Thoughts On Only Killing Big Toms

[liontracker]

As time goes on I notice more and more approval of only killing big toms. I feel that it depends on the area hunted and age structure of that particular lion population. Consider this: 30 yrs ago, my favorite elk unit was bulls only. At that time there were several 350 class bulls in there. After the word got out in the hunting magazines, the bulls really took a pounding. The age structure was radically altered. It ended up at 2-3 bulls for every 100 cows and those bulls were immature raghorns. With the immature males doing all the breeding the quality of the antlers drastically declined to the point now that the best mature bull up there is a 290 5x5. Their genetics have been altered.
The various state game and fish agencies have no idea of the age structures of the lion populations in there states. Only us hunters have an idea, as we are the ones putting them up a tree for a look. This is where we should be honest with ourselves. If the area you hunt in needs more lions, quit killing females and subs for awhile, but be carefull not to overharvest the mature toms, or the subs will do all the breeding and the genetics of the population will be altered and you will be looking elsewhere for the pumpkinheads. If your area has a high lion population, then killing a few females and subs will be healthy for the population and take some pressure off of the big toms. Since it is impossible to fly an area and do a lion count, it is completely our responsibility to balance the lion population dynamics. I see a change in my lion hunting area already. We have some pretty heavy hunting pressure, particularly from the outfitters that are both legal and illegal. Fully 90% of the kill is made up of 2-3 year olds.
The true Super Toms are getting harder to come across.

[onalimb]

I wish they would put at least a quota on females here in the panhandle of Idaho, or quit taking them all together for a number of years. Most guys would sell out then, because they would never suck it up and go up high where it's tough to earn a nice Tom. JMO

[BigGameHunter]

Here is my take. I am an advocate for killing mature Toms. That being said I don't advocate every mature Tom that is caught be killed. I don't believe genetics in an animal change with age. I have the same genetic makeup when I am born as when I am 35. Mature toms do however either run off or kill other young toms and kittens. I am against killing females. There was a female I caught last year that was so old she had almost no teeth left on her. One canine was broke off and the others were worn down to nothing. She looked poor and she wasn't reproducing. I had a tag but still didn't take her because I was after a BIG tom. If somebody would have taken her I wouldn't have had a coronary but only because of the condition she was in. I don't believe reproducing females should be killed.

[BEARCLAW]

Welllllllllllll. THIS IS A VERY GOOD SUBJECT. I BELIEVE......... THAT IT IS UP TO THE FISH AND WILDLIFE BIOLOGISTS. ULTIMATELY EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US THAT CHASE THESE CRITTERS IS IN IT FOR A DIFFERENT REASON. SOME JUST LIKE TO TREE THEM AND FREE THEM, SOME WANT TO EXTERMINATE THEM, AND SOME JUST DO IT BECAUSE THATS THE COOL THING AT THE TIME. BEING HOW THERE IS SUCH A WIDE VARIETY OF FOLKS INTEREST WILL INSURE THAT JUST AS MANY FEMALES AS MALES GET WACKED, NO MATTER WHAT YOU ADVOCATE.

I WOULD LIKE TO THINK THERE IS A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT THERE LOOKING FOR A TROPHY TOM. BUT FROM WHAT I HAVE SEEN THERE SEEMS TO BE LITTLE REGARD FOR LETTING THE SUB ADULT BECOME AN ADULT.

IN OUR STATE, THE FISH AND GAME HAVE TAKEN ALL THE FEMALE QUOTA'S OFF MOST THE UNITS. THIS HAS RESULTED IN A LOT OF PRESSURE ON OL MR LONG TAIL AND THE END RESULT IS TOUGH FINDING A TRACK.

MANAGEMENT, IS THE KEY TO A HEALTHY POPULATION.

[Dan V]

What are lions and lion hunters worth? I heard some where that 9 out of 10 questions could be answered with the single answer of $$$MONEY$$$. How much value does your fish and game dept put on lions? With all of the special interest groups ( big horn sheep, trophy mule deer, elk etc.) its easy to see why lions are managed the way they are.

Where does F&G get their money? in state and out of state deer, sheep, elk, antelope and moose hunters. Lion hunters are a drop in the bucket.

Talk to any faithful disciple of Eastman's Journal or Trophy Hunter Magazine and most of them will tell you the reason they are not shooting 200 inch mule deer and 400 inch elk is MR LION.

I think you could get most of the lion hunters to buy off on only killing mature toms.

I dont think you could get all of the deer hunters with hounds to buy off on it.

F&G wont buy off on it, because all of the deer and sheep hunters will breath down their neck.

