Biggest lion you caught

[onalimb]

Largest I've taken, weight???? Skull???? still in the freezer. This cat was hunting elk, and was pretty skinny when taken, wasn't packing much fat at all.

Largest I've caught, pursuit season a couple years back. A real Pig, and not all that old. He'd been eating real well and was thicker from the back to his belly than any I've seen.

[Mike Leonard]

I posted some of the photos in the past and I beleive you can see one of the big guys on my cat hunting training site. I have not posted many photos lately, and probably won't unless it is a training issue, but for those that would like to see some of them drop by the house or if you are in Wyoming or Idaho I can give you a reference or two to stop by and look.

The three leading record producing counties in the lower 48 are in this order.

Idaho County, Idaho
Rio Arriba, Co. New Mexico
Archuleta, Co. Colorado


The gentic pool for the number two and three counties is the same . The world record for the lower 48 Brian
Williams 237 pound--16" monster came from Archuleta County, but the next day he could have been in New Mexico.

Not many of these big ones left but with high country wilderness and roadless areas there are still a few. Liontracker I know one in particular that is living on borrowed time. LOL!


The largest lion I have seen a photo of weighed 276 pounds and stangely enough was taken in southern Arizona in the late 1920's.

[Plotts]

Not the biggest, but certainly the roughest. Treed and tranqualized this one while collaring lions for the F&G.

[nait hadya]

You fellas ever measure the front pad on those monsters. Seems all im ever lookin at is tracks, sure be nice to be able to at least dream bout how big that old Tom lion might be.

[Big Mike]

Best way to tell size of a cat is from there stride not pad size. Ive caught 120lbers that had huge feet. Start measuring strides and you can reasonably predict the size of cat.

Great pictures guys keep them comin, great motivation for the off season

227 lbs Mike L.!!!! Watch your back Mike, you might find yourself being followed by an oversized guy on a oversized mule next year!!!! LOL

[Mike Leonard]

Come on Big Mike HHHEEEEEEEHAAAWWWW!

There is a place high in the Valley of The Wind where panthers grow like buffalo, when the crecent of the new moon meets the morning star they will come to the enchanted land. Where they shall meet with men mounted on asses of immense size and the battle will be great. Who shall prevail?

Beats me! LOL!

[Ike]

Yea, it sounds like ol' Ike better make a trip down south for lion..........

As far as foot size and stride in sizing up a tom lion, well, a lion can gain the body length at an early age just like he can the foot size. I've taped several young cats at 7'9" or more that had large feet and a long body but didn't have the body mass those old monster toms have. Some people say you can tell more from the back pack on their front foot than you can from the diameter of the pad. I've also heard some old lion hunters talk about the size of a scratch one makes, that a truly dominate tom lion will often make larger and deeper scratches than others. But in the end, a guy about has to run them down when they show as big cats and sometimes ground check them to make sure!

ike

[Borderpond]

Ike, I have seen the same thing with footsize on a bear.Real big pad track but a not so big young bear who just hasnt grown into it yet.I dont know anything about lions but I can tell you the only B&C bear I have ever taken had small feet and weighed 215 lbs !!

[Ike]

I sure do like to see a good pad track on a lion or bear if I have a hunter with me before we get to the tree Borderpond. Too many times I've gone in blind and have to make a size judgment on the animal which isn't fun. I often wish I had a good pair of field glasses to look an animal over in the tree before making a decision, but there always seems to be too much to pack without taking extras. On bear I try and measure the width of the front pad, which tells me a ball park figure of what we are looking at. But in the end, I always tell a hunter that has tagged along or a paying client what my opinion is but not to take the animal unless they are happy with it--and they never get a push from me whether it's a young animal or a hog in the tree.

If a guy is just chasing they are all good, but guiding does take the fun out of it for me. There are few things worse than driving past runnable tracks looking for a hog that never crosses. Truthfully, a guy can spend eight or ten days (or more) cutting for large tom lions or boar black bears before getting a run at one where I hunt. And to dedicate that much time to someone is hard to justify unless they have the big bucks or are a damn good friend or family member. Truth is, few hunters outside our sport (that I have met) have the commitment to follow through on a super tom kill.......damn few! I have spent twenty or thirty days over the course of a year just to get one overnight run at a super tom lion that I've located. And that's how tough hunting those top end animals are around here. But rest assured that if a man has learned his craft, spends the time and money, along with the dedication, then that tom and the hunter will eventually cross paths and he will climb......

ike

[Mike Leonard]

Ike,

I agree completly it can be very frustrating at times when you know there is a big one out there but he just isn't on your schedule.Wiley Carroll told me one time he thought the real difference in very sccessful lion hunters and those who didn't quite get there in the same country many times was just having the time to go. If you can dedicate a lot of time to hitting that same cross ing are day after day you will gt that stroke of luck and your paths will meet sooner or later. But you hit a day or two here and then a week later you hit a day or two well it is just like gambling in Vega. How many times have you come back to find his track again and it is already old and crossed not long after you left the area the last time?

