Below is an e-mail from Ishmael which is a follow up to a series of pictures he has sent me of hounds belonging to a relative of his cornering cougars, and one getting clawed up for his trouble. For the record, I have always wondered if I could beat a cougar in a knife fight, since I have generally been about the size of a male cougar.
Back in the late 70s, I was trapping in this area and caught a tom bobcat. I had the trap on a drag line. He crawled into a cave like this one [From the photo it looks like the cougar could barely back into it]. I had a younger kid with me running my trap line. I squirmed into the opening with my pistol. It was dark, smelled like pack rat [den] inside.
Jones had a hold of my legs in case the tom turned on me. My eyes took a minute to adjust once I got inside. The cat was in a side passage—let me crawl by. When I rolled on my side he looked right into my eyes. He was about two feet away. I slowly raised my pistol and he bit the end of the barrel and I pulled the trigger. I remember seeing the picture of that hound, and thinking about still having my eyes, plus no scars on my face.
-Ishmael
