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Lets hear some of the strange things you all have seen lions do. One time in Oregon we treed a lion. Was a female so we let her go. We pulled all the old dogs off and then jumped her out. After about 5 minutes we turned the pups loose. They went out of hearing. We all were standing around the tree talking when we heard some noise about 15 feet away. We looked and their was that lion. She had back tracked the exact same way she left the tree. She stopped and looked at us for about 30 seconds then calmly walked right on by. Those pups came right by us and stopped. We never did get her treed again.

I had a buddy call me and say he had just started a lion track. I got on my snowmobile and headed up to where he was at. on the way I saw a lion track. I stopped to look at it and without seeing where it was headed I just figured it was the same cat he was already runnin. when I finally got to him I realized that there was no way it was the same lion. we took some dogs down and turned them out. (about an hour later) they instantly started treeing on a big cottonwood right on the road. without looking to hard we started kickin tail for the supposed false treeing. put all the dogs back in the box and started looking for where the lion had left the road. after about an hour of circling and looking there was nothing. the dogs were goin ape shit in the box and when we got back to the truck there was a lion track leaving the cottonwood right down the road ontop of our tracks? basically the cat heard me coming up the road on my snowmobile and treed. while I was looking around he was watching me and when I turned the dogs out he was already treed! after I pulled the dogs he jumped and headed out. we cut loose on the track down the road thinking it would be the easiest tree ever. not the case. the cat wouldn't tree. we watched the dogs and the cat in 12" of snow run at least a mile in the wide open flat, past a ranch house, and about 500 yards straight up a hill before it treed. the dogs were nipping it in the but all the way, but they wouldn't give it the space it needed to tree. I don't know how it got up that tree without getting ripped out and stretched.

They do tons of crazy stuff but here is one that popped in my mind.

I had this particular spoiled tom in my area and a lot of weekend warriors had run him and lost him and maybe even jumped him out some before he got to his final size of 176 pounds. He got plumb bad on hounds and if a dog got way out there on him away from everything else that dog generally never came back. In the snow you could see where he would stop on his track by a big tree or boulder circle back on his own trail and then lay off on the downwind side. I guess he would wait till the hound came by sort of got confused and then he would just rise up and smash them dead. He however seldom ate on them as some do he just totted out od the area after that.


I was bobcat hunting one day and only had two dogs with me as it was a fresh snow in theis higher country. Generally when I am hunting lions and in lower country or no snow on a horse I have more dogs with me, but this day I was in the truck 2 dogs and going to play in the snow with the bobcats. Well wouldn't you know it I come around a corner and here is this big old tom lion track fresh as could be and I couldn't resist. Bobcats be damned! Let tree a lion dogs! Well they leave on the snow track screaming their heads off and I put on my back pack grab my walking stick and leashes and figure this will be a short walk to a pretty snow covered tree. Well as I slid down off the bank of the forest road and set out on the dog and lion tracks I noticed it had become very quiet out there in the woods. Not a sound where just a few moments before the old red-tick and bluetick female were telling the story. What's going on? So I started down their tracks and the story unfolded. They dogs hadn't gone 300 yards and the lion was jumped off a yearling calf elk kill, and from the tracks and the slashing tracks and pine needles and oak leaves scattered they all left there in a hurry. But as I started out on the tracks again I heard a noise behind me I spun and there was old Blue Belle one of my vetran cat dogs and she slowly walked up to me her tail tucked between her legs and she was tremebling and shivering. O Crap! I knew immediatly and I started yelling for my other dog Jessie a one of a kinf red-tick female I had raised from a pup. Jessie was not only a detemined track dog but she also had the grit of a pit bull and she never met a lion she didn't think she could whip. I took off running down the tracks and yelling for Josie, and Belle following close behind me. After about 200 yards I came to a little bluff and as I ran out on it and held my breath to hear I heard a dog scream in the brush belwo me. I pulled out my 357 and fired 3 quick shots into the air. And then I found my way down and headed to where I thought the scream came from. As i got to a little opening in the oak brush I could see the signs of battle. I meant the snow was torn up all over and blood splattered all over the snow. With my gun still out I rushed around looking and almost stumbled over Jessie who was laying in a heap nearly covered with snow and debris. I crouched over her Smith and Wesson in hand and looked around. No lion. I knelt and brushed back the snow and trash and saw she was still breathing . she had blood around her mouth holes in her neck and face but she was still alive. She seemed to be gasping for breath so I removed her regular collar and her tracking collar. then I could see where the lion had nearly bit the tracking collar in two and must have just choked her till she passed out, and maybe it was then he heard my gunshots up above him and left. Well in a bit she sort of regained herself and even made it to her feet although wobbely. I waited awhile and then started to walk out slowly so they could follow me to the truck. Belle stayed right close to my legs and still had her tail clamped between her legs. Josie although a bit beat up didn't act scared becasue I don't think her or her type ever really do. Now to the really strange part the wind picked up a little and the fresh snow started to swirl as it does down out of the ponderosa pine tops, and the wind began to moan thru those trees. As we toiled slowly along I had the stangest feeling I was being watched, and several times i even stopped and turned around and looked but saw nothing. Just my imagination I guess maybe due to the erie circumstances. Well I was holding Jessie's collars in one hand and my walking stick in the other and as I climbed up the ditch bank to get back on the road I evidently dropped the tracking collar becaause after I loaded the females in the box and opened my truck to put my stuff in I noticed it was missing. Well I had taken my back pack off and my shoulder holster and laid that stuff in the passenger seat when I noticed I was missing that collar. I just figured I had dropped it right there close. Well I looked and then walked over to the edge of the road to look down where I had climbed up. I was shocked at the sight! There stood this big old tom lion not 20 feet away looking dead into my eyes! He had been on our backtrack and following. My eyes bugged out I am sure and I don't think I even breathed . I don't know how long we stared at each other it seemed like 5 minutes but probably 5 seconds. I thought, MY GUN! I slowly turned and made it to the truck grabbed the smith holster and all and pulled it and I ran back to the edge. He was gone! Not a even a twig moved out there just vanished. I slid down there and it wasn't a ghost because there were his fresh tracks standing right where I saw him and right there between them lay the tracking collar that mostly likely saved old Jessie's life for a few more years.


