Saturday we trailed the big bear I had located for him but once the ground thawed we were done, couldn't trail anymore.
The next day it snowed for about 8 hours we talked it over and decided to drive back to town and get a lion tag and maybe change gears, as the bears were already pretty dormy before the snow hit.
I have had this tom pretty well located, even found an elk kill a couple days before.
Sunday night I was up all night puking, we almost didn't hunt that morning. Ended up actually making another trip back to town to get some pepto and 7 up.
Finally got back to hunting, and cut the track about 8 that morning. I put my 4 best on it and they looked pretty crummy in the snow. We went 250yds in about 15 mins. They finally started to move a little better we ended up going back to the truck to cut around to the dogs, walked down a blocked road to find where they crossed and there were 4 sets of lion tracks and it was obvious they were from the same tom (very distinctive back feet), 2 sets in, 2 sets out....... didn't make sense to me, seemed like the dogs were on the back track as the only track that didn't have snow on it was headed back the way we came....... about then we heard a limb snap about 30 yards up the hill above us and there he was in a tree.... he bailed out and scrambled up the rocks, no dogs anywhere around mind you, He had doubled back on his back track popped up a tree and let the dogs run by. We ran back to the truck got 2 1.5 yr old dogs and Buddy on him, they ran him right to the other dogs and he was treed in 900yds. We froze our butts off, but Dave seemed very happy with this tom.
I had ran this tom a few times in the dirt, but never really had a good track. After the slip he gave the dogs I'm not sure I would have even caught him.
I know I am glad to be back home where it doesn't snow!
Mike Harris
HD TROPHY HUNTS
