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Old 12-28-2011, 13:25   #1
Debo
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Top of the food chain?

So from time to time we get a reminder that we are not at the top of the food chain. It happened to me again 4 days ago.

I was hunting with one of my twins for the first time on some family land in East Texas. The evening prior I had hunted with the other twin and we didn't see much before darkness ended our outing. This particular morning I walked to the stand at 0520 with my liitle man cub holding my hand. It was very chilly and we had to complete a 3 mile cold wet ride in a Kubota Utility Vehicle before the 1/2 mile walk through the woods to the stand. Everything went well and we were set up in the small box blind long before daylight. We rehearsed a couple of times what we would do if we saw a deer. He would move very slowly and turn his head until he saw the deer. Then he would get down from my lap and move over into the corner of the blind out of the way making sure not to touch the walls of the blind making noise. When I got the gun up he would plug his ears and wait for the shot. Everything went well and right at daylight we spotted 4 doe walking toward the feeder. He watched them through the binoculars for a few minutes until 3 bucks came up and ran them off. By the time the bucks were chowing down he had moved to the assigned spot and I had the gun up. As I was waiting for a shot on the largest buck, something spooked him and he ran about 20 yards away and stood sniffing. I aimed a his shoulder and took a hurried shot. The buck jumped then bolted off. The other two stayed where they were until they saw us get out of the blind then they two ran off. I had shot it with an M4 with Eotech and 3x magnifier chambered in 6.8 SPC at 95 yards.

We were excited that we had finally wacked a buck because it was pretty late in the season. After shooting a doe with the same rifle last month I was expecting an equal level of damage and lots of blood when we walked down to where the buck had been standing and started to look. After 15 minutes of looking we could not find any blood and the little one was starting to get cold on this wet, foggy morning. I called my mom to come down to the property and pick him up. It was 0730.

After mom picking him up at around 0750 I continued the search. I was very systematic but the fact remained that there was no blood. I started to doubt my marksmanship. The deer had only been standing 95 yards from the stand and I redoubled my efforts to find it after I chased away the doubt from my mind. It had been a couple of hours and I started a wider grid search that set me walking through the 10' tall planted timber adjacent to the hardwood thicket that I hunted it. In a few minutes I saw the antlers sticking up out of the grass not 75 yards from where I had shot it. With the short trees it was hard to see very far but I noticed something awry as soon as I got close. This is the scene of the crime.






Something had eaten half of my deer in one sitting. Both hindquarters were eaten down to the femur and the guts were strung out in the surrounding grass. One of the hind quarters was almost torn from the body with the hip dislocated and just skin and sinew holding it on. There was still steam coming from the body. There deer had been dragged about 10 yards from where it fell and was initially attacked.



Here is the place it was grabbed first. Note the tufts of hair that were ripped out.




So upon stumbling into this scene and being in dense vegetation which didn't allow more than about 10 feet of visibility I was very glad that I had decided to lug the rifle around with me during the search. I immediately changed my status from "rifle on the shoulder intently looking for signs" to "Holy Shit do I need to shoot something that is big enough to eat me". I made a circle in the immediate area with the rifle at the ready and found nothing. There were not any tracks to be found either. I doubled back to the Kubota and returned to pick up the body. After loading it I headed back to the house to salvage the front shoulder and back strap and show the twins that Daddy had found the deer that he had shot. I left out the gory details since it was their first hunt and I wanted it to stay a positive experience. As I was driving I tried to figure out what might have done that to a deer sized animal while I was within 75 yards. I called a buddy and he and I came up with 5 possibilities.

Hogs
Mountain Lion
Black Bear
Pack of Coyotes
Pack of Dogs



Here is another picture of the aftermath.


Based on the evidence I am leaning toward a Mountain Lion and here is the reasoning. Feel free to educate me if you have any other thoughts. I am very open to ideas here.

Hogs, Dogs, and Coyotes- None of these animals could polish off that much meat by themselves in 90 minutes or so thus it would have to be a pack. A pack of any of these animals feeding would probably be easy to hear from such close proximity as I was searching. Dogs probably wouldn't have shown much fear and I would have had to run them off or at the very least seen them leaving. I don't think that any of these animals could drag a big deer by themselves and aren't likely to work together toward that goal. Coyotes and hogs would probably eat the guts more than the meat at first. The guts were pulled out but discarded uneaten.

