HD2 Outdoors: 2010

I left Dec. 9th with high hopes of filling the freezer with a 21 mule deer buck. Last year on our trip we saw quite a few deer and I actually shot one and lost it, it was later in the season and a lot colder. So I get out to camp by myself and get the trailer set up and did a little scouting. Opening day was pretty slow, I saw one doe and a bobcat in the morning and a buck about 500 yards away across a canyon with 10 minutes of light left. Next morning my friend Hector met me at 6 am at camp for a day of hunting. At first light we glassed a couple deer quite a ways a way and couldn't tell if there was a buck in the group. So after closing the distance we realized they were does. The temperature warmed up fast and we spent the rest of the morning driving in the rhino and glassing. That evening we glassed a buck across a canyon with a bout an hour of light left, so we high tailed around the the other side of the canyon and Hector put a stock on the buck. He got within 80 yards before the buck busted him. That evening Hector had to leave but in the morning my father in law Dick showed up for a day of hunting. That morning we did some glassing and next thing we knew there was a small buck about 200 yards right below us on the side hill. This buck had something on his mind because he never stopped and did a fast walk for about a half mile. I tailed him as well as i could and thought I saw him bed in a cluster of trees, so I spent about an hour stalking over to the cluster and no buck. He slipped out and neither of us ever saw him again. That night and next morning i sat in the blind over a drinker with many tracks all around it. Nothing. Saw three coyotes when I got out for the blind. The weather was unusually hot again that day, and Dick headed home that afternoon. That afternoon I made a plan to go where I saw the buck come out of the first, the same place I saw a bunch of deer come out of last year. I cross down through a deep canyon and over a mesa to a pinch point where the deer are forced if they want to cross this canyon. I get there about 3:30 in the afternoon and being so warm I decide to take a nap under a tree thinking the deer won't be moving early. I wake up about 4:30 and sit up start to glass, survey the area and range a bunch of markers. After 20-30 minutes of that I notice something white at the bottom of this silver thorn bush. I grab my binos lift them to my eyes and see a cat staring at me. Adrenaline starts pumping! Drop the binos right away and grab my range, 40yards! At this moment I'm thinking bobcat is open and I have a mountain lion tag, so whatever it is I can shoot it. Right now all I can see is the face and a small part of the neck, whatever it is its crouched down on a small down slope so I can't see the body. Pick my bow up, arrow already knocked, raise it up, try to stop shaking , put my 40yard pin on the portion of its neck i can see and release. I hear my arrow hit a limb in the bush, #%$!!! The cat flinches but doesn't move. Knock another arrow, tell myself relax and release another one. This time I have no idea where my arrow went but the cat takes off down the drainage behind it. I never got a to see what it was, but it being so low to the ground it had to be a bobcat and I had already seen one this trip in the same area. i give it a minute and walk over to where I was shooting, nothing, no blood, no arrows. Now that there was a cat in the area no deer will be coming through here and it starting to get a little dark, time to start looking for my arrows. I start zig zagging through the silver thorn, cactus and other shrubs thinking if I don't find my arrows in the next 15 minutes they will be gone. Circling further out and about 15 minutes into my search I look in front of me and at 20 yards a large mountain lion walking right at me. Adrenaline pumps again! But as soon as we met eyes he turned and started off at a slow run. What do I do? knock an arrow and start chasing it. I stopped about 20 yards into the pursuit and thought to myself what are you doing? i still have to hike out of here and now it's about dark, get your stuff, leave the cat and the arrows and get out of here! Good decision i think. i high tailed it out of the canyon as fast as i could in the dark always stopping to try look back and listen and finally reached the road. Safe! Here comes a truck coming out of the ranch that i've seen a couple times before. i flag him down just to tell him what happen since there was quite a bit cattle in the area, he informed me that it had come into the ranch 3 night before and killed all of their turkeys. The cat buried some of its kill so they set a trap for it just that evening. Now in hind sight i believe that cat was stalking me while I was sleeping under the tree and slowed its stalk when i woke up and when i was bumbeling around looking for my arrows, not paying any attention, it decided to stalk me again until I realized it was there. I don't know why I didn't realize it was a mountain lion at the beginning, white face and tan. There are many things i would have done different but you all know when that fight or flight starts you just react and don't always think. This was too close of an encounter for me.