[elkslayer4x5]

What are the odds?
Back on Aug 1st, the first day of Oregon's fall bear season, my son and I rode our mountain bikes out a local Timber company's logging road, ( they allow folks to hunt their lands, but you must either walk or ride a bike ), and past the gate about a mile or so, we notice a well used trail crossing the road, headed for water, so we stop and head away from the creek which is right next to the road. We followed the trail for a ways until it came to an intersection, that seemed a good place to hang a trail camera. We did just that. A few days before our archery season was to open, we ride back in to change batteries and pull the sd card to see what we've caught on camera. Turns out that its a hot trail, as we have everything on the card. every thing that we're holding tags for.

 

[elkslayer4x5]

Now that was plenty to be excited about, but can you imagine our suprize when we found this photo on the card?

We are allowed to hunt only on weekends and after 5:00pm on this Timber company property, and so we set up a blind the evening before archery season opens, and are in the blind every day of two weekends before daylight and until after shooting light. Hair standing on end at every noise, but nothing ever showed it seld, even had a bull elk beat the hell outta a deadfall tree down near the road with his antlers, but saw nothing. Third week when we get to the gate ot ride in we find this;

D*$%n! and we can't go in, not even to collect our gear, well we have other places we can hunt so we start working those, one of them about 6-7 miles north of the hot trail, where we have another trail cam hung. Well, achery season closes and still we can't get our blind and camera out, rifle season opens and BLM unlocks several gates like they usually do during rifle season, and we about to head out one of those roads when we run into the timber company Dorest Patrol hanging more fire control signs, and we get to yakin with him and tell him of our Cougar family photo, he then tells us about a cougar being hit and killed by a motorcycle, about a 1/2 mile below where we have the other trail cam hung. The next day we go to that camera to change batteries and pull the card. Guess what we found? Another cougar photo, this one a bigger more heavily built cat, most likely a male.Given a cougars territorial instinct, and their home range, a female's home range is about 20 sq mi, and a males about 30 sq mi, overlapping females ranges around him, Because of this cats build, we think that it is a male, and because of that, and the nearness to the other 3 cats, we think this is Dad. Now gone.

 

[WakeUp]

awesome photographs !

 

[LunaticFringeInc]

That's pretty cool what you caught on the SD card. Too bad you got screwed out of hunting there this season, looks like it would have been pretty productive!

 

[dh1633pm]

Look like you got cheated big time. But won big on the nice photos.