No I'm not talking about the wazzuu cougs, we took care of them earliar in the apple cup......
My dads got a cow elk tag for the leavenworth area, not sure on the actual unit, but I still have a cougar tag to fill. His elk tag is good till mid Janurary I think, any way thought I would see if anyone had any thoughts on cats in the area, I really can not provide much more info on the unit, I just do not know more.

BTW, some of the locals said that these cats are considered the other white meat, and that it taste great? I was mostly interested in the mount and saving a few elk/deer/family pets. But has anybody ever tried eating Cougers, besides UW.

Thanks,

NEN

I have heard this "white meat " story for many years. The claim that it tastes good can't be confirmed by anyone I know. The stories are always second hand. How about you giving us a first hand report after you bag one ?

I have heard of people having good results by tracking cougars in the snow. They just find a fresh track and stay on it.
I've also heard that cougars are good eating. You may get a first hand account if you ask at www.huntamerica.com . There are quite a few cougar hunters on the Elk, Moose, Caribou, Bear, etc. forum.

I was wondering about the whole Cougar as a food topic myself.

Having been a member at HuntAmerica, I have read that they are good food.

My latest issue of North American Hunter also has a small quip about eating cougar, as well as a glowing recommendation and recipies in the latest issue of Traditional Bowhunting.

Give it a try and report back. I have not bagged one yet, so I cannot comment from experience.

A guy my Dad works with used to hunt Cougs and bear with dogs before the ban. A few yrs back,he brought some to my Dad,and I got to
try some. What I tried was considered steaks,and it tasted alot like pork. It was very good,and I wouldn't hesitate to eat some again. I always buy a Coug tag,in the chance I see one while deer or elk hunting. I haven't seen one when I had a gun in my hand. I don't know about tracking one down,it seems like pretty slim odds if you ask me. I've heard of people doing it,but I'd say there's alot of luck involved.

Try using a predator call in the snow find some fresh tracks sit down, hide yourself and start calling!! But make sure you are ready because they are looking for dinner.I have had them run right at me when I was hunting coyotes!!I had to stand up and yell at it
before it stopped!!!be prepared <img border="0" alt="[eat]" title="" src="graemlins/eat.gif" />

Fishtale... youre crazy dude. Sounds exhilerating as hell though.

Thanks all for the replies. I will hopefully be giving it a try after Christmas. I was thinking of usung the prey call, but I will also have my brother on a hill near by, he's a great shot, at least I keep repeating that in my head, a lot. I will post if I make it out.

NEN

I was up in Cle Elum and saw a few cougs actually. I was with some wardens and biologists and we tranqued one to replace the collar.

Guys if you see a collar, use some consideration and if you do shoot it, take the callar to the WDFW somewhere. If you do decide not to shoot it, the biologists would love ya even more. They are great guys and after the work that they put in, with only the little i saw, I can see why they get pissed when one of their subjects is killed.

Happy hunting!

Curtis

If it's not illegal to shoot a collared animal,why would they get pissed?

I know its not illegal.

What they do with these cougars is they download the data from the collars to see where the cougars are going. When you shoot a cougar, that ends that stream of data, possibly a few years down the drain.

I just know now that if I see a coug with a collar, I'm not shootin. Just seems like a common courtesy.

What crediability do the State's Wildlife Bilogist have anyway especially after the Great Canada Lynx Fiasco!

What crediability do the State's Wildlife Biologist have anyway especially after the Great Canada Lynx Fiasco!

I dont know if you can hunt the rattlesnake lake area.... But from what I've heard, the Elk come down to their frequently, and Cougars are in the area ....

but i have no clue if you can hunt that area for cougar

ACT...

I am not familiar with the Lynx incident... Care to enlighten me?

Basically the lynx issue went something like this: If it could be proved that the Canadian lynx inhabited the Wenatachee or Mt Baker national forests(or any national forests) then the environmental extremists could close thousands of square miles to hunting and other forms of recreation. Not having any luck finding any lynx in the woods, some creative souls from the National Wildlife Service, the Washington DFG, and some other agencies, planted hair samples from a captive lynx, in the National Forest. They got caught through DNA analysis, and then claimed they were just "testing" the lab that did the analysis. Next time you get caught speeding, tell the judge you weren't actually speeding, you were just "testing" the local police.

I'm not claiming that all the details mentioned above are exactly correct, but that is the general story.

N,E,N I'm from N,M and we eat them all the time If you use a preditor call Try puting up some fethers like a fehter duster work great out in frount of you like you would a turky decoy this will put the cats focus on it and not the sound Just for safty and it tasts like pork
good luck .

This must be what your talking about voodod..
==========================


State tracking cougars' interaction with people via GPS
Bob Mottram
The Tacoma News Tribune
January 22, 2003


What do you see in Washington's future? A burgeoning human population? Increasingly impacted traffic? Widespread urbanization of the countryside?
Here's what Donny Martorello sees:


He sees cougars and people living side by side. And he sees it as "a permanent part of Washington's future."


Martorello manages the cougar, bear and special species section of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.


It's that view, shared by him and others, that has given impetus to the department's plan to scrutinize the relationship between people and cougars in Western Washington. The goal is to figure out how the two can get along. The study already started east of the Cascades, but biologists won't know all they need to know until the effort comes over the hill.


All told, the project will take five to eight years. It started last winter near Cle Elum, where scientists are studying how cougars and people interact in a rural environment. Next winter, it will begin its second phase, in a new study area.


"That will be the whole front-country stretch from about North Bend to Carnation," Martorello said. "The purpose will be to compare and contrast how cats and people interact in a more residential or suburban setting."


Biologists will collar as many cats in that part of King County as they can catch, and outfit them with global positioning system transmitters. Older-style transmitters require a person to go out in the woods and determine the approximate location of a collared animal by using a radio-direction-finder antenna. All the person knows when he's done is approximately where the animal was at the moment he checked.


Global positioning system collars, on the other hand, transmit a stream of data to an orbiting satellite, which forwards them to a ground receiver, plotting and recording all of the details of the animal's travels over long periods of time.


"We'll be getting the very best data you can get," Martorello said. "The wealth of the data is beyond anything we've done. So we'll really be able to take a unique look as to how cats interact with people in a suburban environment."


Researchers want to find out how such interaction is influenced by habitat, and also to answer some questions about the Western Washington cougar population itself: Is it stable? How many young live to become adults each year? What percentage of the population overall survives an average year? How many cats can you expect to find in a particular kind of environment?


The questions are virtually unending: Are West Side cougar populations transient? Or do they consist of cats that live for only a few months because mortality is so high? Or, are they truly sustainable populations?


Are all of the cougars or only some of the cougars in suburban fringe habitats in conflict with people? Of those that are, what makes them distinctive? Are they of a certain age or gender? Are they predisposed to conflict for some other reasons?


And why does the state want to know these things?


"By knowing," Martorello said, "we can better manage for the interaction between people and cougars."


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