Predator Proliferation Problems

I will say out in Oklahoma, for every legit cougar sighting there’s a hundred idiots swearing up and down the blurry nighttime trail cam photo of an obvious bobcat is a cougar. It’s hard to sort out the real sightings when there aren’t decent photos. Even when there are actual photos, they’re often terrible quality. When you’re getting dozens or hundreds of fake reports a month, you can understand why wildlife agencies typically say people are blowing things out of proportion. That doesn’t mean these problems aren’t real, but the decline in hunting can also be partially explained by changing habits and distribution of game animals in response to predators. The people who aren’t seeing much change on their hunting grounds don’t have any reason to speak up, while every person who sits for a day and doesn’t see a buck has a new villain to blame for their hunt going to ****.

I wouldn’t demonize state or federal agencies as fabricating or falsifying data to meet some narrative. By and large these agencies are full of people who care as much or more about the game species and hunting quality across the state as you do. More so on the state side than the federal side, but still. Many agencies have their hands tied by federal rulings or by the higher ups having to play politics with lobbyists and congressmen so that they don’t have yet another budget cut. A lot of the federal agencies have seen massive reductions in workforce over the last 2-3 decades and many state agencies are limited by useless wildlife commissions, lack of ability to control license or tag prices, and overall insufficient funding as hunter numbers decline and inflation keeps going up.
 
Carson, I spot them with glass watch them to get inside their head, hoping they lay down but if not see the direction and use canals and terrain to get with in rifle or shotgun range. Lots of variables but 40 years experiance also. Last 4 years killed 107 mainly a weekend warrior, closest one 20 yards stalking in knee high grass, farthest 630 yards, CZ 204, benelli supersport 12 gauge #2 apex tss shot. On a given day I may spot 7-15 coyotes, high population area, I know their travel routes/ bedding ares but mainly I read their body language, tells you what they might do. A 39 grain SBK in a 204 going 3900 fps wipes them out with any body shot. I use total snow camo, modified gille suit, calls, trigger stick, 15-56 glass any advantage I can get on a coyote that has better eyes, ears, nose.
 
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Reemty sounds like fun, I would imagine that method is somewhat terrain dependent? It sounds like you might be in some pretty open country?
Would that work in this stuff?
 

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It would as long as they are still moving, getting ahead of them, but they would lay deep enough in some brush to make it difficult for one man but a team of two may be more successful
 
My favorite bird hunting area is getting too many coyotes, so I will be hunting them with more dedication this year. I like calling them in. I find that many of the guys that hunt them in my area are just running around on ATVs, glassing, and going for longer shots. I find that getting out away from the road and setting up, they are often moved to me! After reading GL Taylor's review of the 6.5 118HHT, I think I have found my varmint bullet. I have a friend who is now a fanatic wolf hunter here in Idaho. He won't tell me his numbers, but he hunts them 4 or 5 days a week in the winter. I passed on two wolves a number of years ago. I'm glad I did because less than 20 minutes went by before I got my nicest mule deer yet.

I do like the idea of doing some spot and stalk. I'm going to give it a try.
 
Airedale56 said:
Holy smokes, 50 chucks would do the amount of damage a small sounder of hogs would do.
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Locally there is a fellow making a living getting rid of them. We had one in back yard recently. Moved on to another yard.

A shame they aren't relocated someplace we can shoot them.
 
Snailz,

Here’s an OK post from Boise City, Cimarron County (touches NM) OK.
I have long-time friends there on the Cimarron River. They, for sure, have mountain lions.IMG_8662.jpeg
 
Airedale56 said:
Snailz,

Here’s an OK post from Boise City, Cimarron County (touches NM) OK.
I have long-time friends there on the Cimarron River. They, for sure, have mountain lions.View attachment 4631
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Without a doubt. There are verified sightings all over the state. I know of one in Norman. That doesn’t mean there are many hundreds of them in the state, which if you what some people will try to claim based on anecdotal, often unverified reports. Outside of Cimarron County and the NE Ozarks, the vast majority of sightings are wandering solo males. The same things likely apply elsewhere. A bunch of people with cams in an area might be picking up a cat, bear, or wolf pack on camera and then jump to the conclusion that they’re all over and populations are out of control and ruining all the hunting. My main point in my original post was to not jump to conclusions about wildlife professionals having no clue what’s going on or being up to some grand denial conspiracy. It makes us all look bad and it isn’t constructive. Like it or not we have to work with state and federal wildlife and land agencies and it does a lot more good to share observations and concerns than to scream that they’re all idiots or on the take with animal rights groups.
 
Respectfully @Snailz,
Certainly each of us has our own experiences, maybe locality dictates a bit.
1) Here in Washington we had what is called the Washington Lynx Fraud. 3 USFW, 2 USFS, and 2 WA F$G tried to submit fake lynx DNA, in order to stop logging, hunting, and recreation in the National Forest. No one was disciplined so inferring agency wide approval isn't a stretch.
2) After losing a case in court for writing tickets, for which there was no law to back up, the agency spokesperson stood on the courthouse steps, and said, "We don't care about the law, we're going to keep writing the tickets as most will just pay them.
3) We may lose our general bear, and lion seasons this year. Certified animal rights, and wolf advocates occupy our "Game Commission".
4) The Fish and Game are near completely uninterested in problem wildlife. Not grainy pictures, not anecdotal. Up to including grizzlies on the porch.
5) The entire wolf "reintroduction scam, revealed much. Watching elk numbers precipitously decline immediately following wolf advocacy Idaho tried to blame this on "poaching". Single digit calf survival is not poaching.
6) Similar was claimed here, but even cherry picked data didn't reveal illegal taking of game, but rather technical violations such as arrow to bow weight, no whistle in boat is a favorite for fishing tickets.
7) Buy a combo tag, kill a deer or elk, continue hunting for bear, or lion, you must be poaching. Numerous qoutes in the media to support this.

I could go on, but will say I've interacted with multiple states consistently over time, Washington may be leading the pack, but others are following the model.

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