Well, we passed the 12,000 mark on views, but I haven't started receiving any commission checks yet so guess the staff at LRH isn't paying attention to this thread, which is probably for the best!....
Been busy the last few days, seems we have a Mountain Lion stalking the neighborhood. People have been missing a lot of cats and in a couple of cases, small dogs that have been let out to do their thing just before everyone goes to bed. It had been sighted a few times, and last Wednesday night, I walked out and was leaning on the wall that encloses the front of my courtyard and caught a glimpse of something coming down the street. Thought it might be a Coyote, so just held still and watched and it stopped across the street, looked at me then walked on across the neighbor's driveway across the street and when it got close to the garage lights saw it was about a half grown Mountain lion with what looked to be a cat in its mouth. It walked casually, like it owned the place, ducked around the wall and headed out into the retention basin in the green belt.
At the emergency HOA meeting Friday night, people were asking me and John, an avid hunter about what we could do. Game Dept. had been called and they said keep the small animals and children inside at night…Lots of help there! We explained to the HOA board that we live in a region where Firearms are not allowed to be shot at all, and the only hunting allowed by the state in this area is Bow hunting at certain times of the year.
For those that don't know, Tucson and this region have a major problem with Mountain Lions coming down from the mountains in winter and are taking pets, small animals, etc, even in town. Even been cases where joggers were stalked by the cats while jogging. Again, where all the problems are occurring, are in no shooting zones.
Anyway John and I told them we'd look into it and see what we could do. BUT if we resolve the problem, we didn't want any static from the board or the goodie two shoes homeowners living in the project. Outside, I told John that with my cataracts, I hadn't even taken out an AZ hunting license this year, just a Texas license for hogs. He said fine, he'd get the tag and we'd try to take the Lion down. Now game Department section 38M, where we live, is Bow hunting only for Mountain lion. In 18 years the game dept. had issued 162 permits for bow hunting mountain lions and in that same time only 2 had been taken by Bow. We decided that an ambush would be the best way to get him and decided that my house was better situated because of the way the houses were sited and the masonry walls could be used to channel him in.
A number of years ago, someone had given me a 150 # aluminum frame crossbow, one of the cheap ones that used to be common in Sporting Goods stores before crossbow hunting became popular. I dug it out and found a half dozen Stainless steel broad heads that I had in the bottom of the case and changed out the points on the bolts. Saturday night, John came over and we planned our strategy and were trying to figure out what to use to bait him in. John said he'd handle it and came back Sunday afternoon with a high grade portable recorder on which he'd recorded some very PO'd cat yowls and hissing. Asked him how he'd got it and he said he'd live trapped one of the Feral cats in the neighborhood and when it wouldn't cooperate, started poking it with a stick while it was in the cage. Then he edited it. That was one PO'd cat from the yowls and hissing… sounded like a full fledged cat brawl. I asked about the cat and he'd let it go when he had his recording. Anyway we put it on about a 10 minute playback loop and figured we go for it Monday night. I advised the neighbors behind me and they all said OK and the neighbor that lived next door with his house forming the channel had gone to Chicago or somewhere for Christmas and wasn't home so no problem there. BTW, was also wearing a .357 Mag just in case.
Monday night about 6:00 we set up the trap. My double Garage doors face sideways towards the neighbor's house so I opened them and turned out the lights. There is a 10' removable gate to my backyard and John showed up with a 65# compound that I've seen him hit consistently 10" circles at 40 yds in his backyard. He wanted to be back beyond the gate opening, in the dark, with the recorder behind him on a small table. I was back into the garage about 15' and holding the cocked and loaded crossbow. Maximum range if the lion walked into the channel was about 25 yds for either one of us. In the meantime, we were freezing. About 38 degrees and to Arizonan's that's Arctic Circle temperatures. Colder than a penguin's posterior.
About 10:15 the lion materialized at the corner of the neighbors house. That's the only way I can describe it! One micro second he wasn't there and the next micro second he was. I was slowly raising the crossbow and had it almost sighted when I heard the recorder yowl, saw a steak over the lions head and one micro second he was there, the next micro second he was gone. Didn't even see him move! No shot!....****! They are fast!
John, fairly nervous, had the lion sighted in, was starting his release when the doggone recorder went off behind him and startled him. That arrow went over the lions head by about 4" just missed its tail and hit the driveway and skittered out into the street. John had wanted that cat sooooo bad, it was on his bucket list for hunting. That lion disappeared so fast I swear he left his shadow from the garage lights sitting there. Later measurements showed that it wasn't a full grown mountain lion as the shadow only weighed 8 pounds by itself.
I did learn one thing though. Cat yowl recordings will draw Mountain Lions into range! Am thinking it will work on coyotes? Gotta try!
Postscript: We went out last night and set up in the greenbelt area back to back with a screaming rabbit call and about 11:00 heard what sounded like a 12 Ga going off over in the newest section of the development about ¼ mile away. George, across the street came back from his early morning walk this morning and told me that the mountain lion had been looking through a sliding glass door at a yapping dog in a bedroom. The homeowner, a retired Army Major, saw it, grabbed HER shotgun, went through the house, slowly opened the Kit door a couple of inches and blasted it about in half with double ought buck! Not only about blew the ML in half, but damaged her garage and the masonry wall behind it. Don't know if it was the same one, but will see! Everyone so far has chosen to disregard the shotgun blast once they saw why.
I know djones, no picture no credit. …Sigh! Gonna try to see if we can call in some Yotes over the next few weeks, but we have an ice storm coming in tonight so will have to delay for a while. Colder than a witches chest around here now!
Packrat
