Word: cougar
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Because cougars are predatory, there are no bag or season limits. But cougar-hunting is primarily a winter sport: scents last longer in snow than on ground soaked with summer rain. This winter, western snows are light and cougars are high up in the mountains. Hunting them demands supreme endurance...
...Dogs. Smart cougar dogs can follow days-old trails, baying continuously so that the hunter can follow. Good hounds will keep the big cats treed for half a day until the hunter catches up. The West has developed its own breed of hounds-big, rangy, fast "black and tans." Hunters start training with a sackful of house cats for practice treeing. Only after two seasons of running with veterans do most dogs learn to disregard deer trails and stay on the cougar scent...
Most dangerous is the moment just before the kill. With a single swipe of its claws, a cougar could kill any dog or man that ever trailed him. But the big cats rarely learn. While the dogs are being tied up so that the cougar will not crush them in his death fall, their frenzied barking keeps the beautiful, snarling beast from springing. Some hunters have had to pump as many as 20 bullets into the vicious animal before he fell...
Because a cougar kills 40 deer a year, five western states pay bounties. Washington alone pays nearly 100 each year. Last week the greatest hunter of them all was oiling his gun. White-bearded John...
...killed more than 150 cougars, including the dreaded "Big Foot" which harassed the Hoh and Queets River valleys in 1936. Ten years ago the sport almost cost Huelsdonk his life. A surprised female bear made a swipe at his cougar dog, Tom, and sent him yelping 30 ft. through the air. The bear then lunged for the Iron Man. They grappled for minutes, until Tom came back and drew the bear's fury again. Huelsdonk finally reached his 30-30 carbine and killed the beast...