Second Run Of The Season
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liontracker
- Babble Mouth
- Posts: 2052
- Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 2:49 pm
- Location: CO
- Location: Durango, CO
Second Run Of The Season
I went up high hoping to find a nice tom track in some snow. I passed a kill made by a female, early on, down low. By 12:00 I had not cut another track and the snow was over the axles on my truck. I went back to the kill site and turned a dog loose. She made a circle around and trailed out silent which is strange for her. At 300 yds she blew up and treed. I cut the other two loose and grabbed a camera and the tracker and headed down there. When I got there she had a cub up. I went to take pictures only to discover the camera batteries were dead. Well, I sat there in the oak brush leaves, soaking up the sun and let the dogs tree. In a little while the pup made a small circle out and struck hard and left out of there. The mom couldn't stand it and went to see what was up. She got out aways and struck also, but trailed out a different direction. I went to the pup first and she had the other cub up. After awhile we went after the mom again and about 1 1/2 miles we found her bayed up in the ledges with the female. There was absoluteley no way for me to get down there on my side of the canyon, so I went up canyon and found a way to cross and worked back down canyon to her. When we got almost even with them the pups struck again. She was out in front of me and I hurried up to her to look for a track where she struck. I found a lion track and she was still going so I got over to the edge and watched her work it through the oak brush and rims. She was going strong and about 600 yds from me she treed solid. I went down there and found a young 100# tom up a massive fir tree. After awhile I turned on the tracker to check on the mom because the roar from a waterfall next to us was too loud to hear her. She was trailing out of the canyon, I suspected the female had jumped and was making another run. I knew better than go back the way I had come from, so I continued down stream until I could cross and get around the last of the cliffs. We worked the top of the canyon wall she was on, but their tracks never came out. The tracker said she was still in there. The tree switch would go off and on and she would go up and down the stream. I knew right then she was in trouble. It was way after dark. I had to go all the way back down below the last cliffs again and get into the stream bed and walk it upstream. I had to negotiate my way around a 30-40 foot high frozen waterfall. when I finally got to her, she was in bad shape and still calling for me. She had taken a bad fall off the ice and could hardly walk. I carried her up to the top and called for someone to meet me at the bottom, so I wouldn't have to try to get her all the way back up top to the truck. We finally got back to the truck at 10:00. It is funny how this lion hunting goes. You can experience the highest of highs one minute and the lowest of lows the next. She is still stove up bad, but I don't find any broken bones. I hope she pulls through ... she is the best hound I've ever owned. But 4 lions in less than 4 hours is something I will probably never better.