[PLOTT88]

I wish they would put at least a quota on females here in the panhandle of Idaho, or quit taking them all together for a number of years. Most guys would sell out then, because they would never suck it up and go up high where it's tough to earn a nice Tom. JMO

I agree, I am a strong advocate of no season on females at all. There are too many guys out there that do not care about what they will have to run tomarrow. Its all about today and all about $$$ to some. JMO

[Mike Leonard]

Yes this is a good subject: Do not be mistaken judging predators as you would a prey species is not the same. Here's why.

We talk of natural selection among ungulates, browsers and the humans, but in the carnivorious world things take on another effect. Master lions also select those who will carry on the genetic line. Don't think YOU are the only one calling or pulling the shot. The genes of these big toms that do rule are passed on,and dinking around and thinking you are doing the deal with these beasts like you would a herd of sheep ( oh I forgot band of sheep) LOL! is nonsensical. Kill the the Apex, the top toms . Of course his genes are passed on, then he kills less young and you end up with more lions for a while. This all depends on how you treat the rest. Whack em stack em all you end up with Utah or New Mexico for that matter mostly seeing guys kill this years crop like shooting forkhorns along the road and damn few trophies harvested. Lion are not like deer, elk and the prey specie, they are nothing like lions because lions choose and select and kill their own.

[Ike]

The problem with a tom lion only harvest is that if the houndsmen won't kill problem females they send ADC or Government Trappers after them. I have already spoken on that issue in another post, but one lion, any lion is too many if they are living on a sheep unit close to those high dollar rams.........

I can remember arguing with biologists twenty years ago for closing down lion hunting on BareTop Mountain when they introduced the Bighorn sheep there. Get serious! Close a lion unit down and lock up the gate thinking those sheep are gonna do well. Anyway, a few years later they opened the unit up to two tags and I laughed so hard I about fell over, then a few more years later they opened it up to harvest objective and sent ADC to kill lions that the hunters wouldn't. Hell sakes, the biologists were even calling hunters with tags when they saw a lion or track near their sheep.....

A good friend and I have discussed this issue on lions lots of times and have decided that we hounddoggers have to put a higher value on those animals to ever have a better population again. And personally, it pisses me off that a high dollar hunter will pay a hundred thousand dollars to kill a sheep or world class elk and not value an old tom the same way. Personally, I put more value on one of those super tom lions than any animal on the mountain.........

I had a guy tell me on an email the other day that he had taken a friend and hunter after a tom lion last winter and treed only one, one that was not large or old enough to harvest so he wouldn't let him kill it. Then the hounddoger found out later that the friend had gone in with another dogger and tried to catch and kill that same lion, and therefore was never welcome to hunt behind his dogs again.

So hearing that story is it hard to understand why I won't even let friends ride along with me to run dogs in the winter months when there is snow? I don't have a problem having a ride along in the dry season because I realize how tough it is to ever go get on a large tom I turn loose the next day and kill it. Those big toms, the ones we like to kill or save, can and do travel upwards of twenty or thirty miles in one walk. For a novice or ride along, the odds of that person finding, catching and kiling a tom like that in the dirt is about like me winning ten or twenty million dollar in the lotto or down in Vagas..............

Only people like us, the guys that train and pound our hounds down those tough tracks can save a few lions here and there. And that's why I stay to myself...............hell sakes, I've gotten to where I won't even talk about what I do and where I do it with other hounddoggers.........

ike

[Mike Leonard]

Right on Dennis!

[hounddude]

I can remember arguing with biologists twenty years ago for closing down lion hunting on BareTop Mountain when they introduced the Bighorn sheep there. Get serious! Close a lion unit down and lock up the gate thinking those sheep are gonna do well. Anyway, a few years later they opened the unit up to two tags and I laughed so hard I about fell over, then a few more years later they opened it up to harvest objective and sent ADC to kill lions that the hunters wouldn't. Hell sakes, the biologists were even calling hunters with tags when they saw a lion or track near their sheep.....

A good friend and I have discussed this issue on lions lots of times and have decided that we hounddoggers have to put a higher value on those animals to ever have a better population again. And personally, it pisses me off that a high dollar hunter will pay a hundred thousand dollars to kill a sheep or world class elk and not value an old tom the same way. Personally, I put more value on one of those super tom lions than any animal on the mountain.........

