If you know what to look for whether it's old or new sign it isn't that difficult to find the general area and habits of a certain mtn lion. Look for kills, look for dens, look or where they take a crap and cover it, lean a log against the tree where cat craps that's where back in the day when it was legal old time trappers would set their traps, unfortunately you will get bears in them also. When we were kids we were taught what to look for this was back in the 60's by an old gov'n hunter trapper on the reservation. Bass Pro shop use to have a picture of the last Jaguar legally killed in AZ on display at the exit in the Mesa Az store, it's since been taken down, maybe in reaction to bunny huggers or complaints I don't know on that one imo. Anyway the hunter trapper in the picture was the same guy who showed us kids what to look for. Jaguars still roam southern AZ to this day you just don't see them. A 90 pound mtn lion can do a lot of damage if they want , take for instance I did this once I roped with para cord a 10 pound feral house cat , I couldn't get the rope off him and ended up with a super heavy duty set of firefighting gloves and turnout jacket and he still bit thru the gloves, times that by 9 , a 90 pound mtn lion you won't know what hit you. Mtn Lions can and do get to over 200 pounds in certain areas in AZ. Another cat I really wouldn't want to tangle with is any bobcat regardless of size they seem to have a bad attitude even mtn lions don't like to tangle with. A few years back in AZ archery hunters were finally allowed to carry a handgun for protection, this change was really designed for border bandit protection in the southern part of the state but also had to cover all archery hunters where allowed. There was certain restrictions on types and accessories on these handguns, I don't know what the law is anymore.
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