Old lion Tracks

[Mike Leonard]

Idcurs,

Sounds like you had the opportunity to hunt with some of the best. I know all these men except Jared but know of him and his association with John Kibler.

Yes many times a person does just trail but on the dirt you have to trail them to catch them very seldom can you run a dirt lion until you get a jump.

A high percentage of todays lion hunters mostly just run lions. By this I mean they find a very good track usually in the snow and once the dogs are put on it they start gobbling up the ground. This is the most productive way to catch lions and fill out customer hunters . It is hard to get very many clients that want to set in the saddle for days at a time and following a bunch of trailing dogs working on older lion tracks. Most are interested in filling out a trophy collection and a lion is just another mount and most of them read all the stories and feel that usually a phone call and a short plane trip and a day or two and this part of the collection is complete. They do in fact have their lion legal and all is well but in the truest sense of the word they have not really been lion hunting. They have rode around track hunting watched as a guide put some dogs on a track and heard a breif roar of dog music and then waited watching and listening to the Tracker or Garmin until they know they have the lion treed, and usually they drive as close as possible and go to the tree snap some photos kill the lion and are ready to head home again.

Nothing wrong with this and it is a great gigg for the Outfitter. I have however had quite a number of these guys after a few years of reflection that come back and want to try a traditional southwest type hunt. some can do it but a lot of todays hunters are grossly out of shape and just can't handle a true wild hunt anymore and need the easy stuff. You watch the bulk of todays outdoor hunting programs and most can barely walk up the ladder to a box blind, so who would dream of putting them on a horse or mule and dragging them back in the roadless country.

A few days ago I was in camp with two of the men you mentioned in your post and both of them have had many days when trailing was all they did but when you know of the hundreds and hundreds of dirt lions these guys have caught you must realize they either catch a pretty good percentage of the lions they start or they are very lucky indeed to blunder into another fresher one coming back their way.

[Chris Todd]

Idcurs, that is a list of great lion hunters that you have hunted with. And I have nothing but respect for these men. And also know first hand after 36 years of lion hunting in Arizona that dirt hunting behind a pack of hounds is hard work. I thought alot on the question of coldnosed lion hounds. The problem I always come back to is what is a cold track? I am sure the answer is dependant on alot of varibles. But mostly trailing conditions. I have seen dogs take a track that I knew to be at least 2-day old at a run. And have a hard time keeping up with those hounds all day. And then the same pack of hounds couldnt take a track I knew to be 12-hour old or less. I think alot of guys strike a lion track that their hounds cant move and just assume that they are on a 2-day old track with no way of really knowing the age of that track. I have struck many a track that hounds could barely move on and be thinking I was wasting my time. Then go on and jump that lion within a couple miles. And I have had a couple tracks like that go less than a mile. Now I know from alot of recent Game and Fish studies that lions will sometimes lay basicly in the same spot for a couple days. Even without a kill. But once again I dont know how old these tracks were when first struck. I have seen lion tracks that were made in the dirt that look the same every day I would ride past it for up to three days. So this goes back to how hard it is to judge the age of the tracks that your hounds strike. I think a hunter has to know when to continue and when to call the hounds and try to jump ahead on a track. When to do that is another question.

[johnnie hamilton]

I have hunted with a lot of good dry ground dogs and houndsmen. I can tell u now that most of us want several different dogs in the pack as for as noses. There has been more than one time I can remember a really cold nose dog moving us in a bad spot in the dirt of west Texas and frozen down bared off hills in Colorado. I grew up hunting in west Texas and thought that it is no problem catching lions in mountain states. If u have fresh snow and a fresh track a goodi pup will catch those lions but if u have frozen bare hills or frost come off on a cold morning it can be tougher than the dirt. Scent is a funny thing how dogs trail depending on conditions, but I can tell you I will always have a few good cold nose dogs in my pack. They help me catch an extra lion or two every year that I would not have caught.

[nait hadya]

You want that cold nosed hound but he's got to be able to pick his head up and run, then you catch them.

[snakerivercatman]

All of you have made some very valid points and have shared some great stories. I'll put in my two cents and try to keep it short. In my country lion are hard to find at best. We have extremely rough terrain difficult to access by machine or foot for that matter making virtually every capture difficult to get to as it is. Sometimes we pound ground and go through tank after tank of diesel and gasoline in the trucks and machines to even cut a track. We do the best we can to shave off country to shorten the track but as I said it's very difficult to do. That being said, just about every lion track we cut we turn out on. Our snow gets very very deep and we don't normally have to deal with blown off or melted off faces so unless an older track is mashed out by a herd of elk or shut in due to wind it's usually pretty runnable. Having a good cold nosed dog helps us make harder tracks become captures. We don't catch any more game than the next guy however and in my country any track found is a successful day anyway so if the dogs get to run our day and time in the field has been well spent.