>From TagNet: Big Cats By: Gary Stewart (Gadsden, Alabama)
I wanted to comment on the big cat story I just read and relate some of my experiences. The only mountain lion encounter I have had was in Steele, Alabama west of Gadsden in 1979. There was a cattleman in that area thet was offering a $1000.00 dollar reward for the killing of a "black panther' that had been killing his cattle. Myself and 2 friends decided we would try to collect on the bounty since we were young and stupid and I had just returned from overseas in the Navy and need the money. We were several miles up into an area and new we were close because you could smell where it had marked its territory. We went up into a boxed canyon with very steep (200 ft +/-) walls on both sides.We never could see the cat but when it let out a cry it made the hair on the back of our necks stand up. It was at this point that we decided that we had made a serious mistake and got the hell out of there. I moved to Texas in 1981 and worked as a test technician for a turbine company. I lived in Tomball just north of Houston way out in the middle of nowhere in a trailor. When I came in from work one day the pit bull Nasty was raising hell barking. As I got out of the car and went to go inside I looked up and he had treed a mountain lion in a big pine tree next to the trailor. I freaked out and went inside and all I could find was a loaded 10 gauge goose gun. I ran outside and raised the shotgun and just as I shot it leapt from the tree and I have never seen anything move that fast as it took off. I went to work the next day and was telling everyone and they all said I was crazy and accused me of being on drugs and seeing things. It was sighted again a few months later at a farm down the road from me and shot at by and old guy who also missed from about 200 yards away. I still don't think anyone ever really beleived me though. When I move back to Alabama I went through a divorce and went back to college and got another degree. I went to work for TVA in 1987 and lived on Hwy.117 leaving Stevenson Al. in the Coon Creek Preserve. My kids were only about 5 or 6 at the time and were playing out in the yard when I looked out the kitchen window and there was a large bobcat coming straight at them from across the field. I ran and got my 357 pistol and ran outside and shot and hit next to it from about 40 yards away and it took off, scared me to death. I lived in Stevenson for 8 years and in Skyline for 4 and spent alot of time in the mountains and saw quite a few bobcats and cayotes and one wolf I think. I saw some kind of a mountain cat once and I'm not real sure what it was but it wasn't much bigger than a house cat but colored like a mt.lion. My son even ran over a 8 foot alligator in the road going down the backside of the mountain from Skyline toward Neversink near some old catfish ponds. It was in the Scottsboro paper and I still have the picture somewhere for those who choose to dis-beleive. I have also been chased and treed by wild hogs on several occasions and have a couple of scares from those encounters too running through a barbed wire fence and briars.We even lassoed one with a caving rope and tied in to a tree, God's truth. I have had many encounters with big rattlesnakes (eg. Walls of Jercho) and have several skins to prove that too. My point is if you get out way up in the mountains away from civilization you might run into alot of things you don't see anywhere else on a normal basis. I always take my Glock with me when I get way out like that but it's really for protection only. I have had more problems from rogue hunting club members around the Big and Little Coon and Martin Wildlife areas ( eg. Iron Hoop, Bluff River) than I have form the 4 legged and no legged predators.Those guys are really crazy!!!, but those are stories of there on. They just take there hunting leases very serious there even when it's not hunting season. Look out and read the signs cause they like to ask if you can read at gunpoint. Yes I'm still crazy after all these years. As always cave friendly and leave nothing but tracks in the mud. NSS 38127 Gary Stewart stewar...@aol.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com