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Ran into a mountain lion today

6K views 89 replies 45 participants last post by  Richard Olmstead 
#1 ·
Out steelheading on the nf stilly and ran into a small (I think) mountain lion this morning. Was about the size of a large golden retriever but much meatier and had a huge tail. Scared the fuck out of me.

The river was pretty high due to the rain so I had to hike up in the woods to go upstream. When I dropped down to the river and broke thru the brush, just 8-10 yards upstream of me this dude was chilling on the gravel bar. I had seen about a dozen pink salmon carcasses/bones in the woods but I thought it was just a bear bringing them up as I have seen bear tracks on this run before. It was pretty clear I startled him too as he darted upriver and into the woods after making eye contact with me for a few seconds. I had never seen one before so I really don't know if it was a baby or was just a young adult (was afraid that the little shit might go run to momma).

Freaked me out regardless, and it seemed I scared him off too. After he turned around, I followed suit and ran away like a middle school girl back downstream. Pretty sure I peed a bit too. Don't think my little fillet knife would have done me much good. Got back to my car and drove a few miles downstream to fish someplace else. I was freezing cold before this and within a few minutes I was sweating. Pretty cool experience overall

Be careful out there....
 
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#84 ·
Seeing a cougar makes for a good memory and is something that most people won't experience. I might look over my shoulder now and then, but I'm not afraid of cougars. Shady people cause me to worry a lot more than any wild animals.
I've seen four cougars. That's probably a fraction of the number that have seen me.
 
#85 ·
The NF Stilly has a high population of unpredictable and dangerous Mountain Lion's and Bears; and now that the last high water washed out the majority of the Pink carcasses, they are also HUNGRY!!! If that isn't dangerous enough, it opens up for gear fishing in a few more weeks and so its' banks will also be crawling with rude hostile pistol packing gear huckers, which in turn attracts another menacing dangerous 2-legged critter known as "Tweakers"; - It is best to stay away from this river.
 
#88 ·
[quote="Krusty, post: 885333, In fact, these guys terrified me on a recent visit to Black Lake...look at the menacing stare.

View attachment 35163 [/quote]
In over 50 years working in forests populated by bears, cougars, and (more recently) wolves - all of which I have had at least a few "close encounters" with - the only encounter with a "wild" animal in which I felt at all threatened occurred 45 years ago in a remote area of the North Cascades when a herd of feral Angus cattle ran me up a tree and kept me there until dark. I later found out that these cattle had been roaming that area for over 30 years without ever having been rounded up, so none of these animals - though descended from domesticated stock - had ever been domesticated.
 
#90 ·
Someone left an incredulous query ("?") after my previous post, in which I asserted that humans had hunted moutain lions nearly to extinction. Perhaps it was with the "in recent decades" that I used with that comment, which dates me, I guess.

I should have indicated that over the past century or more this had happened. In recent decades (2 or 3, let's say) they have made a remarkable comeback.

Take a look at this map and accompanying caption:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/cougars/spreading-east-map

"By the early 1970s, cougars in the U.S. were found only in Florida and scattered pockets of the West. Since then, more prey-especially deer-and better management have let them expand and recolonize the Midwest."

D
 
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