The Liberal Gun Club Forum

In the 40+ years we've lived on our farm we've seen many predators like coyotes, bobcat, badgers, bear (only 1) hawks, eagles, etc, but this is an eye opener. Everyone with land should have a trail camera.

That is awesome. Great to see a Mountain Lion in WI. They are common in my second home, Northern California. Here in VA not so much to the best of my knowledge.

"Its not really the wilderness unless there's something out there that might kill you and eat you"
-Edward Abbey

In 1963 when I worked in CA, I leased some rough hunting land south of the Lick observatory. Back then mountain lions were still being hunted and there was a $65 bounty on them. I was sitting under an overhand in the shade overlooking a water hole and some pebbles fell down from above me. I looked up just in time to see a yellow streak moving away. It scared the hell out of me. I went back to the ranch house to tell the owner who promptly got his 3 little scraggly dogs and a single shot .22 and had me show him where I saw it. Within 15 minutes the little dogs had the cougar up a tree and the rancher calmly shot it. I wished I hadn't told him. It was a shame to see that beautiful animal killed. When I asked him about using a .22, he explained that they were not the least brave and very easy to kill.
We've seen bobcats on our land but have never seen any sign of cougars. Our DNR has only recognized that cougars were in the state last year. The first year we bought our land, our German shepherd treed a bobcat. The DNR absolutely insisted that it must have been a feral cat even though I told them I had worked as a guide outside of West Yellowstone, Mt and was very conversant with bobcats. 20 years later when I managed to get a clear picture of one, they decided there were bobcats in southern WI. Our neighbors who lived in our valley for many generation knew it all along.

Sweet picture. That would keep me on my toes if I was walking around.

Sometime the 'it ain't here' myth is hard to overcome. Years ago I was looking at some land in the middle of Michigan, actually within 10 miles of I-96. Walking the plot which was an old farm site I poked my nose into a tumbledown outbuilding.

What poked it's nose back was a freaking Wolverine, there wasn't supposed to be one within 300 miles of there, they were were supposed to be completely gone from the southern peninsula for 50 years at least. Nobody told this guy. Fortunately for me, we decided to exit our tête-à-tête in opposite directions.

That is pretty awesome.

There is nothing large near here unfortunately. Too many rednecks with guns. I have seen tons of rabbits and snakes though. Maybe I can mount it very low

Never thought of setting up a trail camera, nice shot. Mountain lions are still common in California and they do feast on house pets left outside and feral cats. We're encroaching on their hunting area so daytime sightings are not unusual. I haven't seen any mountain lions in my area, it's mainly coyotes and there are a lot this year.

In the never to be forgotten words of Emily Latella "never mind". That picture was sent to us by our nearest neighbor. Our neighbor who lives further down the road and works for the state BER called to tell us it is a hoax. Apparently the picture was taken by a trail camera in Arkansas. I don't mind a joke, but just as he called, my wife was strapping on her snow shoes to move our trail camera to the far end of our property where we were told the cougar had been photographed. With 100 acres to trudge in deep snow, that's not much of a joke.

OOooops. Well, at least you found out sooner rather than later. Still.... nifty pic

It really was disappointing Mark. With 2 confirmed sightings in WI and lots of contiguous woods in our valley it really is possible. We had a bear this year and hope to have a wolf 1 day.

Bummer.

That so sucks.

It is way cool having eyes out in the woods whilst one goes about his daily rigors.
We discussed these Bushnells before - back when mine still worked. I will be digging for the receipt this afternoon. I came home from an unsuccessful deer/slug road trip hoping to find a couple weeks worth of pics on my card. Knowledge is, as they say, power. The device sported no pics and no power upon it's retrieval. I was busy enough with the goose guide service that i only got to chase 'em with stick-n-string for a few days at the end of season, so their rut travel patterns didn't matter anyway. Still, you don't expect a $250 piece of technology to just quit working a couple months after ya buy it. I look forward to using it(and/or a few others like it) next season. I believe i will be targeting predators this off-season and dearly love the idea of supplying a carcass as incentive to "smile".

We had 2 deer carcasses on our land after our early deer season. One of them that is down to a skeleton is still attracting coyotes, eagles, hawks, raccoons, possum and crows. The other which is half eaten only has small scavengers going to it. It seems very strange.

The county I live in Illinois is Montgomery and the farmers around here with livestock swear there are big cats here they have seen them they claim I live on 5 acres in a timber and I have seen some large paw prints in the creek beds makes me wonder sometimes if it could be possible.

Our DNR confirmed a cougar near Milton, WI which is not very rural and close to the IL border. Until that happening Milton was only known as the home of Tony Romo.

At work today we saw a real rarity a Canadian Lynx and a real big one too. Its fur was so heavy it was hard to guess the weight but it made it look like a 50lb cat. I've seen plenty of Bobcats and one dead Puma on the shoulder of Hwy 2 but this is the first Lynx.

That is a pretty spiffy sighting.

Saw another Lynx at work tonight, this one was about thirty miles east of the last one.

I see bears,coyotes and what I think was a Fisher once,I have caught bears on our trailcam in the Fed that butts up to my farm

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o197 ... booboo.jpg

Here in the Sonoron Desert, we were surprised to see 2 deer walk through our yard.
A lion scratched our water tank too.
No water around for miles nasty cactus. I thought only humans were stupid enough to live here.

When I worked for the Dept of Corrections in CA in the early 60, I had to work in a prison for the first month. I spent 2 of those weeks in a tower at night. The only way I stayed awake was by looking out at the surrounding desert and spotting bobcats, coyotes, etc. BTW do you see any jack rabbits where you live? On my last 2 trips out west I didn't see any.

Yep. Jack rabbits and little bunnies roadrunners baby quail .......

There was one big Jack with a bullet hole in his ear. He came by for a snack every day. Water too. We used to feed birds but it just brought rats.

Our morning walk is up to 3 large dead things near the road. The vultures are not doing their gig. THe bunnies are making it all over the place. The Ironwood are in bloom as everything else and it's so dry I can't smell anything but death all over the desert. The Coyotes ar working overtime.

There has been a wolverine spotted by cameras in the northern sierra several times over the last few years, after missing for 80 years.



One of my favorite camping areas is frequented by scavenging bears. The only thing that scares the bears away is lions. Dogs seem to do a good job of keeping the lions away. I used to have two hound dogs that would make a whole lot of noise when they were scared of something, and a ranger said the lion didn't stick around long after I arrived with my bassets.

Yep. Jack rabbits and little bunnies roadrunners baby quail .......

There was one big Jack with a bullet hole in his ear. He came by for a snack every day. Water too. We used to feed birds but it just brought rats.

Our morning walk is up to 3 large dead things near the road. The vultures are not doing their gig. THe bunnies are making it all over the place. The Ironwood are in bloom as everything else and it's so dry I can't smell anything but death all over the desert. The Coyotes ar working overtime.[/quote]

I was once in the high desert outside of Albuquerque when it rained. My wife is a botanist whose specialty is wild flowers, but I've seen anything to compare with a desert in bloom.