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Mountain lions

TallTines, It was in Lucas county. The owner of the property had been telling us that he had seen 3 mountain lions and we thought he was full of $hit because he has a bit of a drinking problem. Lets just say from now on I'll be going to my stand when it is light and leaving when it is light.
 
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TallTines, It was in Lucas county. The owner of the property had been telling us that he had seen 3 mountain lions and we thought he was full of $hit because he has a bit of a drinking problem. Lets just say from now on I'll be going to my stand when it is light and leaving when it is light.

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Even in the daytime if a Mt Lion plans on attacking you chances are you will only notice once it already has you
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Weve got plenty of Cats up around here and I find it best just to tell myself the odds of me being the first attacked by a cat in the area are very very slim.
 
Nope, no handguns if your archery hunting. A little unnerving at times but thats mainly because I dwell on it. I never seen one till last october and since then Ive seen 3. One of which was while archery hunting.
 
My uncle has an elk farm and he use to raise mt. lions and bobcats also. The bobcats hardly ever came out of their boxes but the mt. lions always paced the edges of their pens. If a small child or dog came anywhere near them they began stalking them. Its their instinct. Can't blame them for doing what they do, but I know if I am hunting on my farm and one comes by, he's getting the hammer!
 
Yeah, this whole topic in the last couple years has been a little unnerving to me at times. Last bow season I got down late from stand and had about a 3/4 mile walk back to the truck (public land). Anyway, after a river crossing I had a river bottom hillside to ascend yet and about half-way up the side I hear an animal walking through the woods at about 50-60 yards. Shined my light numerous times and unlike most instances when an animal will leave the area rather quickly, this animal was very calm and patient in his movements. Have no idea what it was but the whole "cat coverage" lately sends the mind racing at moments like that.

I am with the earlier poster, after all the mid to late morning activity I saw last bow season, I might start sleeping in a little more this fall.
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My younger brother lives in Northern Idaho and has hunted bear and cougars for years. He has a small pack of top notch Plott hounds that he uses to pursue them with.

Over the years he has seen many things that most of us never will. Most of the time he and the dogs must cold trail a track for miles in deep snow and rough back country. The snow leaves behind a "story" of life and death struggles between prey and predator. My brother has followed the tracks as the cat stalked, then sprinted towards an elk, the ensuing struggle almost always ending in the elks demise. Keep in mind that a 150# cat is killing a 400-600# animal! To top it off the cat almost always drags his prey sometimes 1/4 of a mile to where it feels it has a safe hiding place. Normally this is where the dogs will jump the lion and the chase is on!

Sometimes he would only take one dog...which nearly proved fatal for one of his best. The dog...a small but fiesty female, jumped the cat in a thicket...however rather then run, the cat grabbed the dog by the head and was seconds away from killing it. My brother jumped into the fray and clubbed the startled lion off from his dog. The lion had bit thru the back of it's skull and into it's throat area, so he ended up carrying the dog out and had to have it sewed up and treated by a university vet...needless to say he generally runs two dogs now
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I have to say that the times I have elk hunted with him...it is a little unnerving walking out in the dark, knowing I would be a much easier target then an elk
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Attacks where they are hunted though are almost unheard of and my brother has hunted mostly alone for 15 years and never had a problem. It's places like California where the Anti's have banned hunting cougars that they are dangerous...maybe they get what they deserve...
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Speaking of cat attacks on that Dbltree, your brother surely hunts in a very unpopulated area where they have plenty of prey to prey on.
Most of your problems that i have seen or read about is from cougars going into areas that are populated and guess what becomes their primary target...HUMANS because we have run off every other animal because we haved moved into THEIR territory. Hopefully the DNR lets this mt. lion live and take on its life and hopefully it doesnt get into his lively hood by killing his cattle/sheep or etc... I am sure around here you would have a better chance of getting hit by a car then getting attacked by that mt. lion even if you did hunt that timber. It would be a great start for control of the deer population and even better another predetor to hunt in the state of Iowa if they let it go that far.
 
legal-schmegal. if the big cats ever get to an actual population around here, i'll have a handcannon strapped to my ass into and out of the stand. i would hate to die for lack of shooting back
 
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his dad was telling us about hearing the timber wolves hollowing when he is getting out of his stand. He say that you are pretty nervous on the way back to the truck. Talk about spooky.

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It is...trust me.
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It happens every year where I hunt. Spooky as it is, it's not spooky enough to make me want to shoot every one that I see or any of them for that matter. If it was that spooky, I'd just stay out of the forest.
 
