Mountain Lions in Salinas

Monster Guppy and myself basically got escorted out of Coyote creek one year while fishing for trout in the stream... The big cat literrally followed us all the way up the creek.. I came within 15 feet of the cat. I didnt like the feeling at all. And yes I do belive they are not frigtened of us because the ban on hunting them. How I would love A rug in my living room!!!

Nice Kitties I walk in thru some pretty remote jungle like areas on the Russian in the pre-dawn more than a few times I have seen fresh tracks pretty freakie when you are by yourself busting brush. One time a deer flew by me and I could hear something chasing it but never saw what, meow, I was pretty happy when I finally got out of the brush to the river.

 My neighbor up the River heard his dog barking and crying in his back yard late at night went out back and the cat had his 100lb sheperd in his jaws the cat dropped him but the dog didn't make it. F&G sent out trackers but they didn't find the kitty.

Yeah Mike, I've heard of a few labs and shepherds going over the back fence....in the jaws of a lion...yikes. 

Another lion story came to mind reading this thread.  I got it second hand from a very reliable source and friend, but it is so strange it could qualify as a "Forest Legend".  Two folks were in the field in Northern California surveying for spotted owls in a draw. One person was up on the top edge of the draw and the second gal was walking the bottom of the draw.  The gal at the bottom was in her first season of field work.  The person at top heard a ruckus down below and when she got there she found the second gal kinda shaken-up.  Apparently a lion had got too close to a mama black bear with a cub.  The bear chased the lion down the draw straight at the gal. They both came tearing at her with the bear in close pursuit, and circled right around her at full speed and headed back in the direction they came!!!  That'll wake you up!   

Many moons ago during the Hippie invasion of Cotati.........
 I was walking through a downtown gas station parking lot and heard the rattling of chain and saw a yellow blur coming from my right side. I was tackled around the waist by puma that had been chained inside the back of a station wagon. I froze, then some guy yelled "he won't hurt you, he's de-clawed." Well I wasn't freaked but that definitely woke me up!

 The last time I saw a Mountain lion was west of Red Bluff while on a trip to test some recently completed "combat auto".45's with a gunsmith friend. While walking to a crude range in broad daylight a Mountain lion ran across the path right in front of me. It was quick and at first I thought it was a skinny Lab until I saw the long tail disappearing into the brush. I was worried it was sick,because of the circumstances, at least we were well armed...

Wow FS - that's crazy getting tackled by a lion! and in town!

After reading your story I was envisioning, and could hear in my head, Tommy Chong as the guy saying " Hey maaannn, don't worry, he's declawed"..............and his name is Dave! 

I'm a shoot, shovel, and shut up guy.

These kitties hunt our neighborhoods for our pets regularly, the public has no clue what danger they and their pets are in. I've seen more Mountain Lions in my lifetime than bears.

I saw one 15 years ago in downtown Sonoma about 5am, almost hit one with my truck driving between Santa Rosa and Windsor on 101 about 2 years ago, while sitting in a guys house at Sea Ranch, watch a momma and 2 cubs trot across his "yard" ( greenspace between his house and neighbors- about 200 yards away), watched the momma jump the backyard fence of neighbors house... 2 minutes later momma comes back over the fence carrying neighbors Blue Heeler in her mouth which she carried like a dead rat. They trotted off back across and up the hill to the tree line. We called DFG, 2 days later a Warden came to "investigate". While up at a guys house in Trinidad area, we are in his kitchen, and a kitty comes up on his back deck and eat his dog's food right out of the bowl. We got real good photos of that. Their dog saw it, ran up to window and barked, cat hissed, showed fangs and kept eating the food, and strolled off when it was done. We grabbed the dog so the cat wouldn't try to come thru sliding door, which wasn't locked. they called the Sherriff, again, cat was gone by the time they got there.

All but the Sea Ranch kitty was in the dark or twilight.

DFG seriously underestimates the Mountain Lion population. I'll never let a kitty go by when I'm armed.

Not to sound like a raging leftie liberal hippie, but mountain lions live in the woods, and when people start building up homes in the woods (case in point: Sea Ranch), there will be wild animals around. If the SR folks don't like mountain lions then they shouldn't have bought up 20 miles of public coastline, period.

How many fatal attacks have there been in the last 15 years? 3 or 4?

