BigGameHoundsmen.com

Or a dog along period! I was on my sled in an attempt to cover as much ground as fast as possible that day. A dog on the ground would have been nice, but they only seem to want to road at 7-10 miles per hour, not the 15-20 mph that I was traveling at.

It was 9:00 pm Friday night when the snow started to fall, small flakes at first that gradually got larger as time went by. I couldn't sleep because of the thought of lions and the sound of hound music played out all night over and over again. I check the snow conditions several times as night past after all I couldn't sleep anyways and if I left early I knew I would get a jump on the competition. 1:00 am the snow had stopped and I packed a lunch and headed out the door. The crew was eager, jumping and barking with anticipation of the hunt. They loaded up and settled in for the drive to the lion woods. Most of the time I don't take them as it is easier to follow out an old lion track when the hounds haven't knocked it out a head of me but, today was different I was on a mission. Armed with a six inch steak knife that I got from the knife block that set next to the coffee pot at the end of the kitchen counter I knew I would fill the tag I had in my pocket. We turned off the county road and on to the forest It was slow going and I was glad I had the wench and tire chains. The snow was as virgin as it gets, an un-molested trail laid in front of me, five miles of slow an steady travel and there it was. A round evenly spaced track heading from east to west crossing the road, I knew at first glance that it was him, old slew foot, a giant, no lion was bigger or more capable of escaping the pack as him. I could tell by the impressions he left behind that he has had a good year and has finally reached his full growth potential. I got out my slide rule, measured his stride as well as the depth of his track. Using a pen and paper jotted down the algebraic formula. I couldn't believe it had I made an mistake with my adding and subtracting? So I did it again, same answer. If I take this big feller I will for sure get the notoriety I deserve. I got old hank from the box put a tracking collar on his neck and walked him to the track. One sniff and his hair rose a top his back and he knew this may be his last day but with the eight other hounds I turned in with him he was full of courage and ready to roll. I gathered up my leads and strapped on the snow shoes and off I went. The baritone voice of hank caused an avalanche of snow to break free from it's hold on the snow covered branches. As I reached the half way mark on the ridge I found old slew foots kill. A huge bull in the 480 class lay dead, both hind quarter and all his vitals were removed as if a surgeon had done it with an scalpel. The story played out in slew foots tracks, he closed with in thirty feet of the bull and his tail cleared the snow behind him like a broom as he whipped it from side to side and in one leaping bound he had his prey. One bite to the neck and it was over. The mighty bull was dead slew foot had severed his cerebral cortex. I knew from the large amount of meat that was removed from the dead bull that this would be a short race. As the pack reached the top of the ridge I heard the jump and they left over the top. I figured the race would last a few hundred yard beyond the top and I would have old slew foot. After a hour I reached the top of the ridge cupping my ears in hopes of hearing the rapped barking of a treed pack of hounds. Nothing other than a stellar jay and her first years clutch. After 3 and 3 tenth of a mile I cupped my hands again, and again nothing other than six tundra swans headed north to get a early start on nesting. I went on for another ten miles. Ok that wasn't the truth it was 9 and 9 tenth miles according to the GPS. I cupped my ears and then I heard it the rhythmic sound of a treed pack of hounds. After 1 hour 10 minutes and 39 seconds I was there. I don't really know where there was but I was at that spot. Slew foot was treed in a one hundred foot lodge pole pine and man was it a sight he had the tree bent all the way over and was barely out of reach of the hounds. Had I known what was going to happen next I would have grabbed a larger knife. I pull my six inch steak knife from my pack and placed it in my teeth climbing the tree was hard work but I finally reached slew foot and in a last ditch effort through myself on his back taking the knife from my teeth I thrust-ed it deep in to him right behind the front shoulders and snapped the blade off at the hilt. I miss judged slew foots size that day and he will always haunt my dreams and always be the one that got away. As me an the pack made are way back to the truck under the light of the full moon something startled me a loud noise coming from my right it was a familiar sound and one I have heard a million times. I turned off the alarm clock and checked the snow It was 1:00 am and the snow had stopped.

