Turkey Hunter vs Mountain Lion

Eric Braaten for SPLIT REED

My buddies and I have a big turkey camp every year out here in the Eastern part of Washington state. We hunt lots of public lands but were on private land this particular morning. My buddy Ruben Vela ad I headed over to a place we call old camp. I have a turkey blind there that we’ve killed over 30 birds out of. It’s a good spot to try to ambush a gobbler on opening morning. On this particular morning, the birds were roosted at the upper end of the draw, well away from the blind. This allowed Ruben to make his way in the early morning hours to a spot about 200 yards from our hide. Once there, he set up his decoys before the birds flew down out of the roost. There were three or four gobblers gobbling so there was a lot of excitement in the air.

Ruben backed up against a big pine tree about 35 yards from his decoys, put his gun in his lap, and put his face mask on. Ruben began calling and the birds gobbled. As they flew down he could tell they were on their way towards him. Ruben says he caught some movement to his left at about 40 yards. He initially thought it might be a turkey, but Ruben said he noticed a tail moving, and within moments could make out the outline of a mountain lions face. They made eye contact and the mountain lion charged Ruben.

Ruben brought his gun up and shot the lion in the chest at approximately 30 feet. The mountain lion spun a 180 and ran off and began to bawl loudly. His nerves took over and he couldn’t believe what just happened.

I was at camp when Ruben called to tell me what it happened I didn’t believe him at first, I thought he was joking- we always joke at turkey camp- but I knew that he was serious from his hyperactive chatter. We see cougars on occasion so we know they are around.

I ended up making a call to our local fish and wildlife game warden and told him what had happened. I told him that we needed to go in and help Ruben to make sure the cougar wasn’t going to injure anybody, especially if it was wounded.  I also called the neighbors down the draw to let them know what had happened. As we gathered up the appropriate weaponry, lock stock and barrel, I called Ruben back and let him know what our status was and what the game warden said... then Ruben rudely cut me off and said, “Hey! I got to go! These two Gobblers, they’re getting closer... I gotta go!!!”

I confusingly said, “What? You’re still hunting turkeys after all this happened?”. He hung up on me. I called him back a couple of times with no answer. He finally calls me back and says, “you won’t believe it! I just shot two gobblers- they came in together” I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. The opening day and you shot your limit of turkeys after defending off a lion attack!

I told him that we were on our way in and that we were going to come in from a certain direction. I asked him where the wounded cougar was located so we didn’t bump into it. We were on high alert going into the drainage. I called the game warden and let him know that we were heading in just for communication's sake, and after about 30 minutes we had made it back into the draw where Ruben was.

I called him again as we were approaching to find out if the cougar was still alive. He couldn’t see it anymore or hear it anymore but once we met up we were able to find the cougar dead on the ground, a mere 60 yards from where Ruben had shot it. We went over the hunt with Ruben, in disbelief that this had all transpired within an hour. I couldn’t believe how lucky he was. It was also very unnerving knowing how close that cougar was to attacking him. We took a few pictures and packed out the cougar and the two big Tom’s to the trucks. We met the game warden back at our camp. Ruben had an active mountain lion tag, which we all carry in case we have to shoot one during turkey season. The game warden allowed Ruben to tag the cougar because it was shot in self-defense with a shotgun, so Ruben ended up getting a fine trophy and a wild memory. Everyone in our turkey camp now carries cougar tags and we are always aware of our surroundings.

Thanks for listening to our story, and hope everybody has a safe hunting season!