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Back in 1966 I worked a few months in the huntter-leggiett oil fields out of San Ardo/San Meguiel Ca. and I took a sunday while off work as being a deckhand on a rigg for Barns Drilling crew. I went looken to see this old lion hunter I`d been told about who kept a couple of dogs yet and that he was locally touted as a real hunter in his days .
I found his place and he had just one dog on a chain and it was of mixxed linagr and might not of been all hound even but he said it was one of his better too own dogs and all. He was a good sized older gentleman/ case back then I was over 6 ft myself and 212 lbs of inshape body and only just turned 21 yrs of age.
I was woundering about just how long it had been sence hed been in the mtns cat hunten with that dog ? The gentleman took me into this old barn and turnedaround and looked up into the rafters/ boy oh boy there hung some mighty big lonh lion hides streched up on the walls of his inside barn and even a couple just hanging over a rafter also. I said dang`d how long are they an he said between 7 ft too 11 ft. They could of been too but I recall they looked it back then too me. It wernt my first lion too see neither/ but a few of em was way past leithgt Id never seen ? Oh yea they was all sunner coared hides skint and dryed within the past 70 days . I remember that too noted on at the time.
We talked a good deal and I left and never got around too getting back over to his place out ther in nowares location . I forgot his name doggoneit ! I talked too Connie Crenshaw a few yrs later at a swims compitition at Leemore Ca. and he knew the old lion hunter an said he had in his day been the real deal ! But like I say I forgot his name?
Does anyone know who I`m talken about ? it might be hard too find anyone now who could remember back that far but I sure hope they can and can help me out here !?

jack

Wasn't old Charlie Tant ws it? He was a tall drink of water and dang sure a lion hunter, and pretty much like you described the fellow. Charlie was sort of the Ben Lilly of Califonia I would say.

[quote="Mike Leonard"]Wasn't old Charlie Tant ws it? He was a tall drink of water and dang sure a lion hunter, and pretty much like you described the fellow. Charlie was sort of the Ben Lilly of Califonia I would say.[/quote

It could of been if he lived not very far from Hunterleggett base an mtns restricted zone of the base in that erra. I know when he opened-up his mind too me he did on cat hunten for a good 5 hrsin his yard an partly in the barn. He was known all throught Passo Robles,San Meguiel,San Ardo,Leemore areas by hunters back in 65-66 and thats how I found out about the man/ my driller on the rigg had met him and shoot the driller come from texas only a very few yrs. befor 66 !? I never hurd that name Charley Tant spoken in my circles till the 80`s and frankly I forgot the hunters name but with in a day after I met him/ I held-on too the infor he shared too me and showed-me however. I remember he was pretty tall for an older man and wore cakey work shirt/pants as well .

jack

Sounds like him, I have some old photos of him and his walker dogs. His dogs had a lot of running blood in them but would work a dirt track really well. He came over and hunted in Nevada and Utah some as well. Once he got started catching lions he just up and quit everything else and that is all he did the rest of his life. Some of his last best dogs were bred into the Southern Utah strain of bare ground lion dogs. Leon Cox, Milt Holt, and Jerry hughes all ened up with dogs out of his famous Little Rounder. Gomer and Festus were a pair of dogs out of him that made a big mark in the dogs of that area.

I helped a buddy train a couple of Tant breed walkers some years back. They were good dogs. I'm trying to remember the old Goverment trapper down around Klamath Falls Oregon. He used the Tant strain of Walker on bobs and my buddy hunted with him some.
I thought about him when looking at the bobcat hunter thread. I think his first name was Vern.

Mike Leonard wrote:Sounds like him, I have some old photos of him and his walker dogs. His dogs had a lot of running blood in them but would work a dirt track really well. He came over and hunted in Nevada and Utah some as well. Once he got started catching lions he just up and quit everything else and that is all he did the rest of his life. Some of his last best dogs were bred into the Southern Utah strain of bare ground lion dogs. Leon Cox, Milt Holt, and Jerry hughes all ened up with dogs out of his famous Little Rounder. Gomer and Festus were a pair of dogs out of him that made a big mark in the dogs of that area.

Ya know Mike I had a nack at runnen-in too the old ledgon hunters back when I was young/ not by desighn but by chance-fait, or what ever ? Maybe it was him, but this I do know about the man/ everything he explained too me about lions and all sure was right on the mark I learned in the woods as I kept hunten on em. Lion was my favorite biggame even over a bear !I guess gray fox 2 ed best and coon 3 ed and bobcat 4th and bear last .; but I loved bear hunten a whole lot so guest I was just heaver in too longtails !
I wish I`d of gone back too his house now and picked his brain futher....Ya know I met 2 other old time lion hunters in Ca. both in the hills out of Indian Valley Resovore be for they flloed it and up on the snow mtn. rd just below founts springs another guy lived there but he had no dogs any more was care taken a deer club property. And again I met up on the tower rd. between goat mtn./snow mtn Jack doshier another lion & bear hu nter back in the day. I met Buckey Stone and Al Lynn and beardog Clark they was bear hunters and lion hunters/ lord there was a bunch of terrbly smart woodsie dogmens-dogmen I had met over the yrs and at the swim ponds and fieldtrial races too.I just hope we all meet again in the next life and hunt and sit around the bond fires in biggame camp and it goes on an on and on ! This old body is failed me now but if heaven takes me in (and I believe & by faith it will) I just kind of know in my hart "HE`s" got a special place for us brotherhood of houndmen and our dogs too hunt !

jack