I wasn' t really " scared" but moreso, very excited. If I would have had a half a brain, I would have been scared...LOL.

I was bowhunting in WA state on a frosty, clear morning. It was still pretty dark in the thick timber I was in. I was on the ground, with my back up against a small tree, kneeling on one knee, looking down into a small gully that tapered off about 20 yards from where I was positioned, the wind was coming from straight ahead....lots of sign and tracks in and around the gully so I was pretty excited. About 8am, I saw movement about 100 yards away, and the birds and squirrels were making lots of noise.....couldn' t tell exactly what it was at this point. Continued seeing movement until it was about 40 yards from me, heading straight up the gully towards me.....a cougar. At this point, I should have stood up and started waving my arms and yelling, but I didn' t...I just continued to watch as he got closer. He passed off to my right at a max distance of about 10 yards and never even saw or smelled me, and I never moved....at least not on the outside...my heart was racing about 100 miles an hour. As he passed, he stepped over a small fallen tree-limb and paused a second or two and licked his front right paw. I could plainly see it was a male and could make out every single wisker...he was THAT close. He continued on until he disappeared in the brush behind me. I waited about 20 minutes and then got up and headed to the edge of the brush...several, several feet from where he entered, to try to see him. I had been watching the small brush pile (actually a thick spot in a finger of small trees) and the large clear-cut area on the other side to catch site of the cougar again, but never did. How he crossed that clear-cut without my seeing him is still a mystery to me, but the experience is one that I will never forget.