My first really huge lion was an efort that took several years and it seemed I would never get him right where he was in my playground. I was about to give up the day I got him and a freak storm had blown in and held him up in a small canyon and just that one track under that loone juniper caught my eye and 30 minutes later it was history.

I guess like they say you can't win if you don't play. LOL!

[onalimb]

Plotts, how old do you figure that injury on that cat was?

Hell of a pic!

[Mike Leonard]

That first lion I talked about there was estimated to be 8 plus years old. He had a lot of scars and I knew he had been dominating that country for a couple of years. The record book indicates that most lions that have attained the 15" skull min. to meet the all time record book are 8 years old or more. I have however seen some in super genetic zones that have reached it several years before and no telling where they would have peaked. The top ridge on the skull continues to grow some much like the nose of and older man it keeps on growing as they age. This doesn't mean all old cats will make it becasue it taked length and width as well to make the total.

When you stop and thing that divided by four ways the length of difference in the world record and one that doesn't quite make the all times is in increments less that 3/8 of and inch. So if that cat had a 1/2" wider skull and rhe ridge was a little higher and he was a quarter longer boom you are setting right there on top of the book. Cougars have rather small heads even the really big ones when you compare them with a good leopard and they are tiny compared to a tom jaguar, with some of the monster class close to 23" WOW!!!!

[Plotts]

It was an old injury, all scarred and healed over. He didnt have much nose left.

Figured either a porky or a fight with another lion. It sure must have been bad when it happened. Its not easy being a lion.

[Ike]

Yup Mike, well you're correct about they don't all make it cause I killed two toms back to back that scored 14 7/16" and the tooth data came back as seven years of age on both of them. If a guy has hunted very long, or killed very many tom lions, then he understands that a seven year old tom that taped 7 1/2 feet and dry scored 14 7/16" is a pretty damn good tom lion. Like I said earlier, if we kill one above 14 1/2 or up close to or over 15 inches, then that is a special cat. I've also ran down eight foot tom lions that only scored 14 12/16" and 7 1/2 footers that scored 14 15/16". But anytime they hit the 14 1/2" dry score mark, a hounddogger did pretty damn well in my books.....

It sounds like you did stay with that tom until lady luck or the hunting gods shined a little light on you Mike. And congrats to you for understanding that tom's country, where he was moving and sticking with him long enough to finish on him...... That's the difference between a serious hunter that knows the game and a person that just hasn't figured it out yet......and some never do!

ike

[Mike Leonard]

Ike,

What you said again right on. That is a big tom in anybody's book. Certain gene pools occasionly have some of these that just grow a bigger head but in reality that doesn't make them a better trophy in my book.It's not Teddy roosevelt and the B&C scoring that makes a real trophy it is harvesting a truely large speciman from that area and all areas do not have the same genetics or feed. Look at deer for example. I killed several bucks in eastern Montana some years back that went over 300 pounds on the hoof and were older white faced buck with wide spidely horns. One was 30-1/4" wide and the other was 36-3/4" wide. Neither one of them even came close to making the book. Light horn gentics without mass and short flat tine lengths dominated the genetic there. But they were still memorable trophys for that area and that is what counts. They were just as mature and just as smart as a 180 pound Colorado highline buck that would score 210. You just don't get you name up in lights. LOL! Who cares.

The greatest trophy lion I have taken did not have the biggest head but it was a huge struggle catching him with high heat and dry winds. Sort of different having to strip down to a t-shirt when you are lion hunting . We had all but given up hope after riding many miles on a cold trail that seemed to be going nowhere and getting worse. But good lion dogs don't know the word quit and that is what made it happen. One little hard headed Jeff Allen walker dog would not quit and he was down banging around in the boulder while we sat on our horses sweating and cussing our bad luck. And then BOOM! it happened and old Gunner made history even though it was to be his last lion it was that spotted hard headed son of a gun that made it happen and I still get misty eyed every time I look up and see that big old tom on the wall and think about old Gunner wobbling out of the canyon long after the lion and the other dogs had left on his last legs but gallant to the end. That my friends is his trophy but I am thankful he let me ride behind him for a lot of years.

Teddy Roosevelt by the way held the top score in the cougar class for many, many years with a huge cat taken in the very early 1900's near Meeker, Colorado.