How Old....

[houndnhorse]

do you think this track is?

[BuckNAze]

Is the snow wet? It looks to be, the track looks semi frozen too. Did it snow the night before as a wet snow then freeze overnight?

[houndnhorse]

It snowed the Sunday before, and this was Thursday morning right around 0 degrees this day but well below for all four days.

[BuckNAze]

Maybe 36 hours old? I have no idea really just taking a stab at it. Im sure someone else would know more. Its hard to tell though, haha 0 degrees then obvoiusly it is frozen. Did you turn loose on it?

[houndnhorse]

Ok here's the story. I know it was at least a day and a half old. A rancher called around noon to tell me he had a lion track near his yearling pen. He didn't think it was there the day before, and it probably wasn't due to what I found. I could have dumped work, and got there at around two in the afternoon, but I opted to wait. A little cold trailing experience never hurts right? Well, not four hundred yards from where we started the track , we trail it to an old shack where obviously the cat spent the night, the dogs were in and under that shack going crazy. We finally start piecing our way away from there and found that we were probably a little farther behind than I thought. We found tracks where the cat had walked on the creek when it was slushy. Had to have been in the middle of the day or just before dark for that to happen at these temps. Well we trailed out of that creek bottom and into another drainage that held cattle. The trailing really slowed down, and the dogs spent most of the time casting out looking. The funny thing is my 14 week old puppies just weren't getting left behind that morning so they were along. At least two maybe three times they picked up the loss on this cat. So much so, the big dogs were honoring them a little and taking it away from them. At the end of the day the cat had traveled way farther than I could go, and had pulled for the top, and you know what that means, He's going to the top. We walked back to the truck trying to keep them damn pups from trailing every dimple in the snow on the way home. They booger barked at a bunch of cows, and held their own when the ranch horses ran over to see us. All in all a good day trailing. The next day went very much the same, and that story Is not as glamorous. Here's some pics.

[houndnhorse]

Here is our guardian watching the show, and a little buck who got himself into trouble.

And here is one of my girls taking a break after day two.

The next day I drug the boy around on his sled, and the two pups never missed a lap. Tough little buggers. You see, I didn't catch this lion, but I did trail him through two main crossings that I check. Nice to know that the next generation of pussy cats fallow tha same path as the previous. And now I know just a little more of the puzzle. Take care and happy hunting.

[twist]

Looking at that I can say for sure say sometime before you found it I dont believe anyone could give you a straight answer on that to many circumstances that us as veiwers dont know. But it is for sure runnable. later, Andy

[trakntree]

By not actually being able to physically look at that track I would have been as good as saying that cat was not far ahead of you.

That sure is the tough thing about having a week of sub zero temps and no wind, the snow never seems to degrade enough to age a track. The worse part about it is that if you leave it up to the dogs they are going to tell you the track is alot fresher than what it probably is and it could end up turning into a long day of trailing with no cat in the tree at the end of the day.

[pat_kemp]

well it all looks like a fun couple days nice job.

[Mr.pacojack]

I was going to say 16 days old

[Lil Joes BigGame hounds]

I know I would have turned out on it. Just cause your dogs dont put him up doesn't mean its a lost. Young dogs can learn alot from cold trailing and not catching. And who knows he might have a kill not to far away. jmo

[houndnhorse]

Iwas hoping for the kill part, but it didn't happen. The last time I saw his track it was headed to the other side of hte mountain range. He was just checking for girls I think. The only thing I knew is it was more than two nights old. The dogs didn't blow up on it, but did trail it out just fine. Those two puppies learned a ton. Now I just can't get them to turn it off around the house. Jeez