Cougar Killer, Hardcover/Jay C. Bruce

Here is a thrill-packed action book that will fascinate all outdoorsmen and sportsmen, hunters and fishermen--in fact anyone who likes adventure. It is the absorbing, true story of a hunter and woodsman who spent almost thirty years as a professional cougar hunter, a man who killed more mountain lions than any other person of his time. Of course he had great hounds and he tells you all about them. A hound classic almost impossible to obtain, until now. As a boy, the author helped support his pioneer family by forking rattlers and selling the rattles to tourists (often "buttoning" the rattles from one snake on those of another in order to command a higher price), catching and selling 15,000 trout a year for a tourist hotel (using a homemade fly that made expensive flies look sick), and killing all sorts of game for the dinner table--partridge, deer, bear, etc. Later on, after several frustrating years at odd jobs (including selling Manzanita walking sticks to such celebrities as Bernard M. Baruch and Diamond Jim Brady), with occasional breaks as a hunting and fishing guide, an accident to Bruce's hand forced him to seek a living hunting lions for bounty brought by the hides. Three years of this convinced him that it was the kind of work he wanted to do. The California conservation authorities were also impressed and made him their first official lion hunter, a position he held for twenty-eight years. His success as cougar killer increased the deer population in his state and saved the livestock of many farmers.