sourdough

well now this story beats all urs boys,sorry

so i was asleep when i heard my 6 month old pups bawlin and raisin hell
i walk outside with coon light and 22. ready to shoot out what i thought would be a coon (they tree one right here in my back yard every other night) so when outa no where a huge cat jumps out and i leash up all 500 of my top hounds,knowing that this was a huge beast of all beasts waying about 300 pounds easily

we jumped the cat eating on a cow, all dogs dumped and u heard the good ol music for miles and miles,then all of a sudden it was silent,all 500 dogs let out the most beautiful locate anyones ever heard and rolled it over to a steady double chop/bawl

i walked up realizing i only had a knife and some rope.so quick as the wind i made a spear and with force iv never had launched it through the cat and it fell dead

TRACKER, why the hell were you trying to freshen up a 3 day old track? Just last winter the camerons were trailing a known 14 day old track. These cold nosed track driving machines should smoke a track like that. if the camerons cant take youu got the break out in case of emergency French hounds.
You walked the 8 mile loop, why not just get out the binos and spotter to freshen it up?
Oh yea, and where is the pic of this elusive Red Runner?

Once upon a time in a land far far away yesterday I loaded the hounds. I had my GGGGGS bred hounds that I has crossed very tightly for extreme nose power along with grit. They all had a little hip displaysia, and some had seizure issues, but all in all as solid as any houndman could ask for and I also loaded the daughters Austrailian Shepard for back up. We cruised up the Strawberry River to the mouth of Timber canyon where the King of all cats in Utah lives. This is a harvest objective area crawling with lions, BUT Mighty Mufasa as we call him has been crossing every 5 days 3 hrs, and 47 minutes on the dot. Just like clockwork. I tried to time it right to have the hounds out of the truck with collars on when he crossed, but I was 37 seconds late getting there according to the track. Well we were there and nobody or nothing was gonna stop us now. I unleashed Poncho first, then Bongo, then firecracker, then Slim, then Suzie, then Brandy the Austrailian Shepard. The track was slow going at first as they cold trailed this magnificent specimen with ripped abs and manicured nails. (I really believe he was holding his scent at this point) but finally Brandy had him jumped and was taking him out of the country. I was worried as the rest were having convulsions, but soon joined in the race. I watched them top the ridge at 1127 yrds (had my range finder so you guys couldn't call b.s.) and I could see the lion lost a lock of hair on the pinion he passed when he went by. I ran to the top, and seen where this lion had killed a Shiras bull moose the time before in his travels. It was very interesting as I could tell he'd taken the enormous beast down by tripping him when the bull came around the end of a little outcropping, then he had held the beasts head under the snow until he was completely suffocated. He then actually cut the beasts throat and dug a hole in the icey cold snow where he could lap up the blood. It was truley a magnificent site. I only wish I would've had my camera so I could have gotten pictures for all to see. I figured I had better get back on the trail and try to hear the dogs. We traveled 27 miles according to the Garmin and the lion crossed into the Limited entry unit and I had to call off the dogs. Can't wait till next week

well as luck would have I just so happen to have that limited entry tag in my hand and found the track just where catman had left it. Although I am fifteen days behind I believe in fair chase and feel that I will get lucky with this big Utah record breaker. I have all the hounds on phenobarbital and their hips are all pined to prevent any structural problem from keeping them out of the race so it's game on. Jack my lead dog is eleven years old and just starting to tree the rest of the clan are coming on and with a little luck and a hope and a prayer we will bay this big boy up in one of the many rock piles that Utah has. The hounds are salty and making good time five days in and two pair of boots, things are looking up. I have the big boys travel route figured out and will cut the country to get ahead of him as it turned out I was right with my assumption but, this Utah Nike wearing or was it Rebok was still ahead of me. Another week has past and I think I have to take a break, another pair of boot gone and a blister on my right foot in the shape of Colorado has weakened me. I fill it's all lost get the dogs are still moving but if I can't catch up to give them their phenobarbital they most certainly will have a severe epileptic fit and the race will be over so I caught them all up and ask for forgiveness for letting them down so Catman he is heading your way making more contact with the ladies then tiger woods I hope Nike doesn't find out they may drop his endorsement. until next time you dirty rat!

sourdough

Sure wish I had a cool story to tell....... But after 65 days of glassing for lion tracks the only thing that I have spotted was the tracks of a buck field mouse at 9.5 miles (could tell it was a buck because his nuts were draging in the snow).

sourdough wrote:It was 9:00 pm Friday night when the snow started to fall, small flakes at first that gradually got larger as time went by.
.... .... .... ....
I turned off the alarm clock and checked the snow It was 1:00 am and the snow had stopped.

sourdough

OK, I like it. Write the novel and I want a signed hard bound copy.

