Pineapple Queen
Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:10 am
Last night at 3:45pm my hound partner called me on his way from work, "You wont believe the bloody track I'm looking at, fresh as can be and one of the biggest I've seen in 12 years."
Too bad it was so late, I could have rounded up the hounds and bombed out there.
5 mins later he calls me and says he cut another tom and saw what appeared to be snowed in female with a sub. All within a few kms of eachother.
Needless to say neither of us slept, both thinking of the big tom and the huge snowstorm that we got hit with at about 4pm.
6 a.m we had over a foot of fresh snow but we headed out there to look.
We were both running, or plowing roads I should say, and within an hour he radios, "Got him fresh right here."
We had the cat walking up the road one way and a nice buck bleeding all over the road running the other way, guess it got away. There was a LOT of blood though, I am sure he is dead in his bed by now.
We got about 12-14" overnight, I couldnt believe we found one, fist time for me, immediately following a huge storm.
I had my buddy let his 2 dogs go first as they are kinda behind in progress IMO so I felt it would be good for them to maybe get a start to finish race, the first for both of them.
Took a while before they could get it going but eventually they started going up....and up is what they did. Pretty sure they hung up on the cats bed and I waited til they got that figured out and then kicked Ben and Harlo out (his false treed on a bed last time and I didnt want my dogs going in to a false tree or being sucked in to it)
That cat went straight up in the deepest, steep, like almost unclimbable and the ground was choked with 2' of salal and 2' of snow in many places as we gained elevation. It was the nastiest climb I've had to date actually. Up top where it kind of leveled out it wasnt too bad and the tree canopy held a lot of the snow off the ground.
Half way up the "drips" from the trees and melt was unreal, we were drenched.
The temperature warmed up 6 degrees from the time we let go til we got back to the truck, heavy heavy wet snow.
Typical pineapple express we seem to get.
I didnt look at my watch but we let go about an hour after light and didnt get back to the trucks til 230. Pretty nasty considering they treed at 1500' and we were parked at around 500'.
Wasnt the one we thought it was, she was doing the "snowshoe" with splayed feet and sinking all the way down in the wet snow so looked enormous. I couldnt even walk it out to find a track in less snow, cant find less snow when there is too much snow!
She put up a good race and all the dogs did really well, hopefully it was what those other 2 needed to "click"
I was too tired to unload the quad again and go look for that buck the cat had attacked, I'm sure hes dead, there was blood spurting everywhere for several kms along the road, why the cat didnt go after it baffles me. Maybe take a peek in the next couple days, he was a nice buck judging from the track in the creek.
On the way out we cut THREE tracks right where my buddy saw them yesterday, they were partially melted out in the timber where they walked a log so they must have crossed JUST after we drove through. The whopper tom and a female with a sub. Directly on the other side of the mountain we treed on, probably 1km as the crow flys.
Cat
Must be a vegetarian, bad hunter
http://s1024.photobucket.com/albums/y30 ... 211023.mp4
Too bad it was so late, I could have rounded up the hounds and bombed out there.
5 mins later he calls me and says he cut another tom and saw what appeared to be snowed in female with a sub. All within a few kms of eachother.
Needless to say neither of us slept, both thinking of the big tom and the huge snowstorm that we got hit with at about 4pm.
6 a.m we had over a foot of fresh snow but we headed out there to look.
We were both running, or plowing roads I should say, and within an hour he radios, "Got him fresh right here."
We had the cat walking up the road one way and a nice buck bleeding all over the road running the other way, guess it got away. There was a LOT of blood though, I am sure he is dead in his bed by now.
We got about 12-14" overnight, I couldnt believe we found one, fist time for me, immediately following a huge storm.
I had my buddy let his 2 dogs go first as they are kinda behind in progress IMO so I felt it would be good for them to maybe get a start to finish race, the first for both of them.
Took a while before they could get it going but eventually they started going up....and up is what they did. Pretty sure they hung up on the cats bed and I waited til they got that figured out and then kicked Ben and Harlo out (his false treed on a bed last time and I didnt want my dogs going in to a false tree or being sucked in to it)
That cat went straight up in the deepest, steep, like almost unclimbable and the ground was choked with 2' of salal and 2' of snow in many places as we gained elevation. It was the nastiest climb I've had to date actually. Up top where it kind of leveled out it wasnt too bad and the tree canopy held a lot of the snow off the ground.
Half way up the "drips" from the trees and melt was unreal, we were drenched.
The temperature warmed up 6 degrees from the time we let go til we got back to the truck, heavy heavy wet snow.
Typical pineapple express we seem to get.
I didnt look at my watch but we let go about an hour after light and didnt get back to the trucks til 230. Pretty nasty considering they treed at 1500' and we were parked at around 500'.
Wasnt the one we thought it was, she was doing the "snowshoe" with splayed feet and sinking all the way down in the wet snow so looked enormous. I couldnt even walk it out to find a track in less snow, cant find less snow when there is too much snow!
She put up a good race and all the dogs did really well, hopefully it was what those other 2 needed to "click"
I was too tired to unload the quad again and go look for that buck the cat had attacked, I'm sure hes dead, there was blood spurting everywhere for several kms along the road, why the cat didnt go after it baffles me. Maybe take a peek in the next couple days, he was a nice buck judging from the track in the creek.
On the way out we cut THREE tracks right where my buddy saw them yesterday, they were partially melted out in the timber where they walked a log so they must have crossed JUST after we drove through. The whopper tom and a female with a sub. Directly on the other side of the mountain we treed on, probably 1km as the crow flys.
Cat
Must be a vegetarian, bad hunter
http://s1024.photobucket.com/albums/y30 ... 211023.mp4
thanks for sharing