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At 4:30 this morning I went hunting with my dad. It started snowing and was just starting to stick to the road. I decided to clean the dogs out & just run the snow today. The dogs had been hunting the last 6 out of 7 days, so they are pretty sore. After collaring the dogs, they didn’t make it 200 yards before they started acting catty. Over the next half mile or so the dogs were going off both sides of the road, trailing where the cat had been hunting. Finally they trailed off & hit Bolder Creek. After all the rain, Bolder Creek is pretty swollen so it took the dogs a while to get across it. Once they were on the other side they were back to cold trailing with Lacy & Vegas doing all the barking. They hit an old road & traveled it for 500 yards or so. At this point there was no barking & after 20 minutes my dad coughed out the window which means for me to call the dogs back because he wants to go after another one. I was getting ready to call the dogs when I noticed on the gps Stormy & Windy were trailing out. Ringer & Stitch figured it out & were going with them. These 4 dogs do not bark until they are jumped. Lacy & Vegas never did figure it out so I put them back in the pickup because the other 4 dogs were 700 yards away.
With the creek being swollen it was pretty loud so I drove up a road were we could listen across the canyon. On the gps u could see the dogs still moving but not a peep. All of a sudden a bunch of squealing and squalling for about 10 seconds and treed. We started to the dogs and decided instead of wading the creek and getting soaked we would drive around to the top. When we got to the top the dogs were 254 yards off a brand new clear-cut. There was about 4 inches of snow now and still coming down. The nice thing was it was daylight now and didn’t need the flashlight. I could see 3 old growth fir trees from the landing and they were at the bottom of the unit. I told my dad to wait there until I found it because I had a suspicion it could be a coon they trailed up from the sound of the jump.
I got down about 3/4 of the way and could see the dogs treeing on one of the old grouth. The ground was very steep so as I was walking down to the tree I was looking for the critter that was supposed to be up there.
I looked for at least half an hour and nothing. The tree never had a limb for the first 60 ft at that point it had a ring of limbs, up another 20 ft the same and up another 20 feet another ring until it went into the top canopy. I have been to a shit load of trees and for the most part when u tree a cat in a great big tree they are on the lower limbs. I could see the first two sets of ring of limbs pretty good and was sure it wasn’t in those limbs; I could the top very good when I got level with it by walking up the hill. I beat on the tree with a stick and nothing moved. I walked back up the hill & found where the cat had eaten a mountain boomer. The only thing left was the head. I decided to shoot in the 3rd ring of limbs to see if I could get something to move. I jacked a shell in and my phone rings it is buddy W. I thought that was pretty cool. He says are u at a tree and I said yes but I can’t find this s.o.b. We finished our talk and I yelled up to my dad I was going to shoot. he yelled back but I couldn’t hear him. I shot into the 3rd ring and I heard him again but this time I hear what he said. I CAN SEE IT. he is 254 yards away and says he can see it, I'm calling bullshit.
He walks down and says it’s in the 3rd ring of limbs, he could see it with the binoculars. We walked back under the tree and he starts shooting in the 3rd ring of limbs, after the 5th shot the cat moves and he whacks it. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know how many cats I have left in the tree but it has to be a bunch. We hunted for 8 more hours and never found a cat track.

jc

JC,

I've left some cats in trees im sure. Saturday my rose dog and pepper dog trailed and treed a cat. I sat for 3 hours under 2 trees and never did see the cat, im positive it was up there, I did 3 circles around the area and no out tracks to be found at all. These trees were big ones with tons of limbs, the area around it had no good veiws of the last part of these trees because of all the smaller trees.

