Had a hunter in from pennslyvania this week. he arrived the day after a nice storm and I thought for sure we would find a nice tom track fairly easy. the first three days we hunted day and night, we found the same female track every day but kept searching for a tom. we broke my truck on day four and the snow was pretty much gone. my hunter didn't understand why we didn't turn out on the fresh female track. day 5 the last and final day, we found a tom track that we guessed was about a week old. I had a pretty good idea where this lion made his loop and I decided to take the dogs backwards down his track in hopes of bumping in to him. about five minutes into the hike, my hunter was over heating. sweating and purple, he proceeded to strip down to his underwear and a tee shirt. he put his hiking boots back on and kept following me. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants. about 500 yards into the chase my dogs opened and blew out. about that time a herd of deer ran passed us coming right from where the dogs went in. I watched on the gps and felt sick as there was no way they could be running a lion this fast on bare ground. when the dogs hit 1.5 miles and started trailing in a straight line I decided to let them have it with the e collar. they made their way back to me and I scolded them. we were about to start walking to the truck, but I was still curious what they were running. I had to go off a cliff and straight into the bottom to reach their tracks. when I did I was even sicker! they had been going track for track with a tom lion in the dirt. I coaxed them back onto the track and about 200 yards passed where I shocked them, they were looking at him. I got my hunter there and the cat was bayed on a ledge. before he could shoot the cat jumped and landed on a shelf about 30 feet down the 200 ft cliff. I figured if we shot him he would fall off and we could scoop him up in the bottom. wrong! died on the shelf. so we got to do some repelling. ha congrats to my new friend gene from PA. on the cat and the hunt of a lifetime. [img] [URL=http://s1107.photobucket.com/user/houndnem/media/DSCN2474_zps40d57406.jpg.html] http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/h39 ... d57406.jpg[/img][/url]
good story, Jared, A fresh track on dry ground holds the same scent as on snow at least thats what I find. The snow melting out is the toughest to trail on.
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Jared, wouldn't he let you take a pic of him in his gotcha's. Just about pissed my pants reading the story let alone seeing it in person. Great job dude.
just picture a pot bellied 65 year old man in skivvies and a t shirt with hiking boots on...... I can't say I ever seen a man shoot a cat in his underwear until now. ha ha good times
"Houndn'Ems Blueticks" if it smells like a cat, they'll catch it.