Timely article in the Sentinel this morning about ML research form UCSC.  Radio collars and antennea.

They estimate 28 adults and 42 cubs in the Santa Cruz range (from Crystal Springs down to N Monterey County)  Males need 70 Sq Miles each, and two females for every male est.

Mickfish comment resonates for me.  Yesterday 6am, very dark, I was heading down the steep banks of San Lorenzo R for steelheading, and darn it, I had that thought..."What might be looking at me right now"  I stopped dead in my tracks.  The only thing that got me going was the possibility of fresh chrome, and remembering I paddle out all the time into predator territory, percentages are on my side.

What are the laws about being heeled?  Likely SC county they'd throw me in jail, but a 45 auto, or 44 revolver would certainly ease my mind..

BTW, no fish for me, worked 3 holes with roe and pink worms, weights then bobber setup.  River is still low and slow, pretty clear. 

Allen

A friend of mine was telling me about a radio-tracking study they did on lions back in the 80s above Fresno in the Dinkey Creek area.  At one time they observed a guy fishing a creek, and little did he know that he had 3 radio-tagged cats in the creek bottom within 100 yards of his location.  So I think they are around us, especially in prime habitats like stream-sides and river corridors where there is water and prey, much more than we are aware.

Don't forget our little kitty here on Loma Alta...attacked a horse last summer.
we actually heard her/him? calling late at night here in fairfax last fall-- brought the hairs on my neck right up!

In Wy, i was eating breakfast one morning looking out the back window when one walked right through my garden...we brought the dog in thrugh the front while i stood in the doorway and yelled/hooted/hollered/jumped up and down at it. She just slowly slunk away, one eye on me the whole time - super duper spooky

They live in my back yard too, quite literally, I just keep and eye on the kids and keep my wits about me when I take a wizz off the patio at night.  If I see one though, it'll be 30-06 shovel and shut-up time.  Unfortunately, due to alergic family members I can't keep dogs - or I'd have at least two *east* German shepherds (one dog the lion will take, two is overwhelming odds).  My neighbors have free range dobermans and wolf hybrids and that's cool with me (I did have to earn the dogs respect swinging a shovel and with my electric fence), we know where we live.    Actually the wolf and dobermen are quite nice, the nastiest dog is a grizzled black lab and it took kilo-volts of my wrath to teach that bastard some respect.  Glad a hard-assed SOB like that is prowling the countryside though, once he learned I can be an evil sadistic sorcerer and learned not to knock heads with me or my kids.  

Apparently a lion had got too close to a mama black bear with a cub.  The bear chased the lion down the draw straight at the gal. They both came tearing at her with the bear in close pursuit, and circled right around her at full speed and headed back in the direction they came!!!  That'll wake you up!   

Yeah...AND ruin a clean pair of underwear in the process! 

I saw one in the woods in broad daylight for the 1st time in my life, last week in Southern Big Sur!  I was with my wife & Blue Heeler.  We came over a large ridge & down the other side on a smaller ridge something was rustling in the scrub under some Oaks.  I called my dog back & the thing took off, skittering away up the hill on the far side, 100 yards away.

The second it heard/saw us, it bolted.  It didn't seem to want to have anything to do with us at all!!!  I'm sure it's a different deal in places where there's more human contact.  Wasn't scary but then again, I hadn't read the message further up about the Blue Heeler @ Sea Ranch.

P.J.

P.S.  & to those that would shoot & shhhsshh...for god sakes, if you're gonna do that at least find someone to stuff it!!!   Just tell everyone it was your grandpappy's!  Don't waste a perfectly good cat!!!

Actually they're legal to take in other states so there's no big deal in having a mount - can say you shot it in Idaho last year.    I haven't had the opportunity to mull it over, but my dad is a taxidermist...  Maybe shoot, skin, stretch, salt, shape, and spin tales. 

People say Mountain Lions "scream"......and I'm sure they do, but I've never heard one.

What my wife and I DID hear one night when we were car-camping alongside the Darnells Reservoir on Sonora Pass with our kids, was a Mountain Lion cough.

The kids were asleep in the station wagon, my wife and I were watching a dieing fire, and suddenly out of the dark so close, my god, it seemed like ten feet was this cough of a BIG cat.   

The sound contained in that cough said:   I don't like you here and maybe if it weren't for the fire I'd kill you............

It was a sound-to-remember.

Judd