While hunting on the east coast of Texas, u p around Winnie, I encountered what appeared to be the biggest Big Cat print I have ever seen. That would have been a cool thing, if it had not been nearly dark, I was not about half an hour ATV time from civilization, and of course, it would have been cool if I had a gun.
 
The night before we all sat around the lodge table and laughed at the young guide who sworn up and down he heard a Big Cat call. As I looked around I realized, I was standing within 100 feet of the very spot our young guide friend reported hearing the call. On a mission, spotting game for the next days hunt, my companion and I proceeded on, spotted our pond, turned around and came back through to the lodge. As we passed the print, that cat screamed somewhere over my right shoulder, in the dark….now remember….no gun…..my blood ran cold. We hit the accelerator on the ATV and never slowed down until we pulled into the lodge.

I have thought about that night for many weeks now, and seems that if one hunts long enough in the great Lone Star State they will also have a big cat story. Which was the case when talking with a fellow hunter, my friend John, up near Fort Worth. He said he saw what appeared to be a Black Panther while hunting a stand he had hunted in for nearly 30 years.“I was guiding a hunt for an eleven-year-old kid,” John said, “We got up in our stand about 30 minutes before sun-up and I spotted, in the distance, a large cat as it walked through the woods. It was too dark for me to get a good shot, but I swear it was all black.” Not wanting to frighten the boy, he opted not to tell him.

He then proceeded to tell me, his young client became impatient shortly after that, natured called, as it will young boys at the most inopportune time, he allowed the boy to climb down out of the blind but told him to stay close.  John said he watched the boy walk about 20 feet before he jumped and ran back up the stand. Telling John he had seen a big, black cat and it was crouched down and ready to pounce. 

Texas Parks and Wildlife assured me that there are no Black Panthers in the state of Texas, unless it is a fluke, perhaps an escaped panther from an exotic ranch.

There are two plausible possibilities. 

The Mountain Lion, also called a Cougar, is a large, slender cat with a smallish head and a noticeably long tail. It’s fur is a light, tawny color, which can appear gray or almost black, depending on light conditions. They stand at the shoulder 25-30 inches, but hunters have reported seeing cats that are the size of Great Danes. Their body length is 3-4 feet, and their tail an additional 2-3 feet in length. They can weigh from 70-170 pounds. 

Texas is the only state to allow unrestricted hunting of these big cats. They are one of the three predators considered legal game, as well as the Bobcat and the Coyote. There is no season, no restrictions and no limits, but a hunting license is required. 

The Texas Mountain Lion is found throughout the Trans-Pecos, as well as the brush lands of south Texas and portions of the Hill Country, and limited areas into North Central Texas. Sightings and kill reports indicate that the Mountain Lions now occur in more counties than they did 10 years ago and appear to be expanding their range into central Texas.The only panthers referred to in current literature that are truly wild in North America are the Florida panthers of the Everglades, which are actually charcoal in color, and are t he most endangered species in America. 

The Jaguarundi is a prime candidate for spawning “Black Panther” reports. The Jaguarundi is considered a medium sized cat, a little larger than a large house cat, standing about 2 feet tall at it’s shoulder, they can be dark gray in color while others are chocolate brown or even blonde.These cats are elusive and evasive and are an endangered species. They are nocturnal and live in very thick and brushy habitats. They are known to range from South America to the Mexican borders of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. There have been reports of sightings in Port Arthur and into Louisiana and Oklahoma, but gauging how far they range is difficult because they are so secretive and it is difficult to also gauge their population status. 

Back to my friend John, being the hunt professional he is, now I said professional, the sight of that cat haunted him; he returned with his buddy a few nights later and took a cat call with him. After the first call, the cat screamed it’s call back, but they could not see it in the darkness. John said this went on for about 45 minutes, after every call, the cat would scream an answer back.

They realized the cat seemed to be circling them.
 
Eventually the cat got down wind and stopped calling. The temperature dropped and the mighty hunters decided to call it a night. Both hunters looked at each other in the dark, realizing they had just called in a big cat, been stalked, and it was a very dark night. A flip of a coin decided who went down first, John said they were stepping and fetching, and that was the longest 400 yards to the truck he had ever walked.

There may not be any true Black Panthers in the Texas wilderness, according to Texas Fish and Game, several hunters and ranchers beg to differ, but for sure there are some big darn cats. Let one scream at you in the dark, and believe me, you won’t care whether it is black, brown, green or purple.