Thanks, no I'm going to have nightmares.....
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I think by the time I'm 20 years old, they will have knocked out the coyotes, and became the leading preditor (spelling) in Iowa.
 
I sincerely hope you folks in Iowa don't end up with the total hysteria/panic we have here in Nebraska over them.
Conspiracy theories about our game and parks stocking them to control the deer population, embeded tracking chips in their heads, black helicopters in the night releasing them
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Those are just a few of the stories that go around here. Cripes, we probably have a half dozen here in the state and we have more "sightings" than states with huntable populations. It's rediculous.
One was shot and killed a few miles from where I hunt and there have been numerous "sightings" since. I'm not about to let it bother me in the least bit when I'm out there in the woods.
The odds of falling from your treestand and getting killed or getting hit by lightning while hunting are far, far greater.
Are there big cats in the midwest? You bet there is, and they are probably here to stay. I'm not letting them change my ways any.
 
You say conspiracy theory. I don't think it is. For years the DNR denied that they brought the Bobcat back in to Iowa, but then you would see a DNR truck driving around with their big antanna's trying to locate these Bobcats. With the amount of pressure that the DNR is receiving from special interest groups, about the deer population, why wouldn't they bring in some cougars to get the special interest groups off butt. And then deny that they brought them into Iowa to cover their butts if someone was attacked and killed. I am a mortgage broker in Des moines, and I was working with a customer who was a truck driver and he was hauling cargo from the black hills to Iowa. I'll give you one guess. MOUNTAIN LIONS. Now that is what he told me maybe he was feeding me some bull$hit, but he seemed like a pretty good guy.
 
There were several cubs that were shipped to some college, not sure if it was Neb. or Iowa. Maybe those killer Mt lions were actually helpless kittens?
 
The DNR releasing mountain lions? That is hilarious.
Everyone has been hearing that coffee-shop talk for ages, and it is completely not true. Look at the stats on how far mt. lions have been tracked from their range in the Black Hills. Documented cases found one male had traveled 500 miles to northern Minnesota, and another went 667 miles before it was struck and killed by a train in northern Oklahoma.
Cats are more than likely coming in from the Black Hills.......NOT from a box in the back of a DNR truck. It is a case of travel and dispersal.
 
I love hearing all the stories. Everybody wants to believe that the dnr is bringing in lions. Up here in no mans land there are very few trees compared to southern and eastern Iowa and every other week theres a new sighting, tracks, or somebodies horse has claw marks down its back. It hillarious.I don't believe it. Why would they risk pulling a stunt like that. If they were sneaking around and some kid gets eaten and then it comes out that the dnr secretly released them the public would come unglued. There would be all kinds of lawsuits. The dnr has the power to do what they want. If they wanted to bring in mountian lions they would say hey everybody were releasing mountian lions in certian areas to control the deer population.
I agree with gunnerjon. A mountian lion will go where it wants.
I believe there in iowa not around my area but I don't think the Dnr shipped them hear in a truck.
 
The mountain lion stories in my area are hilarious as well. The stories run like wildfire, getting better with every person who tells it. The problem is the truth is often times just to darn boring
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. If their was 1/4 as many lions around as reported sightings, they would be popping up on trailcams, or being reported more often by bowhunters. I do realize that every once in a while one will come through, but the stories can get just plain funny!
 
It;s funny because the same coffee shop talk floats around here. I'd hate to break anyone's bubble but we're not very far from the Rocky's and it'd be bugger all for the mountain lions to move over this way through the forest. I'm sure we have a healthy population but doubt the dnr brought them in. That talk is almost as rediculous as the one I heard last year, the dnr was bringing in grizzly bears to control the black bear population in the park. That's a good idea, the bears are so plentiful they at times pose problems to the campers, so let's bring in a much more fierce predator to kill them, grizzly's won't bother anyone.
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Some people just like to run their mouth off instead of knowing the truth.
 
We had a guy swear up and down that one lived in his machine shed and slept on top of his combine. The funny part is his nieghbor across the section raised sheep. Hmmmm...he hasn't lost any. Seems like an easy lunch for a cougar.
 
I'm hoping to bring one back from Montana this Dec. Of course, it will be skinned out and the meat will be packed in a cooler.
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Awesome animals. Two years ago I was walking to a stand when I had an animal follow me for about 100 yards. It was pitch black out and it matched me step for step. Folks in the area claim they have seen one before but I have yet to get a pic or have a sighting of my own. In 2001 my dad had one stalk him while he was in a treestand while elk hunting. Even as he waved his arms and yelled the thing crept low to the ground and kept coming with his eyes fixed on him. That kitty ended up being about 10 yards from having a quiver full of arrows heading his direction.
 
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