Fighting and yelling like a crazed ape really frightens the hell out of cougars. As mentioned, a good solid club is a good defense, but so is a fierce haymaker to the cats nose if that's all you have in your arsenal. I have been visited by many cougars over the years, but have never been attacked. I contribute this to the backpack, which covers your back, and more importantly, your neck. The backpack seems to confuse the cats. If I was to get attacked nowadays, I doubt I could fight one off, I just don't have the meat on the old bones like I used to. I would, however, prefer to have a good long sharp knife, since handguns are illegal here, a rifle would be useless in close combat, and perhaps more importantly, I wouldn't want to go shooting blindly at something on my back. Chances are I'd shoot myself, or worse yet, someone else around me, so I'd stick to the blade myself. Cougars, while tough in their own right, do not like to fight, and will avoid it if at all possible. I can assure you that a swipe from a blade across the nose would be enough to send the cat running for dear life, let alone a full shank to the guts. Cougars aren't like tigers or lions, they are actually fairly easy to fend off. Where they become dangerous is when they attack children, weaker people or those who turtle rather than fight (often women), the elderly (me) or ill people. The average healthy male outweighs and outmuscles a cougar and it is only on very rare occasions that a cougar would attack someone like this.
