A week ago while hunting I found this dead buck. Some birds were on it, but there was about two hands full of meat chewed out of the hindquarter.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/treekiller/lionkilledbuck.jpg)
Upon investigation I found where the buck had been killed and dragged down the hill. Thought maybe the cat had been scared off and wasn't sure if it would return to the kill. The next morning at daylight I went back and the buck had been moved downhill and buried, but not until the cat had consumed half the buck!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/treekiller/lionkill.jpg)
I was pretty sure the cat was laid up closeby with a belly full of meat. But he had relieved himself numerous times around the kill, there were 4 big piles of cougar poo within 10ft of the carcass. I couldn't locate the cat, so I went on in search of my own deer or elk.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/treekiller/cougarpoo.jpg)
I went back the next day and the buck carcass had been dragged down the hill another 150-200 ft. In 48 hours the buck had been reduced to part of the skull, the antlers, lower legs, some hide, and a few large bones. Nothing left but yellowjacket scraps.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/treekiller/lionkill2.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v117/treekiller/icon_arrow2.gif)
Thank you for the interesting update Tree Killa!
Hope you score on both a big bull and a big buck!
Shoot straight, Shinken
Great pics, that's very efficent use of a kill, little waste.
very cool.
wold have been a cool chance to use a game cam... maybe fasten it to an antler :D
That looked to be a nice Blacktail buck. Thanks for sharing the pics.
Wow, that's cool! We don't have cats like that down here (well, maybe a few in FL.)
Keep a look out over your shoulder, he'll be hungry again soon.
Thats neat.Must be a biggun.
Very interesting! Well-done to the lion!
I wonder why fox coon cats etc always eat the hind end out of the animals before anything else. i know we know thats where the most meat is, they must know that somehow too
the ciiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiife!
I don't know anything about a cougar but I thought cats always buried their scat, no???
Sometimes they do,often they don't.I don't claim to know what they think but I imagine sometimes it serves a purpose for it to be visible.
I find it hilarious when the greenies say; "They only kill the sick and the weak"
Cougars and wolves can kill whatever they want, whenever they want. Sure, they will take a sick/weak animal if it presents itself, but healthy strong bucks like that one don't stand much of a chance either.
Great pics Ron. Hope the hunt is going good. If it would have been that toad of a buck you have pics of, that cat would have dinner for another week.
Great pics Ron, Hope your huntin's good. RS
Ron, like Robin said great pics, and a good thread.
:wavey: Robin
I'd bet you have pictures of lion kills that would open most everybody's eyes, including mine.
I don't know about the rest of the world but in AZ all the research says cats like mature bucks because they are more often alone. And just as we know they get stupid once a year.
MAP
Must have been a good size cat. We had a huge cat checking out our wilderness neighbors llama's that were tithered in a nearby meadow.
That was a nice black tail too!
Great pics tell the story. Don't be blindsided. Thanks
Pretty cool.I would like to have put a trail camera on that.
Great pix...very cool.
Walt
Like Ron, the lion kills really facinate me. I love it when I find a fresh one in the snow and get to read the whole thing like a book. Several times I've followed the lions tracks to a bed close by, lots are close enough to watch the kill.
My all time favorite kill was a bull elk that a tom lion killed in a stream. The bull had a injured foot and made his stand in the water. The cat had tracks all around him on the bank and finaly got the best of him and took him down.
The bull was big enough that the cat couldn't get him up over the ice shelf at waters edge. He ate most of the meat available above the waterline. Somewhere I have a picture of the bull as I found him. He was a big five or small six point.
I know Ron has pictures of other kills also. RS
I relate to reading the sign, they can tell quite a story. I have found kitty beds numerous times after finding a fresh kill, one time I even managed to sneak to twelve yards on a sleeping tom without him knowing I was there. Unfortunately, I had recently moved to Montana from Idaho and didn't have a Montana lion tag. I sat there and watched him for five minutes before backing out to go find my brother who had a tag, but he was gone when we returned and hour later. Somewhere on my old computer (that crashed last year) I have pictures of lion killed mule deer, elk, and big horn.
Wow, awesome story. Thanks for sharing.
I'll bet it's an eery feelin' knowing that a big cat is somewhere around watching you when you find his kill like that. I know it would be for me. Makes me kinda glad that we don't have lions around here.
Thx for sharing! Thats a great picture-story!
QuoteOriginally posted by Michael Pfander:
I don't know about the rest of the world but in AZ all the research says cats like mature bucks because they are more often alone. And just as we know they get stupid once a year.
MAP
I remember reading about that study 10-12 years ago. Mature bucks are loners and more apt to stand his ground and defend himself, but doe's and fawns take flight at the first sign of danger.
Here in Oregon where I spend alot of time in the woods, the overwhelming number of kills I find are bucks. Some are big dawgs in the prime of their life!
QuoteOriginally posted by Roughcountry:
Walt
Like Ron, the lion kills really facinate me. I love it when I find a fresh one in the snow and get to read the whole thing like a book. Several times I've followed the lions tracks to a bed close by, lots are close enough to watch the kill.
My all time favorite kill was a bull elk that a tom lion killed in a stream. The bull had a injured foot and made his stand in the water. The cat had tracks all around him on the bank and finaly got the best of him and took him down.
The bull was big enough that the cat couldn't get him up over the ice shelf at waters edge. He ate most of the meat available above the waterline. Somewhere I have a picture of the bull as I found him. He was a big five or small six point.
I know Ron has pictures of other kills also. RS
Robin...you sent me those pics of the bull in the creek several years ago. I may have burned them onto a disk with other wildlife pics. Found a spike bull one time that had been killed by a cat, but we don't have all that many elk in the north Cascades.
I was amazed by the how much of the buck had been eaten overnight. My investigation could only dig up one set of big tracks. It's possible a bear could have came in and polished off the remains, but no bear tracks or bear poo in the immediate vacinity.
As Roughcountry can attest to, we have A LOT of toothy predators in our woods. I never feel concerned when hiking around though, and very seldom pack a firearm.
TK
I have wondered how many cats I haven't seen that have watched me while out hunting. I have only seen 4 over the years...but I bet there were more than that that were near me I didn't know about.
I was in CO a couple weeks ago mulie hunting and I was riding my mountain bike in on a trail. I came over a hill and stopped because a mountain lion was standing in the trail apparently stalking rhodents in the boulder field nearby. It saw me and made tracks! Pretty cool! I think it was a young adult. Probably the only one I will ever see in the wild.
Ron, I think that elk picture is on one of my disk's also. Not sure which one though.
I remember you sending me a picture of another lion killed buck that was a dany also.
I got a shot at a female lion with my recurve a few years back. She came sliding by me as I was trying to get in on a couple mullie bucks. I thought it was another deer untill she got enough past that I could see her tail. When I realized what she was my head jerked and she caught the movement and crouched and turned to look at me. I had a arrow on the string so I thought I may as well try to get to anchor. She raised up as I was drawing and when I released she gave me a leason on how to jump the string.
The arrow passed right over the base of her tail when it got to where I had picked my spot.
She never once made a sound getting out of there. My arrow did make plenty of noise and both bucks left the area like a couple of pogo sticks.
Was a pretty cool deal, I at least knew my stalk on the bucks was the right one. A master was using the same route.
(http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u31/snag23/buck.jpg)
(http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u31/snag23/buck2.jpg)
Here are a couple of pictures of a buck that a friend came upon during an elk hunt this year. The pictures don't show it very well but the front shoulder was eaten. There was cat tracks around it. The cougar probably wasn't far away I would think.