Huge Cougar Taken by Craig Winters

Hunter Craig Winters of Albany, Texas harvested an absolute monster of a cougar last week on his hunt at Bearcat Outfitters. Do they get any bigger than this? We had cut the tom’s track when hunting for lynx with Mark Peterson and started to keep tabs on the location of this obviously-huge cat. Once these tracks were spotted, guide Abe Dougan did some phoning around and got Craig convinced to come up to Kamloops on short notice to pursue this cat. Craig was on the plane and up to Kamloops within a couple of days. Hunt on! We had been following the cat by snowmobile and hiking for a couple of days and he seemed to be locked-down in one area. It appeared he had a kill nearby. On Craig’s first morning we zeroed-in on the cat and found where he had killed a moose. It took awhile to get all the tracks sorted-out, but soon the hounds were released. The cat did a couple of circles, which took a bit of time to sort out, but once we found his last exit track, the hounds were hot in pursuit and the cat didn’t go too far before treeing in a nasty little canyon. After the cougar was harvested and we walked up on him, we were all in awe at the size of this brute! This will be one beautiful addition to Craig’s trophy room.

I would also like to thank the Hunting Consortium for the referral for this hunt.

Guides Neil Findlay and Abe Dougan with Craig and Huge Cat.

Mark's tom in the tree.

Friday, January 13 proved to be an exceptional day of cat hunting for Mark Perterson. It was the first day of the hunt for the Michigan hunter. We had been keeping track of a large cougar for a couple of days before Mark got to BC, so we knew where we would be hunting on the first morning. We ‘boxed’ the cat one last time and released the hounds. A short race ensued, and the cat was up a tree. Once pictures were taken, I was anxious to go check a bobcat bait as I had trail cam pictures of a large cat that had been hitting a bait for 4 days previous.  We slowly drove up to the bait and I glassed the base of a tree where he had a deep bed dug. Sure enough, there he was and once Mark was able to see the camoflagued cat, he made a nice shot at about 45 yards. The cat didn’t even get up after the shot. After the first day was over, it was then on to lynx to see if we could accomplish the ‘cat trick.’ We got a couple of races going on day 3 and 4, but the snow was too deep for the dogs to pressure a cat into treeing. Mark got a crack at one lynx with the shotgun and buckshot as it crossed the road in front of the hounds but wasn’t able to connect. It was a bit of a long shot, but had to take the opportunity as it presented itself. We weren’t able to connect on lynx for Mark, but he did get two gorgeous cats to take back to Michigan.

I would also like to thank Cabela’s for the referral for this hunt.

Mark's tom.

Mark's bobcat.

Trail cam picture of Mark's bobcat.