all you guys can do is glass tracks in the snow , i live in california and hunt the valley, no snow, my buddys and hunt racoons at night for that matter, i grab my zeiss spotting scope that i glass for moose in my part of the country with and can spot a coon track at 1475 yards in the dark then take the dogs and 100% of the time caught it, im surrounded by rookies

There is a legend around here they call B. B. King who's name comes not from his music but his weapon of choice for lions.
We don't have snow drifts here, we have dust drifts reaching 8 to 10 foot in depth, but some locals have found that wearing wool creates static electricity and combined with small pockets of methane, can create flares. Some quite large and explosive in nature.
Old timers say that some nights you can see these flares on mountain tops and hear muffled curses amid the screams from agonized lions that fall to this weapon of B.B. King.

I'm convulsing so hard that my hips are starting to hurt.

Those sirens that accompany the largest of flairs, are really just screams of agony! To have an explosion of that magnatude, accompanied by fire, well, it's just plain uncomfortable!

Now for the story....
I awoke yesterday morning at precisely 3:23 and 49.5 seconds in the morning. I unplugged all 45 shock collars from various places throughout the house, turned them all on, and got dressed (I love the flashing red lights as I put my clothes on in the dark). I went outside and started collaring dogs. As I started turning dogs loose, I recognized a different attitude exuding from the dogs. As I made a mental note of this change, I had no choice but to push forward with the agenda at hand. Kat and Kohl would be expecting me at exactly 7:59 and 30 seconds, ready to roll! I got the dogs loaded, even threw in the little black terrorist while he wasn't paying attention. I caught my mule without any complications (whew!), and headed out the driveway. At this time I was way ahead of schedule, so I stopped at Lonnie Allsup's for a snack. There wasn't anyone else out on the roads (no snow, I guess), so I pushed the accelerator down into the carpet, and proceeded to cut the 3 1/2 hour drive down a bit. My mule and hounds have learned to like this part of the hunt the best, as they think they are on a ride at Six Flags! Since I was far ahead of schedule, I stopped at Vaugnn to fuel up. Well, that's when I knew for sure that this day was going to be different. As I sat in the warmth of my pickup, waiting for the fuel nozzle to shut off, I was dreaming of catching the big game that very day! After around 43.2 minutes, I decided that I had better check the progress. Sure enough, the back tank was full, as was the 25 gallon hole in the parking lot surrounding the pumps! Well, I put on my hip waders, hung the fuel nozzle back on the pump, and kicked 'ole blue into hyperspeed! I figured I was giving the green wienies something to do for the day. (I like to try and help everyone at some time or other) Well, I rolled into Kat's with exactly 22 minutes and 16 seconds to spare--- this was going to be a good day! When we turned the dogs loose, I remembered the difference in attutude and demeanor that the dogs had earlier in the morning. Sure enough, it was even more prevelant now that we were in the domain of big game!!! With all of the dogs that we had on the ground, my heart went out to any varmint that got caught by this pack of severely malnurished mongrells! As the day progressed, and nothing out of the ordinary happened, I started wondering if I had misread all the signals that morning. One of Kohl's dogs showed up with a deer leg, and my heart lept! Things WERE looking up! We didn't have time to argue about who was at fault, and how we could have missed something so important, we just turned around and started combing the countryside, intent on finding that kill! That's when it happened!!! Kohl said that he could hear a dog bawling! As we got there, Baldy, the old reliable, was climbing the tree, trying to reach his quarry. Kohl watched in horror as the old dog fell from the branches and got a back leg caught in a fork, several feet from the ground. To everyone's amazement and relief, we realized that Baldy was just trying to point to the treed "catch". He had always heard that bird dogs could point with their tails, and this was his way of showing us that he was more versatile than we ever imagined! And after all of these years, NEVER having caught a grey fox with dogs, there it was....all the way in the top of that juniper-A REAL LIVE FOX!!! I have never been so proud!

WOW, WHAT GOOD STORY TELLING!

Sourdough
I'm locked and loaded and ready for him. I actually tried the dogs on phenobarbital....didn't work so I went back...they prescribed the dogs with dialantin or something like that. I hope the austrailian shephard is good to go as I'm afraid as you are that the drugs might wear off.

Benny
Don't want to be mean, but check your breaker box. If your shockers are flashing red then the power kicked and they are not charged. Happens to me all the time when you overload the circuit with that many chargers.