a TWO-PART journey.
Fred and his wife joined us on a 6-day mountain lion hunt during the month of March in southern Utah. we hunted hard and trailed a lion on Monroe Mountain using well-trained hunting hounds.
tough hunting and tired dogs, we spent 2 days horseback trailing this particular mountain lion through dry south-sloping canyons to only be digging and clawing through hard crusty 2-foot plus snowdrifts on the north slopes of the same canyons, with tough muddy conditions in between.
At the end of a great week spent hunting with amazing people Fred and I agreed with no lion this week Fred would return in May, for 6 more days of hunting the elusive mountain lion.
SECOND chance mountain lion
The beginning of May arrived and my daughter and I had been keeping track of a couple of lions living on the edge of some very rough country, the week before Fred was to arrive. we had caught and bayed a lion in this same country a few weeks earlier, but we couldn’t ethically harvest the lion due to the terrain and conditions, and be able to retrieve it.
our first day out was uneventful, day two started out the same way other than a bear track that was old, and we eventually called the dogs off, we did find a couple of day-old lion tracks but too old to trail.
BEGINNING to the end
day 3,4,5 in the eyes of Fred was beginning to unfold just like the first hunt of the year trail all day, lots of miles, and work up and down canyons trying to help the dogs any way we can, and coming up short. the weather was once again making things difficult, between howling winds and skiffs of snow overnight that would evaporate by 9 am and make trailing impossible once it left. we were fighting an uphill battle with our lion hounds trailing between 15-19 miles per day. they along with Fred were showing signs of fatigue both physically and emotionally.
we had one more day scheduled to hunt and with a little persuasion from myself, for Fred to give it one last shot, we found ourselves in a familiar country the next morning hoping to finally fulfill Fred’s dream of harvesting a mountain lion.
we were making our circle that morning hoping to catch our lion before leaving the hunting grounds for the day and heading off into the ledgy canyon it had eluded us in the last 3 days. Throughout the morning we had a few dogs open and even a little bit of excitement with them getting wound up on something but each time it just didn’t feel right and the older dogs confirmed that it was not a lion.
getting close to the end of our circle and the GPS showing the dogs had traveled all of 15 miles this morning already the disappointment was setting in, along with an uncomfortable silence between us. the kind that is ever-present with a hunt that is not looking to have the desired outcome.
coming around a corner in the silence I catch a glance of movement and motion to Fred there is a herd of bulls out in front of us on the ridge. with a little laughter and some dog training with my young dogs. about chasing elk. we move on down the ridge.
No more than 500 yards later Ellie our lead dog for the day, breaks the silence and tells all that can hear she has found a mountain lion and that it is fresh. faster than it takes to find the sign to confirm we are on the trail of a lion and also determine that we are headed in the right direction, our fine pack of hounds is singing the sweetest music any old lion hunter could ever hear. TREED!!!
