Too hot and too smokey, but opening day is opening day is opening day.
The 35-minute hike to “my spot” took an hour and I was still sweat-soaked and overheated as I settled onto my three-legged stool behind a rickety screen of freshly cut spruce boughs. The wind direction made my not-much-more sturdy blind out of dried-out willow branches across the meadow unsuitable.
After a while something started making a lot of noise in the bush in front of me, rustling leaves and breaking the odd stick. This went on for a while, and I was getting very curious, when a young black bear stepped out, and ambled over just about to where my other stand location was.
As I was contemplating my course of action, a bull elk pitched a few short chirps, unlike anything I had heard before. I was unsure if I wanted to call back, with a cow call maybe, as last time we tried this, we ended up with a black bear in our lap, and I’d rather have the bear amble by unsuspecting of my presence.
I let out a few cow calls just the same. Sometimes I think one thing, but do the other.
A few minutes later, as I was keeping an eye on the bear, something moved in my peripheral vision. Here came this cougar, walking past my stand at maybe 25 yards! Whether he came because of the noise the bear was making, because of my cow calls, or both, I don’t know, but here I was with two predators right in front of me, and a bull elk somewhere off to my left.
I was too intrigued about what showdown might be about the happen to be thinking about hunting so I switched on the video and recorded the following footage:
As Donnie Vincent said: “To experience fantastic things, we need to put ourselves in fantastic places”. Sometimes all it takes is a little stroll right off the highway, and a bit of luck, for fantastic things to happen regardless of location.
Get out there!
FD