Jessie finally met another bad lion and I couldn't get there that time to save the wreck but she did put in 11 hard years of cat hunting and her blood still runs in some of the better I hound I know of. As for that first tom he met his end soon after that but not without a terrible battle but I was ready for him that day and everytime I look up there and see him in preseved mounted form I think about that stare he gave me with the snow whirling around him.



Lions are very stange critters at times.

Another good story Mike. Thanks for sharing, it was a good one.

Man what a great story Mike. Loved how it was written. Had a friend that bought an old Lion/Bear dog. She was 9 or 10 when he got her. Good rig and start dog just a little slow. One day I noticed she was missing. He told me she started a lion. He was waiting for her to warm up the track when she stopped barking. After awhile he went to her and found her dead. His story was she followed that old lions tracks in the snow. The lion was laid up behind a big rock and nabbed her as she rounded the rock. Killed her instantly with a bite through the head I thought he was yankin my chain but maybe not. I always thought of lions as cowards easy to tree once the dogs get em jumped. Just shows what I know.

Thats a good story for sure. Been a long time since I read a good one on here.
Whats got me in awe though is that you said you "drove the truck" that day lol
I dont think I've ever pictured any of your events involving a truck.
Heck, I figured you maybe didnt even have a licence and didn't need one with those hounds trailing behind horses and mules all the time

No I truck hunt at times and your are going to love this I just got off the phone with Sean at FT Trapping Supply in Alpena, Michigan and ordered me a nice new rig rack for the top of my FT Supreme Rig Box.

True story! It is true I hunt most of the time on a horse but i wouldn't kid anybody I will hunt the best way for the area and what I am doing and a lot of times that is not a horse or mule plain and simple. I walk a lot and I enjoy walking but why walk when you can ride if it makes sense?

As I have said before I am no real rig hunter but I have hunted a good deal that way and I have even made a few rig dogs. I have a couple right now that seem to show a great natural talent for it and i decided I am going to let them ride up there when I am in the truck on see what they come up with.

I don't care to hunt bobcats on a horse especially with snow on the ground. I like to be right down there in the thick of the action and let me tell you it just doesn't get much better than a good day out there with a fresh light cover , overcast skies and some fresh bobber tracks to play with.


I have bear hunted or horseback some and it some places it works ok but for the most part in real bear country you are tying the dang horse or mule up and going in on foot anwya and then you have to try to find them on the way out. Easier just to go to the dogs and then get out. For me when it comes to bears rig hunting is the way to go. Old Chaser has me so dog gone spoiled going with him and all those good rig dogs I just about hate it when you cut them loose on a bear because I know we got to walk to another tree and see another bear and get them out and back on top so we can see them rig again. that blow up on the rig is heart pounding stuff, and then that roar of a big pack of bear dogs in a canyon when they get close and personal. Wow!

Holy smokes you guys got me! I guess i am just a hound dog sicko junkie any way you slice it. LOL!

Sorry Mike but I wouldn't have posted all those stories on rigging lions if I knew it would cost you buying a rig rail!

Dang it Dennis see what you went and done. LOL!



When I get it put on and get some of those wild looking dogs of mine to stand up there I will post a picture. Just don't show it to my horse. LOL!

Here we go again with the riggin lion bullshit. even the good ol boys are gettin roped into it.

Thats right, converting them one at a time. Some day you fellas will look back and wonder why you ever fed all those hay burners!! LOL!!!

Ike stood his ground on the whole rigging thing, I say we blame him.

All kidding aside, I do look forward to some day hunting lions from mule/horse back. Looks like it would be fun. My problem is mules and horses scare me worse than lions and bears ever will. Maybe I just haven't been around good ones. I should start a post CRAZY THINGS HORSES AND MULES DO, I can still feel the hoof imprints in my back!

Do it George! Any of us that ride are still living through new stories all the time. I've got a yong mule i'll start riding this fall, and I'm sure to try and live through a bunch more of those stories.

I am not the right guy for that post. I learned at an early age to stay the hell away from horses. I have been kicked, stomped, trampled, bit, and pretty much anything else those damn things can conjure up without every owning one. I was the guinea pig when a new one ended up at our house when I was a kid. I will leave that post to the more experienced, at least some one that is around them by choice.

I know this is about crazy lions, my point was if I was hunting from horse back, It wouldn't be the lions making me nervous. Still I would like to do it some day just to experience it.

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Post up when you get that photo Mike, then we'll know the world is for sure changing and hounddoggers everywhere are evolving........everybody but houndnem anyway!

ike