A buddy forwarded this to me. Supposedly it was killed near Stover, Missouri:

Not!

That is JJHack in that pic and it was killed in Washington state.

This is growing in internet lore just like the bear from AK did.....

Jim (JJHack) is one of my customers, and the cat in the photo was killed by a friend of Jim's, also one of my customers. The details are posted in the archives, Jim made a post last year.

Cougar was killed in the Cascade Range out from Bend, WA, which is just east of Seattle. They were coyote calling and guess who showed up for dinner!!!

The power of the internet: Do not believe what you see.

Hasn't that cat grown in size too?

I stand corrected. I wasn't sure about the pic, but I was sure someone on these boards would know.

.....it looks like he is up to at least 300lbs. now. Miracles are possible.....

Didn't JJHack say he weighed something like 190 pounds? I read research that says 150 lbs is about the average for western states mature tom cougars and 100 to 110 for mature females being that they're not just smaller but much more slender in build.

That honestly looks like a 200# cat. And very possible. We take one or two a year here in Wy that are weighed at right at 180#. This phot is one of the internet legends, like the big bear from Alaska. They just keep growing. But this one is a big cat. They also look bigger when you hold them that way. That's why people hold them up.

Leo from B/O???? Randy

If memory serves me correctly, I think JJ said it weighed in at 188 lbs. with a full stomach.....

Bob

Hello Riflemen: Some time ago I did a little investigating into big lions in the west. This cat weighted just a bit more that 250# with the largest killed and weighed cougar weighing in at 283#. Makes me think twice about walking to my hunting stand at 4am in the dark We got a male mountain lion this year in southern Oregon that weighted 140# on Fish and Wildlife game scales. They considered him a monster. Good luck and stay safe, Hardley06

In the 1980's I was single, self employed and would sort of "semi-retire" during the winter months. The Colorado Division of Wildlife had begun a cougar study in my neck of the woods on the Uncompahgre Plateau. At the time it was the largest cougar project undertaken to date. I spent a couple of months each winter working (the money was terrible but I was in it for the interest) on the capture team. We treed the cats with dogs, tranquilized them, took the vital measurements, and fitted the cougars with telemetry.

Out of 65 adult cougars captured on the study, the largest was a 166lb tom. A year later we accidently caught this cougar again. We didn't tranquilize him but estimated his weight at 190-195lbs. He was about 3 years old when we first captured him (we got real good at estimating weights in order to give them the right dosage of tranquilizer--the person who came the closest to the actual weight won a round of beer). He had certianly been doing well for himself. About 6 months later this cougar traveled outside the study area and was killed by a hunter--the skull made B&C. The subspecies of cougar that inhabits Western Colorado and eastern Utah (Felis concolor hippolestes) is considered to be the largest in North America.

A year after the study was over, an acquaintince of mine killed a tom in the former study area that weighed in at 219lbs. This cat was huge. His head was the size of a basketball. I would guesstimate the cougar in the photo would be pushing 170-180lbs--it's a big cat. I am a little skeptical of 280lb cougars though--wildlife weights (elk, deer, cougars, bears) are like fish stories. People who would accompany us (even experienced hunters) would generally grossly over estimate the weight of a cougar in the tree.

By the way, my uncle sent me the same photo just last week with the claim it was killed in Alabama--who starts these rumors anyway?

Casey

This is a photo of Randy Epperson of RimRock Outfitters (http://www.rimrock-outfitters.com) with a big tom I killed in the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness area of Arizona. It weighed a LEGIT 172 pounds on a hanging spring scale, and the green hide measured just under 9' from the tip of the nose to the the tip of the tail.



The second photo shows the critter in the tree before I shot it. -TONY

....like I said, JJ is quoted as saying the cat weighed 188 lbs. He was guiding his friend on the hunt and I would think he would know. I also believe, and this is my own opinion, that the photo in its present form has had a little TLC from Adobe Photo Shop.

Bob

There are two versions of the JJ Hack cougar picture. The original one and one that has been "computer enhanced" to make the cougar appear about 15-20% larger.

I went back to a previous post that had both pictures side-by-side, but those pictures were no longer available (the source for the pics had removed them from his server).

Regards,

Terry

OK......I just heard back from JJ. I was off on the weight a bit. Here is the straight dope:

"The cat was from Central Western Washington state, score 15-12/16 and was 201 pounds shot with a 30/06 using a 165 grain bullet. tracked for several hours in the snow, and then called with a predator call to get him to come to us."