Cougar Down! December 5th...

Rainshadow,

Man that is AWESOME!

I think most everybody that has called much at all has to have a lion at the top of their list. I know it is ours! I am green with envy, but giddy with excitemnt for ya! Great Job!

The footage can be "zoomed in" on most any editing program. We have done it from time to time. Also a marker or highlighted circle is easy to do. The only problem is that the video quality greatly degrades the more you zoom it up. A few percents is fine, but a large scale "zoom" will be very grainy and very noticable. It is no "magic bullet" for sure. Sometimes I sure wish it was! Captureing it on tape, while calling, and shooting, is a great accomplishment!

The problem with calling/filming by yourself is that one or the other has to suffer, you either dont get the shot, or the footage, the vast majority of the time. A dedicated camera man is worth its weight in gold, and for good reason. I am excited for you to be able to run the camera the rest of the year, and let somebody else shoot. To get "great" footage you have to be 100% dedicated to the camera, and I think you are capable of such. Just remember what you see on the camera is what you get in the end. Every jump, bump, and deep breath will show up. The only way to get good at it is to go out and do it. We filmed an entire season with 20+ really good kills just to see if we could do it, none was video quality, but we learned a ton. The practice season made our first "real" filming season better by leaps and bounds. I am anxious to see what you come up with in the future, I think it will make me a deeper shade of green!

Great Job!

Todd
 
Thanks guys.

jumpin', I've heard stories like that from here... lots of them. 'Couple of the hardest hiking wild men I've ever known almost getting walked to their deaths... There's some roads, but the roadless areas are brutal. Knew a few hounders back in the day...

Thanks Todd, need all the help I could get! I'm really tickled with what I got, it's real, and nothing is staged or scripted, just off the cuff. I may debrief one clip, just to fill in the holes. It's another whole universe of information I have to absorb!

Congrats on the great showing at the Coyote hunt, Tony! Way to go!
 
Steve, I see you broke the 243 wssm upper. That must be the upper you got from my son Trevor. Sometimes, the first one animal taken with a gun is hard to come by, but it broke in now so the rest of the animals will come easy now!!!

Good Job!!
 
Nice ,That is what my son is looking for. I have seen
four this year ,and now it's time to try are luck.
I think i will bring my shotgun along when we go .
nice cat. dont get no better. nice !!!!!!!!!!!!
cool-cat
 
Thanks CC, PM returned, go get them beggars!

Thanks Mike. Not gonna make the Fort Benton trip in Dec. Still hoping for Jan. or Feb. Hosts have had things come up (illness.) Fingers crossed!
 
Amazing, Steve! Any called cougar is a trophy. I hunt public land and I joke that the only way I'm going to kill a truly big bull elk is if he's the first one I see! Same goes for a lion. She looks huge to me! Got me thinking about your tutorial. I'll be in touch.
smile.gif
 
Thanks again guys. No kidding, N-AZ. This is actually the 4th time I've gone out on a sighting, but it's by FAR the freshest. I was less than an hour behind this Cat.

Funny, I've had 4 other sighting reports since telling friends and family this hunting story! One of them hours fresh! (As of now I'm still tagless!)
 
Steve,
I'm off tomorrow and I have a tag...Lets go! By they way, your cougar sounds are incredible on the CS-24. Thanks again.
Shawn
 
Did you do anything Mon/Tue Shawn? Sunday was the day to drive here, we got 1/2" of snow from sea level up. It's been so cold they gotta be hungry. Did you hunt?
 
Yep. I was up behind Cushman and I picked up three sets of tracks within about four miles of each other. They were all single tracks, ie. lone cats, and they were old. The snow was crusted hard and the tracks were frozen solid. I had to hike in which really didn't give me a warm fuzzy when I was hiking out in the dark. It is one thing to know that there are cats out there. Its another to know that they are actually there... Every time I past by a high bank alone the Forest Service Road I tightened my grip on my AR just a tad bit.

I was going to head up there again tomorrow morning, but the snow is so old and crusty, I just don't think that I'll be able to pick up a fresh track. Instead I am headed over to the East side to chase a few coyotes.

I am also going to have to develop a better plan on my call sets for the cats. The areas where I found the tracks were thicker than Cambodia during the height of their growing season. I could see maybe ten yards off the road at most. Of course it was as steep as a cows face too. I did notice a lack of deer or elk sign. I only picked up a couple of tracks, nothing fresh. So I'm wondering if they haven't dropped down to a lower level. I would love to see about a foot of new snow up there. Maybe this weekend. I am off, so I am keeping my fingers crossed.
 
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