weighed 70, and examination confirmed that she was ravenous. 

It’s my perception that cougar litters born in instances of rabbit abundance be taught to hunt rabbits however not deer. If a rabbit die-off happens, these younger cats get fairly hungry earlier than they learn how to go on a venison eating regimen. They are those that come into dooryards and kill canine and goats. I’ve identified them to truly starve to dying in a deer space. I’m certain this feminine was one in every of that sort, pushed by excessive starvation to assault younger Simpkins. 

Such happenings are uncommon, and starvation accounts for many of them. Normally man has little to concern from this huge, stealthy cat. But that doesn’t make him any much less attention-grabbing in my ebook. He doesn’t must be a possible man-killer to qualify as an important recreation animal. 

I don’t anticipate that I’ll ever hunt any of the opposite huge cats resembling tigers, leopards, African lions, or jaguars. But so long as there are cougars in my residence mountains to furnish pleasure for me and my canine, you received’t hear me complain.

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