We arrived at his house right at daylight and helped him saddle up the horses. The plan was to ride a 4 mile loop from his back door and hopefully we'd cut a fresh track we could run. I had my 3 year old male black and tan that's been on a few lions, a few bobcats and a whole bunch of coon and my 9 month female walker/bluetick cross that's only been on one bobcat with no tree at the end and one lion tree.
It was a brisk 12 degrees when the crew left the house. The horses and dogs were both chomping at the bit and really ready to go. So we headed out at a pretty good clip hoping to burn a little extra piss and vinegar out the dogs before we found a track so they'd be able to settle down and use their heads. After about 3/4 of a mile we dropped onto a nice little skid road where we could cover some ground so we started heading out. Not 1/2 mile up the road we came around the corner and we saw a likely looking track come onto the road that was running parallel to a small creek down below us.
I hopped down to make sure we weren't looking at a wolf track since it was a smaller track. There were no claws showing so I leashed up the dogs and walked them up to the track. They both blew up, telling me it was plenty hot. I turned them both loose and waited for them to get it straightened out and soon they were making time straight up the nastiest rock face in the country, naturally. They were moving it FAST and the pup started to open a few times which she's never done before. Pretty soon they topped out and dropped out of hearing. I don't run GPS OR tracking collars so we just had to try our best to keep up with them. We ran the road til it started to turn away from the race and the riding got a little hairy because of the ice covered rocks scattered across the hillside.
We bee-lined for the top of the ridge as fast as we could and we were almost to the top when the dogs came trailing back toward us. I got their attention because I could see the lion tracks heading up and their tracks on top of them and sicked them back the right direction. As we topped out, we noticed where the lion tracks made some real big jumps and thought maybe that's where the dogs had jumped it, but soon found a little blood and some drag marks to the base of a tree where the lion had a nice little yearling whitetail doe stashed. It had barely been touched and was still warm. I grabbed the dogs up and started making a circle to see where the lion had left and so did my buddy. He found where the cats had left the kill before I did. That's right, I said CATS! A yearling kitten had joined momma at the kill and when the dogs hit it, they lit out together. We got the dogs on the right end of the track and they ran another 50 yards and started to tree a little on a big old fir with overhanging branches all the way to the base. I thought I'd tie the dogs to the tree and see if I could encourage them a little and soon the lions started moving enough to really get their attention. All of a sudden momma had had enough and she started inching her way down the tree. I had the dogs tied so close under the tree that my only option at this point was to quickly unlatch them from the leads so they at least have a chance if it got western.
Just as I unleashed them, and scampered uphill about 15 yards, momma-kitty walked down the limbs and jumped right in the middle of the dogs and headed straight back down to the bottom of the country we had started her in 45 minutes earlier with both dogs in hot pursuit. We took a few more pictures of the kitten and took our time making sure we got everything from the tree (but forgot both my leads tied to the base of the tree) and headed back down the way we came in.
We headed back down the road the road we came up and soon cut across onto a nice little trail that runs parallel to the creek on the opposite side of the road. This time, the dogs were locked onto the tree solid and treeing great! The pup was treeing her heart out and all in all that the female gave my dogs a really great training session…it was exactly what they needed. After we crossed the creek and climbed the hill to the dogs, we noticed that the tree she climbed, was 40 yards from where we started her track on the road an hour and a half earlier. We took some pictures and video and the boy used a horse lead to drag the dogs out to the road and headed for home.
The dogs’ feet paid for the adventure, but all in all, we all learned a ton today and my son played the man today. What a fitting way to start off Ty’s 13th year, getting to see things that most people will go their whole lives without seeing. As we drove home, we thanked God for the day, the dogs, the horses and the friends and I thanked Him for my son, it was a good day…
