BigGameHoundsmen.com

Ike wrote:
Yeah Mike, I hate to admit it but it but that mule isn't mine but belongs to a friend. I will say a guy could use one of those things for sure...............

By the way, that's old Ike on the left under ten gallon hat!

ike

That's not a mule, it's a Rhino... mules have hooves and long ears and get you places that Rhino can only sit and dream about.

Ike wrote: Anybody know who this hombre is? For some reason he was pointing at the ground where something had piled up a bunch of pine needles? Then this old cowboy ask me if I knew which way that tom was going....yea, no shit! I told him if the Wolf Pack couldn't tell nobody could.....

Well, time to go load that mule and my hounds again!

I am actually glad spring is here so I can get out and get around and explore new country and maybe find a travelling lion to harrass a bit. Was out yesterday and all the dogs took off to who knows where. After a couple hikes into some steep canyons, two of them were still moving and spent the night out. I had the two youngest dogs with me, as they were around all day. But my lead dog and female didn't want to come home quite yet. Found them about 11:30 this morning sleeping under the sagebrush after about another mile and a half hike. They sure were tired, I walked to within 30 yards of them, and had to yell at them to wake them up. Sadie didn't even feel like eating when we got home, she went straight into the dog house and fell asleep. Maybe I will get some good days out this spring?

Later,

Marcial

Glad you guys are enjoing the spring weather.

These days find me busy with horses, trimming shoeing and working colts. Also plenty of big country to take them to and young dogs to get to work now that we can get around. We are loaded and ready for a big cirle in the DRY tomorrow. We will be horseback and into the canyons at daybreak. We have El Gato on our minds so the strike dogs are already senseing the trip. Saddles and are loaded and horse are ready. We pack and extra horse with fresh water so if we get some really hard trailing going on up where there is no standing water we can refresh the dogs when it gets up in the 70's it is tough cuz these old rock soak up a lot of sun and these dogs working across them are like sticking their noses in an oven. Should be good..


The beauty of bare ground lion hunting is the mystery the hounds unfold and you get to read that ancient book one more time. M.J. Leonard 2010

Bare ground lion hunting is the best and will definitely separate the men from the boys when it comes to cat hunting. If you can’t enjoy following the dogs every step of the way, seeing them through every lose and look at their success with admiration and wonder then your not a cat hunter. Snow is great for training those young hounds to run the ghost with vigor as well as to imprint the smell of the long tail in their mind and gives them a passion and desire too push through the most adverse conditions to capture their adversary, but spring and summer will tell you what you have in the way of true lion hounds. The rapidly changing conditions of a track on bare ground is by far the hardest thing that a trail hound will ever have when pursuing their quarry. OH, the snow has its problems, that’s for sure, but none that compare to bare ground. I love following my hounds watching them pick apart a cold lion track step for step; it is me, who I am. I will take an easy one, who wouldn’t, but those hard ones always inspire me and keep me going they have taught me a lot about lion behavior as far as whether that lion is stepping out in search of new country, hunting, or looking for a female. The snow tells no lies but one rarely gets the opportunity to see what that old cat is doing as the hounds blow out of there as if they were looking at it.

“The beauty of bare ground lion hunting is the mystery the hounds unfold and you get to read that ancient book one more time. M.J. Leonard 2010”

Mike, your 24 words could not have summed it up better for me.

Good luck you bare ground lion hunters from now until this fall.

Sourdough

Yup, there is just something about having that dry ground under foot that adds a little spring to my stride that I enjoy. Maybe it's just the warming, longer days that brings it all on, or seeing new life and growth in every direction that makes a man feel young again just don't know. But if the time ever comes a person doesn't enjoy hitting the hills come spring their days are nearly over I suppose.......

ike

Some of these days start a little early. Phone rigs at midnight last night lion in residential district three wardens waiting grab the dogs and come a running. Well I was all set to go ut anyway and I think they were a little surprized when I wheeled in less than 30 minutes after the call horse trailer in tow. Well it gets interesting trying to trail a lion with two dogs on a lead going thru parking lots around condos and and such. Although the lionw as rumored to be there only and hour before and loungeing on top of a 6 foot wooden fence he or she didn't leave any tracks. The only tracks I could find in the area and it was fairly good soil for tracking was housecats, a large dog track and near and irrigation ditch I found the tracks of a red fox, but no lion. By the amount of drug type parafanela lying around in some of those empyt lots, broken pipes, and tons of huffers paint spray cans I am surprized they didn't call in a dragon rather than a lion. With that even exhausted I headed home grabbed a couple hour nap jumped the horses in the trailer and headed for the hills. It was really great out there today and although we didn't tree one we certainly some some dogs try hard. With dirt hunting a lot of times you can't measure the successful day by the number of lions treed. That is always the goal but watching those young dogs earn their stripes trailing is a good day for me.

