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Wa cougar hunting

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Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 02, 2018 •  [Post 1]

So i got home today, went and checked one of my cameras here at my house, walked the loop of my trail looking for deer sheds. Saw some cougar tracks, bent down to examine them, and there was a cougar kill deer carcass 5ft away. Looked at the wdfw website, not updated, all units open. So i set up to watch my hill until dark. Cougar tracks walking right up to my ground blind, checking it out. No luck. Get back to my house and look at website again. All NE WA units closed except 101 & 113. So much for hunting my local deer terrorists, as im in 121, which is now closed. Ill be getting up in the morning to go call cats in 101. Been having an unacceptable level of cougar activity up in one of my honey holes up there anyway. This is just a fraction of the pics. Every day dec 9th-14th.
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wawhitey
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Location: Stevens co, WA

Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 02, 2018 •  [Post 2]

Couple more pics from that spot ill be calling tomorrow
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wawhitey
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Location: Stevens co, WA

Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby WapitiTalk1 » 01 03, 2018 •  [Post 3]

Good luck tomorrow. As usual...it looks like you have a good chance at calling one in in one of your areas. A bit of population control is certainly needed.
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 03, 2018 •  [Post 4]

Didnt get out to call today. But i walked my property, found a lot more coug tracks. Came upon a fresh kill site, not 10 yards in front if my ground blind. Big beat down area of snow with coug tracks, deer fur clumps and some blood. Easy to spot the drag line in the snow, so i followed it. It only drug the deer about 20 yards, ate a bunch, and buried it partially with snow. I grabbed a hoof and pulled, carcass still warm, big pool of unfrozen blood, and its like 10°F, so VERY fresh kill. I grabbed a camera and hung it up over carcass, set to video mode. Hopefully i didnt disturb it enough to make the cat abandon his kill. If not, should have some awesome video. I think its a mature tom. Heres a pic of the kill.
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wawhitey
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 03, 2018 •  [Post 5]

And heres a pic of the older kill that is pretty fully consumed, though it has pretty fresh coug tracks around it, from within last few days. Basically nothing left of this one but some fur, lower legs, 1 ear, jawbone, and part of skull. This kill is 50-70 yards from the fresh one, and i found a cougar bed right between the two.
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wawhitey
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 03, 2018 •  [Post 6]

Ive taken down all but a few cams on my property, but i still got a few pics of my local deer terrorists
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wawhitey
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 12, 2018 •  [Post 7]

Well, ill be home in the a.m. and ill go pull the cam that i set over the carcass. Hoping for some cool video. Anybody here good at computer stuff that would be able to splice a bunch of 1 minute videos together into one long video?
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 13, 2018 •  [Post 8]

So i set the cam up on max resolution, with audio, and only a 10 second delay. Of course the ravens and magpies found the kill immediately, so i got about 5 hours of hi res video of scavenger birds, then sd card was full. Damn.
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Re: Wa cougar hunting

Postby wawhitey » 01 15, 2018 •  [Post 9]

Went out to unit 113 today, which is still open. Hardly anywhere a guy can pull his truck off the road to hike, cause of all the snow piled up on the shoulders from plow trucks. Found a spot i could pull off at north end of sullivan lake. Hiked around a few miles and found 2 sets of lion tracks, but too thick to call anywhere. If im going to get into good calling country in 113 right now, i guess i need a snowmobile. May try a couple areas in 204 this week if work doesnt interfere
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wawhitey
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Location: Stevens co, WA