Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Curiosity killed the cat

I have never called in any critter in my ~30 years of hunting not a bird, predator, big game, nothing.

I purchased a Foxpro Fusion hoping to get to take it to Wyoming a few weeks ago on our antelope trip but shipping was slow and we didn't get to take it. It finally arrived and I had some free time after work. A coworker and I wandered up a skid trail into an old brushed over burn and set up for an attempt at calling in a coyote. I had watched a YouTube video by Foxpro on setting up a stand and call progression but really I had very little clue what I was doing. We set up the call and tucked into the brush and started calling.

After about 20 minutes of calling I motioned to my buddy asking if he was ready to call it a day. He motioned back he heard something in the brush to his left. A moment later he snapped his fingers at me and pointed in front of us. I started scanning the opening looking for a coyote and locked eyes with this mountain lion standing broadside at ~20 yards. I had my suppressed AR pistol loaded with 50 grain Vmax sitting in a BogPod FieldMax tripod. I put the cross hairs behind her shoulder and sent one. She bound off crashing through the head high to me brush.

We were completely in shock and my hands were shaking but dark was coming so we started looking for blood. There wasn't any blood and no clear tracks from the pads and she was covering serious ground bounding down the hill. We decided to go down into the brush and look. We got down near the creek at the bottom and my buddy said I hear it breathing! We had walked past her in the brush. We could hear labored breathing above us and then the brush started moving towards us about 25 feet away. We stood there kind of dumb waiting to see if there was going to be excitement. The breathing slowed and the brush stopped moving. We waited and the sun set. I worked my way slowly up hill toward the last spot the brush was moving. I started seeing parts of cat laying in the brush and not moving. She was dead.

She was surprisingly heavy without much to grab onto but we we toted her back up the hill to the skid trail, snapped a few pictures, admired her beauty and fierceness, and began skinning her out. The meat is in the freezer, the hide is at the taxidermist, the skull is in the crock-pot. A mountain lion was at the top of my bucket list so I'm super pumped to finally see one let alone shoot one. Now to my next bucket list item find a wolf!






Found the 50 grain Vmax on the far side against the hide




I have always heard good things about lion meat other than the risk of trichinosis. It looked really good.
The plan is mostly sausage but we'll see if I can convince the wife to cook it other ways.