Been there and done that too many times Mike. I had one of the conservation officers telephone me last spring saying they had received a report of a mountain lion from a lady out her window, across the road bedded in some brush--it had a tail and everything! He had had one of the local lion hunters come look for tracks in the dirt and they couldn't find any, so I told him I'd bring a couple dogs and they would show us any tracks that were there. Not a strike, nor a track was found and I told the game warden it was probably a fox..........

I had another conservation officer telephone me to come run down and kill a lion in a state park a couple years back, which was early June. I'd just returned from a bear hunt and was tying out dogs when the phone rang around 5:00 PM.. The report was a lion laying by some campers and I thought yea! But that report was accurate and that lion is dead.

The Ute Tribe called me years back cause they had a bear come through town, and there was a track and several 55 gallon trash drums turned over. I can remember helping my dogs over fences and having yard dogs confront me at about every turn--chows, mutts and more mutts. It looked like the country was full of yard and fighting dogs and I was lucky to get through that deal with all my hounds in tack.

Then there was the Russian Olive tree bear that was hit on the highway and supposedly dead or wounded down on the Duchesne River. Two conservation Officers called me on that one around 1:00 PM, and I started to ask them if they really believed there was a hound in the west that could start a bear track at 2:00 PM near the end of June that had been hit in the night. Luckily, Ike started barking after we got down along the river and they jumped the bear pretty quick. Instead of dead, that bear jumped two fences on Highway 40 and took my hounds across traffic with me running behind them to pick up the pieces. One dog did not make the tree and I had her beep at the highway, so I cut the ditch banks looking for her body after the run--that was my LionHeart dog. Then I noticed a rancher down near his cattle on the adjacent property and pulled in there to find he had my LionHeart bitch tied to the corral with rope. He told me those dogs came running through his cows barking and he grabbed her on the way past. Well the other neighbor told me he watched the bear jump the fence with those dogs hot on it's butt, so the cowboy just missed seeing the bear I guess. Again I was lucky and did not get any dogs killed.....
http://www.ingramwildlife.com/russianolivebear.wmv

I look back at the public service that I've done for the Fish and Game and others and wonder how many of them ever worried about the situation they put me and my dogs in??????? I had one fish and game person tell me he thought they were doing me a favor by calling me, and I told him if he didn't understand that I was donating my time, dogs, money and effort to help them and the public to never call me again. Yea, a guy puts three or four dogs worth ten to twenty thousand dollars down on a track for the fish and game--puts them at risk from traffic and some rancher that may have shot them thinking they were chasing cows cause he didn't see the bear--and the State of Utah was dong me a favor?? Now I don't mind donating my time, money and hounds but a the people who received that donation should at lease understand it was a donation and not something they gave to me. As a good buddy always says, "you gotta love it!"

And those are only a few of dozens of stories I have about the public predator problems..when I write a book (and I will do that) I will probably donate a chapter to time spent with ADC, the fish and game and others.......

ike

So true about the "favor" Ike.

I have had people come to me and say "I know where a lion track is, I'll show it to you but I get to kill it." I always say no thanks, and figure that it was probably gone by then anyway. People think that by them showing you a lion track is doing you a favor.

If you let a person kill a lion in a situation like that you would never hear from them again, lol.

Later,

Marcial

Don't get me started on that one man. I ran into a dude a few years back that had seen a lion one day in June and told me that he'd called me and others to come run it down for him to kill. Yea, not unlike the fish and game he figured that he would be doing me a favor to let me run down a lion for him to kill I knew damn well that the guy had never telephoned me once in his life and was full of shit, and then told him that he couldn't afford me and my dogs...........

That's the problem with the lion population where I live, too many oilfield roads and every service person knows somebody that owns a hound. Tell me how in the hell a tom lion ever lives long enough to have a bigger track than his momma with so many eyes watching the roads on every fresh snow? Lion season runs year round where i live, and I can always find an old track to play with--it might take fifty or seventy-five miles of cutting and rigging but a bitch or something has crossed somewhere. If any of those people ever bothered to feed, raise and train a hound they'd soon learn that the tom lion population is pretty damn limited where I hunt yet too many of them believe we are over run with lions.....

ike

ChasinTail wrote:

Ike wrote:
Yeah Mike, I hate to admit it but it but that mule isn't mine but belongs to a friend. I will say a guy could use one of those things for sure...............

By the way, that's old Ike on the left under ten gallon hat!

ike

That's not a mule, it's a Rhino... mules have hooves and long ears and get you places that Rhino can only sit and dream about.

Ike wrote: Anybody know who this hombre is? For some reason he was pointing at the ground where something had piled up a bunch of pine needles? Then this old cowboy ask me if I knew which way that tom was going....yea, no shit! I told him if the Wolf Pack couldn't tell nobody could.....

If I could find a long ear, four legged mule that would get me in the places I need to go I'd probably get one. Until then, I'll stick with my "Little Mule", "Mini Mule", and old MuleBurt to get me around--and then a set of boots to finish off where a mule won't go! Best of all, I feel another lion hunt coming on.....

ike