Black Bear- although finding a bear track in the area as a kid, I don't see this as a probability. They are more like "big racoons" that tend to eat berries, corn, and human refuse. While they might hunt or eat a meal of opportunity, this doesn't really fit their M.O. and I think I would have smelled one or heard one as I got close.

This leaves me with the Mountain Lion. They are big enough and exist all over Texas. They eat deer as a main staple in their diet. Are able to easily drag a kill up and their proclivity for doing that is one of the telltale signs. Males have a reported home range of 80-200 square miles overlapping. It could of chowed on the deer, attempted to drag it into deeper cover and was interupted when I walked up.

The important part though is although I was raised on this land, have walked every inch of it as a kid hunting, playing, working, and riding, I am still not the top of the foot chain. 37 years I have been hanging out there and I believed that I knew everything about it. To say I was comfortable there is an understatement. I got that fresh, exciting middle of the food chain feeling as I went out last night to fill the deer feeder and change the disk on the trail camera. Next time I am visiting I am going to spend some more time walking the creeks and see if I can find any tracks to help solve this mystery- with rifle of course.

Never let your guard down. Always be in condition yellow- even on your home turf.

D.

Last edited by Debo; 12-28-2011 at 13:45.
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Old 12-29-2011, 12:47   #2
Viking0815
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Just my opinion, based on experiences hunting in Colorado, Utah and Montana my whole life..........

My guess is it was more than likely a large cat residing in the area. Hogs would have eaten the entrails right away and really roughed up the area, a bear would have eaten his fill and then buried the remainder in a shallow grave for a future buffet, I have lost deer to coyotes on several occasions and they devour everything except the hoves, horns and a few pieces of hide.

A large cat will only eat fresh meat and generally doesn't care for entrails if he has a large amount of quality meat in front of him..........I have never had a cat return to the kill site once he has eaten his fill either (I staked a few lost animals out and waited), big cats don't care for tainted meat unless they are starving.

If it is a cat that scarfed your deer, I would bet that it's probably a young Tom since your activity in the area didn't seem to be a bother. They are generally a very secretive critter that avoids any contact with humans. Also, be cautious until you confirm, young cats usually don't have the same fear of man as a more mature animal does.........anything smaller than himself is on the menu, including family pets and small children!

Not trying to blow this out of proportion.......just a bit concerned about your small hunting partner!
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Old 12-29-2011, 13:48   #3
akv
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Quite an experience. Out west hiking in the Sierras you see deer skulls with the back crushed in from time to time. Mountain Lions are all over the Bay Area as well.
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Last edited by akv; 12-29-2011 at 13:50.
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Old 12-29-2011, 14:12   #4
mojaveman
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Good hunting story. Dragged 10 yards? I'll bet on Puma concolor cougar.

In the past ten years or so in California we've had three people attacked and killed by Mountain Lions. One woman was out jogging in a rural area, another woman was camping and a grown man was mountain biking. The cat attacked him while he was resting and then dragged his body about twenty feet into some brush.

I agree that we are not always at the top of the food chain.

Last edited by mojaveman; 12-30-2011 at 22:12.
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Old 12-29-2011, 14:36   #5
Guymullins
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A lot of meat gone

If that were in Africa, the prime suspects would also be big cats. Leopard, but not usually during the day. Lion, but you would have heard something. Lynx?
But whatever it was, it ate a lot of meat, so over here we would rule out a juvenile. That was quality muscle that needed tearing into bite sized chunks then eaten. Here that would have meant a cat over 90 lbs.Of course, our cats are very happy to eat rotting meat. In fact leopards prefer it and lion have no problem with it. This may make them slower eaters. They are both happy to return to the kill. I am surprised there were no pug marks, especially where the animal was dragged.
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Old 12-29-2011, 14:51   #6
JJ_BPK
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OWS,, Three(3) months into Occ-Q-pi,, They B Hungry..

If The buck stops...

President Harry S Truman, January 1953





Nuff said??
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Old 12-29-2011, 15:08   #7
Guymullins
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ_BPK View Post
OWS,, Three(3) months into Occ-Q-pi,, They B Hungry..

If The buck stops...

President Harry S Truman, January 1953





Nuff said??
I didnt even consider hyenas. They are easily heard because they cant stop themselves cackling and howling and would have eaten the smelly bits first.
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