Good story JC, glad to hear you and Brad are enjoying some hunting. Have hunted in that drainage and had cats cross that creek, can be a dangerous one for the hounds. A friend and I once observed a nice tom bounceing from rock to rock in that creek. Infact believe I knew a hunter that lost a dog attempting to cross that creek. Harold Middleton a very good old time cat hunter told me when I was a young man that if dogs are tight on a cat that cat will go high in those old growth fir trees. I observed over the years and became a beliver that he was correct most of the time. With those closed mouthed cold trailers, good chance they were about to catch the cat. Would it not be nice to have cat population like Texas and Flordia ? Excellent example why I say tough to be sure at times if dogs are faulse treed. Al

Yes Al that would be awsome. The most cats i have ever ran in one day is 3 . There have been several trips without running any. I did see 2 other hound hunters today .

jc

Cool story, its really neat that you and your dad share the same hobbie.

I will never forget the time Chad, you, and I had a cat tree'd up in the valley, 3 of us looking for what felt like 2 hours. Looking 130+ feet up an old growth fir when the cat couldnt have been more than 15ft from us. You know those dogs were thinking about culling us.

It's damn hard to find the cat when your looking in the wrong place. John.

I am sure I have missed cats over the years too, have spent hours (or seems like hours) looking to finally find it.
In truth at 'false trees' I have probably been wrong more times than the dogs have.
Not too bad out on the desert side but when I hunt around the house we have lots of tall thick trees, snow can help to check for tracks leading out but when I'm just hunting by striking with no snow you can sure wonder sometimes.
I recall once being so convinced that I pretty much trounced the dogs only to finally see the cat at the very top of the tree on my way out
I think the closer the dogs come to actually catching the cat the higher in the tree they often seem to be, I also have noticed that on those trees there is not a whole lot of time spent on the locate - I think because the dogs actually saw the cat tree.
Last weekend was a good weekend for catching but the weekend before had a shenanigans day and looking back it was probably mostly my fault, the dogs struck and trailed a track for about an hour before jumping, short jumped race and treed. Treed in some pines in an aspen thicket, I had a friend I really wanted to get a cat for and we could not find the cat, the dogs would wind and bark again after I scolded them. I finally really got after them and got disgusted and made them leave...there lied my mistake with my supersensitive dogs. Later that day had a red hot race, dogs fell treed, started to quit barking so much as we approached then flat quit, I think they must have thought they were surely wrong again as they knew they were right earlier and I'd done nothing but get pissy with them.
Well what could I say at that point, they redeemed themselves last weekend and I have been reminding myself that a mans (womans!) ego is a heavy burden for any dog to carry.
Oh yeah I must mention I think it was the same cat both times..maybe it's the ghost cat?
In to every cat hunters life a few false trees will fall but I sure think we convince ourselves of half of them.

Great story JC! Sure great you and yer Dad still hunt together.

I had a similar experience over the weekend with a bobcat my dogs treed in a thick cedar. I looked at looked but no matter what angle I got at I couldn't see it. I knew it was there the way the dogs were going crazy. I wasn't about to climb the tree. I told the gang good job and walked them out to snowed in road. We hunted out the road and were gone 30 minutes. When we came back near the tree and exactly on the back trail here is a fresh set of kitty tracks going back on her back trail. The cat had climbed back down and headed for home on her back trail. At one point she crosses over a road by going thru a small culvert thinking she is going to shake the dogs. 5 hours later the gang trees her a second time.

al baldwin wrote:Good story JC, glad to hear you and Brad are enjoying some hunting. Have hunted in that drainage and had cats cross that creek, can be a dangerous one for the hounds. A friend and I once observed a nice tom bounceing from rock to rock in that creek. Infact believe I knew a hunter that lost a dog attempting to cross that creek. Harold Middleton a very good old time cat hunter told me when I was a young man that if dogs are tight on a cat that cat will go high in those old growth fir trees. I observed over the years and became a beliver that he was correct most of the time. With those closed mouthed cold trailers, good chance they were about to catch the cat. Would it not be nice to have cat population like Texas and Flordia ? Excellent example why I say tough to be sure at times if dogs are faulse treed. Al

It was nice to see someone remember my grandfather Harold Middleton. I miss him. Some of my best memories were him and Me leaving early to go chase cats and coons. Thanks for giving him credit. He was the most important person in my childhood. It's nice to see someone else that had fond memories of him.