BigGameHoundsmen.com

Amen Mike,
Done got educated this year by a big tom and the long trot. It was the same lion I talked to you about. I got another run on him and got another education
Catman

Well that new canyon was beautiful to say the least. I am not sure I ever looked at more ideallooking lion habitat. It is remote even the rancher who backs up to it and lived there all his life had never been thru all of it and he said it could not be accessed by a horse. ( Wrong!) It can if you have the right horse. Now here is the sad part. I rode it hard, I had dogs working about as good as you can ask a bare ground dog to work. Not too far 100 yards or so very busy checking each cut crack, big tree base undercut shelf, and way up high on the edge of slides and stuff where lions walk. The ground was good and dry hasn't rained enough to wash out tracks in a month. Game was abundant. Elk and deer tracks fresh all over the place. I could see the tracks of coyotes, fox one bobcat birds and even rodents so tracks were visable. This is not far from a higher area that is considered one of the best prime cougar habitats in this part of the state. I could clearly see that area a few miles distant. No tracks, no scrapes no mounds no nothing. It was a perfect bare ground hunting day as far as conditions go. Low of about 35 at night never got over 68 in the day and it was overcast and pressure was low and the wind stayed down till noon and then blew like hell. But there has not to my knowledge or eye and the nose of some pretty good old dogs been a lion thru there in a long long time. Why? Pretty simple over harvest of female and sub adult lions. Yes over the past few years the quota has been raised the harvested animals killed up in those prime areas on the easy snow roads after the first few blizzards are 80% female and sub-adult male cats. Why would any of the remaining lions press out into border country. Hell there are a lot of vacant areas right there left by the ones hauled out in the back of a pickup. Only half the sustainable mortality as they call it quota has been reached this year because after the young dumb ones were killed off there was nothing left. Their plan is working and the lion population is in the tank. But some BS deer hunter will walk out and find a pile of bones are see a track that he thinks is a lion and could be Aunt Minnie's St Bernard and he doesn't get his big buck or bull he will scream bloody murder that lions are over running the area and the commision will smile and reply. Don't worry friend keep yopur donations coming our plan is well on the way to completion and your worries are nearly eliminated.


Don't kill you sport people!

Cut one track this year that went off the road after a couple kms. I drove down a couple more to make sure he didnt come back on the road like I always do and sure enough, he did. He did this for 19 kms. When he finally left the road for good I hiked it with my two pups for around 2-3 kms and let them go once they were real excited. They trailed it for at least a couple more kms and then trashed on me (second race they'd ever been on) so that put that tom at over 25kms+ in under 8 hours.
Wish i waited til I saw the cat now before letting go but hindsight is always 20/20.
Thats my personal longest.