Cave lion.
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 2:51 am
We had a great day. Started out with my buddy getting a phone call that a lion had made a kill, and that it was fresh. So he checked it out the night before, and said only the guts had been eaten, and that he thought it would be back. We figured if we could get a fresh track from there in the morning we would have a fresh track to run. We got up, checked around the kill, and came up with no new tracks in about an inch or so of fresh snow. We did a big circle and finaly came up with what looked to be as fresh a track as we were going to get. My buddy wanted to freshen it up, so we decided to follow it out a ways in hope of getting it fresher, or cutting a better one. Up we went, neither of us expecting what we would find. The track took us right to a cave, and in it went. there were other tracks around the cave but the one we had followed up seemed to be the freshest looking. We took some pics of the cave and the tracks in front of it while still wondering if the lion was in it or not. you could not see into it due to it being in the shade and the snow being so bright around it. My buddy was saying we needed to find the out track if there was one when I heard a low growl. Standing only a few feet in front of the cave I moved away telling my buddy that the cat was for sure in the cave and that I had just heard it. He thought i was screwing around with him until the cat popped its head out. It looked at us for a second and then off it went. It was one of the coolest things either of us has ever had happen when out hunting. We headed out grabbed the dogs and hiked back up to put them on a smoking hot cat track. It was a short race and the dogs all did well, could not have had a better day.