Eye Contact at Twenty Yards - California Cats

It was shaping up to be one of those exciting California mornings where you start questioning your setup. I just saw a tanker of a boar unfortunately couldn't get a clear shot and I missed.

He decide to hike up a couple canyons over, bluebird sky overhead, the kind of winter light that makes the grass glow and the rocks throw long shadows. My buddy was running the call, working through a sequence for coyotes. The sound carried clean and echoed through the canyons. 

I was sitting there enjoying the sun on my face when my buddy said, real casual at first,
“Those are strange looking coyotes.”

There was a pause.
Then he said, “Those are mountain lions. There’s two of them.”

Out of the canyon they came. Just moving with that loose, elastic confidence that only cats have. I pick my phone up and brought my rifle into position at the same time. The footage is shaky because I’m laughing. That tight, involuntary laugh that comes when your body dumps adrenaline into your bloodstream faster than your brain can sort it out. One of them closed the distance to about twenty yards.

Twenty yards is nothing. That’s across your living room. Close enough to read the animal. They looked young to me. Curious and not desperate. Just investigating a sound that suggested an easy meal. The closer cat locked onto us. The second one started to drift, subtle at first, then clearly angling to flank. That’s when you stop appreciating the sunlight and start paying attention to geometry. Angles matter when you’re being sized up by a predator.

I stood up.The flanking cat peeled off immediately and disappeared, like they’ve been erased. The closer one held for a moment longer. Head dropped and trying to make sense of what we were. I had the rifle up. The cat was in my sights. But I never felt like I was about to shoot. If you spend enough time around animals, you learn to read posture . This one didn’t feel committed. It felt curious.

And then it was over. It turned, bounded a few times, and slipped back into the canyon. Silence again. Blue sky again. Just two guys standing there, hearts thumping, trying to process what just happened.

Here’s the part that sticks with me. This is the second time I’ve had a lion sneak up on me hunting in California. Same basic scenario. That’s not a statistical fluke when you spend as much time in the backcountry as I do. It tells me something about predator density. We don’t have a mountain lion season in this state and haven’t for decades. Meanwhile, the lions are doing what apex predators do when nothing manages them, they expand.

From a conservation standpoint, it’s a conversation worth having. California leaves money on the table by not opening a regulated season. That’s revenue for habitat, for science, for better data. It’s also a tool for balance. Anyone who spends real time in the hills can see the shift.

But politics aside, what I walked away with that morning wasn’t anger or fear. It was awe.

Some people would call that moment terrifying. And it could have been, under different circumstances. But when you’re prepared, when you understand where you are in the food chain, it becomes something else. It becomes a rare kind of clarity.Twenty yards from a mountain lion in open country with nothing between you but air.That’s not something you forget. It’s not a zoo encounter. It’s not a trail camera clip. It’s eye contact.

That’s the deal you make when you step into their world. And every once in a while, if you’re lucky, it gives you a moment that reminds you exactly where you stand.