We seem to be feast or famine when it comes to lions. I found a small track after it stopped snowing Wednesday afternoon. It was a little late in the day to turn dogs out, so I let it be and went looking this morning. It was brisk.
As soon as I hit the creek road, there was a set of tracks in my track from the day before.
I followed it for a bit and found another track coming down the mountain. At least 2 lions hunted figure 8's all over the place last night. I'm trying to figure it out, when one of my dogs shows up. She is the younger one and was after me more than looking for cats. She busted out of the yard. Where is the other one? No cell service, so back down the mountain to the truck. My other dog is still at home, so I lock them up to go figure things out. Met a buddy up there and we tried to make heads or tails of it.
At this spot, if they end up north of the road, we don't run them. Too likely to get on the neighbors. Decided one of the tracks might be going the right way. We kicked my 2 dogs and 2 of his older dogs out.
They went to the top of the mountain. Then back down the mountain to the truck, so we went up the mountain with them to help them figure it out. Lots of times a cat will hunt back along its own trail, and the dogs can miss where it turns off, or the trail with 2 tracks smells hotter. After I got a lot further from my snowmobile than I had hoped to get, it became clear why the dogs had trouble. The lion has hunted up and down the ridge all night. Add a bobcat hunting the same are, and you have a mess.
We finally figured out that he had hooked around the southern draw and cut back to the north into no man's land. Oh well, another day. Load dogs and head out. As I'm showing my buddy the easiest way out, through our place, we cut another track. It is headed into our place. Dogs are kind of tired, but there are some trails I can chase them on my sled if they go far.
We dump my 2, and they are off, and back, so we start following, and they go for real this time. About the time my gps buzzes I hear my buddy yell that they have it treed.
https://imgur.com/a/vOxKiZn
Video of my dogs and the cat.
I don't think my selfie game is getting better yet. They need to tree in shorter trees.
It was a female, which we knew when we turned out, but this one was pretty young. Notice how white the teeth are. That is indicative of a young cat.
She kept sticking her tongue out at us.
My buddy's dogs managed to climb out a window and show up at the tree. He tried to get it to jump so they could run it once, but nothing doin'.
He actually managed to touch her foot with the stick once. She didn't like that. Took his stick.
Since we couldn't convince her to jump, we leashed them up and headed home. She was still watching us from the tree at 200 yards. She liked it up there.
As soon as I hit the creek road, there was a set of tracks in my track from the day before.
I followed it for a bit and found another track coming down the mountain. At least 2 lions hunted figure 8's all over the place last night. I'm trying to figure it out, when one of my dogs shows up. She is the younger one and was after me more than looking for cats. She busted out of the yard. Where is the other one? No cell service, so back down the mountain to the truck. My other dog is still at home, so I lock them up to go figure things out. Met a buddy up there and we tried to make heads or tails of it.
At this spot, if they end up north of the road, we don't run them. Too likely to get on the neighbors. Decided one of the tracks might be going the right way. We kicked my 2 dogs and 2 of his older dogs out.
They went to the top of the mountain. Then back down the mountain to the truck, so we went up the mountain with them to help them figure it out. Lots of times a cat will hunt back along its own trail, and the dogs can miss where it turns off, or the trail with 2 tracks smells hotter. After I got a lot further from my snowmobile than I had hoped to get, it became clear why the dogs had trouble. The lion has hunted up and down the ridge all night. Add a bobcat hunting the same are, and you have a mess.
We finally figured out that he had hooked around the southern draw and cut back to the north into no man's land. Oh well, another day. Load dogs and head out. As I'm showing my buddy the easiest way out, through our place, we cut another track. It is headed into our place. Dogs are kind of tired, but there are some trails I can chase them on my sled if they go far.
We dump my 2, and they are off, and back, so we start following, and they go for real this time. About the time my gps buzzes I hear my buddy yell that they have it treed.
https://imgur.com/a/vOxKiZn
Video of my dogs and the cat.
I don't think my selfie game is getting better yet. They need to tree in shorter trees.
It was a female, which we knew when we turned out, but this one was pretty young. Notice how white the teeth are. That is indicative of a young cat.
She kept sticking her tongue out at us.
My buddy's dogs managed to climb out a window and show up at the tree. He tried to get it to jump so they could run it once, but nothing doin'.
He actually managed to touch her foot with the stick once. She didn't like that. Took his stick.
Since we couldn't convince her to jump, we leashed them up and headed home. She was still watching us from the tree at 200 yards. She liked it up there.
