its about 15 below here, not much to do outside for sure, as i looked across the game room, i got thinking about the cougar that sits on a log.
it was about 1978 or 80, and at that time cougars were on a big decrease across their range. I had a friend/guide in montanna that just lived to hunt them. David bred his own dogs, not to big, and not a bone in their body, didn't have room for bones with all the muscle they had. We had to get together for a cat hunt, something we decided on the fall before while hunting elk in the bob marshall. The timing was important. we would go in the spring, late march or early april. SOmetime after the snows had melted and a new fresh one arrived. Dave would call me, i'd jump on the 1st airplne to great falls, and off we'd go. Any tracks we would wee would have to be fresh and we wouldn't waste alot of time chasing dogs around the hill. As i remember it it was the frist week in april when the phone rang one evening. It's snowing, get your ass out here came the voice as soon as i picked up the phone. A quick call and i was on the first plane out in the morning. Getting to great falls, dave and windy were waiting, in the bar. A normal position for windy especially. Now i should explain that these 2 guys were about the last of the old cowboys (using that expression with all due respect) Summer was work time, fall was hunting time, winter was bar time, and spring was fishing time. The only thing that disrupted this schedule was cat hunting in the winter.
Off we went town the road toward wolf creek, Windy's hone ground. About noon we stopped at bowmans corner for a beer and since I had been up since the wee hours, i had a burger. Neither dave or windy ate anything, something i would appreciate latter. When we got to wolf creek it was long past dark, and we went right to macs bar & grille. I mentioned that windy spent an amount of time in a bar, and macs was old home. We no more than sat down and we had a long line of beers lined up in front of us, with everybody in the place buying windy and his friends a beer. Then after enough liquid had been absorbed to cause a rise in the septic system, we had to have dinner. Mac comes out with a prime rib. Not just one like you usually see, but one that must have weighed at least 6 pounds and would have feed a family of 12. Now i figured out what they didn't have lunch. In any case it was 3AM when we got into a bed to get up at 5. All this time windy had been telling stories. We were still laughing and hurting so much that speep was impossible, so we got up and went out hunting.
There was a certain order in the truck, david would drive, i would sit in the middle and windy on the right side. Windy had a laugh that was contageous, we would be driving down the road and he'd start laughing. Neither dave or me knew what we were laughing at, but with windy doing it you just couldn't help yourself. After a bit the story would come out, Hey dave, remember this ranchers daughter, or that ranchers daughter. If you could have put this guy on a vegas stage you would have made a million overnight.
About a hour after daylight, we cut a track. We had 3 dogs, 2 of davids and windys big old black and tan. WIndy's dog was named dink. Why do you call him that i asked, he only answers to sonofabitch or dirty bastard. Cause thats the closest thing i can call to prick came the answer. Anyway up the hill we went.
After a couple hours we came back on our tracks. We knew we had the cat in the circle and looked upwards again. There was a rocky cliff type thing above it, and dave figured the cat was on top of it. So windy took the left side, david the right and me up the middle. I was going right up the middle of the rocks, not because i had any aspiration of doing so, but thats the way the dog was going. Dave never let his dogs really go. Usually you had a leash on and would turn them loose when you jumped the cat. With that 40#'s of solid muscle firmly attached to my arm, I was goinbg wherever the dog was going, no choice in the matter at all. Suddenly I heard daves dog hollering, then a flash went in front of me. Not the cat, but dink, with windy hard on his heels, yelling every curse that we could think of (and he knew many) Seems like he had tied dink to his belt, and when the dog got scent of the cat he took off. With windys belt and a portion of pants with him. Me dog took off and I think he dragged me halfway to billings before I could get the damn lease off my arm. It didn't take long to tree the cat. Perched well up in a fir tree it seemed perfectly happy, just to be away from thaem damn yappy mutts down on the ground. Now the hill we were on was steep enough that we could walk a few yards uphill and be on level with the lion. It took us a bit, but we finally figured out it was a female, and I didn't want to shoot a female. We took a few pictures of here (still one of them is my best camera shot today) and decided we'd throw a snowball or two and let her go. Now the mystery part set in. We would throw a snowball and come close or hit here, and she'd snarl and hiss and get madder a d madder. Dave kept commenting about here crazy blue eyes. I finally said, so what about blue eyes, cats don't have blue eys they're yellow. Oh yea. Well it took some scientific snowball throwing then. We took turns. The lion would react only after she got hit, and once we actually hit her in the face. Now, you just can't hit a cougar in the face with a snowball, their reflexes are must to fast fot that. We finally figured out that she couldn't see the snowballs coming. With that that I decided to shoot. I'd rather take an impaired cat the biggest one on earth. I was using my old S&W 41mag with 170 gr sierras loaded over a casefull of H110. There's a little tuft of hair on the bottom of the chest that targets the heart from position directly underneath. The bullet hit that tuft of hair and out of the tree she came. Dead before she knew it, the bullet had gone through the little heart and lodged into the spine.
After letting the dogs worry the carcass a bit we tied them and took a look. The eyes were a soilid milky blue color, with no pupil visable, They were also protruding bout of the head. Her face was full of porky quills. She was blind. We figured that she had been hunting porkys to keep alive because she could hunt them by hear and scent. Taking here to town we looked up the vet, and he said she had glaucoma, the first time he had heard of it in a cougar. The ranchers in the area were certainly happy about it, since calving season was about on hand. She was quite gaunt weighing only about 90#'s when she should have gone about 140.
Putting the choice pieces of meat on ice to bring home. (yes cougar is not edible, but one of the best eating meats there is) we went fishing. The sun river was mostly frozen over, but there were a few bends open. On the way there we stopped to take a few pictures of the winter elk herd. Hundred of elk were present. The cows and young bulls in their groups, the big guys in theirs. I took pictures of 7 bulls walking around a hill, 5 of which had horns , and when they came around the other side only 4 had them.
On to the river where we managed to catch about 10 or 12 or the nicest browns you can imagine.
Now the problem of the damn clock arose. We were a few hours away from the airport and my ticket said today. Thank goodness david had a V* in the truck, a 6 wouldn't have made it. With the hide in one hand, the gun and fish on the baggage line, i dashed down the hall. They held the door open for me and we were away. Different thing flying in those days.
Like i said its cold outside, and maybe i'm getting old, but memories abound. This was the last time i was to see my friend dave. He had a problem with alcohol, and commiitted suicide, after killing his girlfriend. But as the old saying goes, You are alive and long as someone remembers. I do

Enjoyed that very much. Thanks for posting!

KG

Hey Butch, Quite a fine memory, great Hunt and good friends. Much better than - I Killed a cat. In fact, I always prefer any Trophy that has a great memorable story over one that is just a Kill, regardless of the size.

And I choose to believe the departed know each time we think about them. If it does work that way, a good many old buddies are getting laughs at my expense every week.

Good Hunting and clean 1-shot Kills.

I applude your decision on taking a injured animal on your hunt.

Thanks for sharing that memory. Its a great story well described.

That was a great read, thank you very much.