I had a guy tell me on an email the other day that he had taken a friend and hunter after a tom lion last winter and treed only one, one that was not large or old enough to harvest so he wouldn't let him kill it. Then the hounddoger found out later that the friend had gone in with another dogger and tried to catch and kill that same lion, and therefore was never welcome to hunt behind his dogs again.

ike

Ike I don't always agree with what you say or how you say it. But that is tell it like it is right there. Mark

[MTblack&tan]

The problem with killing the big animals, be it lions or elk or deer or anything, is that we don't necissarily kill the all the mature animals. Take certain elk heards, you can have a genetic in that heard that produces high scoring mature bulls. In the same heard you have a genetic that produces lower scoring mature bulls. Well that heard gets picked over by antler size by hunters for years and you end up with low scoring mature bulls doing the majority of the breeding. Now the genetics of the heard have altered and you have to somehow rebuild again for the trophy bulls. This can come into play with lions, but we don't have antlers to judge them by. On the flip side, I haven't seen a lot of 110 pound 6 1/2 year old lions killed.

Biggest thing we as houndsmen need to do is self control with our female populations. Around here a female rarely gets of breeding age to even be an attribute to the population. I would love to figure out a way to educate some of the guys around here on this, but I know this is impossible for some to understand. For now I do like Ike said, just keep my mouth shut. I hide what I can, when I find where females are hanging and try not to draw attention to that area.

[Spanky]

I can only speak for my area so this is my opinon and thats all it is....

Lions are not like deer or elk and can not be managed the same. If we were on a ranch in south texas and wanted to manage for trophy quality whitetails we would strive for a buck to doe ratio of 2/3 to 1. We would harvest out our management bucks and leave the larger bucks to do the breeding. In doing so we are insuring that we would allow the better genes to be passed on because we are managing for antler size not age or weight.

With lions trophy toms are measured by skull size and also weight. I have witnessed 3 year old toms weighing over 160# and have also seen 7 and 8 year old toms barely weighing 120#. Long Winters and competition for food source are just a few aspects that will dictate what is a trophy tom, more so then age. Hunting pressure and balance will also definately dictate future trophy quality but one tom will breed every female in several drainages and will not tolerate a smaller sub adult male in his area. Remember lions cycle when ever as compared to whitetail and elk that cycle the same general time each year.

With all that being said its my belief that some females, yes there is a small and I mean small percentage of females that need harvesting, BUT with wilderness areas so close to our hunting areas without our current permit system and new female sub quotas for my area older toms were dieing off on the mountain well before they ever reached the valley floor simply because the season historically was closed every year well before they follwed the mule deer down.

Our area is being desimated with wolves right now and lion tracks are fare and few between. Its my belief the larger tom lions have changed there habits and are staying high with the smaller resident family units trying to survive the fringe of the deer yards. By searching out trophy quality toms as your key objective your giving the younger juviniles a better chance or reaching maturity. If we were to revert back to the old ways and shoot ever lion treed we would be right were we were in 2004 with average age of lions harvested at 1.2 years of age. This resulting in the Big toms dieing on the mountain once again. My suggestion, get out of the truck and go hunting....

[Nolte]

I don't know a thing about Lions, but I've got a comment to add on genetics.

In any wild animal species it is damn near impossible to control genetics. Dedicated Scientists in controlled labs can barely do it, so I don't know why any hunter thinks they could do it. Hell those guys who are into breeding deer with sickly big antlers still can't tell you with any certainty how big their fawn's will antlers will be. And this is in contolled pens with as much nutrition as possilbe without any sort of outside stress. These guys have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in animals alone. Seems like awfully spendy vension to me.

Worry about the age and nutrition first, strive for a balanced population structure and the genetics will take care of themselves no matter what sort of animal you're talking about.

Carry on guys.

[R Severe]

Great topic, with lots of points to think about.

Only thing I've figured out for sure is that if you shoot one of these cats they just plain quit leaving tracks. So it follows, maybe just shoot the ones you don't want to trail anymore

[Yaak attack]

I don't know what causes a gene pool to get diluted, But I know it can and does. Look at the sheep areaand how they rise and fall. I can tell you I'm pretty sure when you take the strongest most dominant breeding males from the population, you create a completeley different dynamic. You can hunt your guts out and you would still have to be lucky to find a tom over five years old every couple of years around here. Our cat numbers are very good, but found 16 lion tracks on Thursday and one was a little tom. There is too high of a price on the tom's head. Most guys would rather kill a 100 pound tom than any female. Every two year old tom that ends up getting rugged is one that will never get 160 pounds. I think if you have whitetail deer in good numbers, you will be able to sustain higher cat numbers and can harvest some females when nubers are good. I am only speaking of my experience. We had some old timers here really force us to set conservative numbers when we were on a quota and our lions numbers have never crashed. I think you can harvest a cross section of the lion population and still keep good numbers, but you can't over harvest or you will pay.
The odd thing is I am a taxidermist and I mount more lions than anyone, I can honestly say I have a hard time catching a lion for someone to kill. To see one disapear from my hunting area forever is a sad thing for me. It is a little easier when it is a good tom.