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Boomer's first lion...
'Scuse the poor quality picture - I had to lift it from video I took of the hunt. My video capture equipment isn't any better than that, but I did get some GREAT video!
We went out with a friend this winter Mountain Lion hunting. She'd located some good looking tracks and was ready to set her dogs on them and asked I help as she and her husband were still a little laid up from accidents this summer. (She was hit by a car on the highway was she stopped to help a stranded motorist - and had to have reconstructive surgery on her shoulder rotatorcup. Left shoulder's still in a sling and she's lucky to be alive. And hubby had a horse wreck - stomped him badly in the face, arms and legs - also lucky to be alive. But they're healing. I mention this to illustrate their toughness and commitment - this hunt was hard and the going very rough and would have made anyone gasp and pant. They did it all despite being a little less than a hundred percent!)
And to brag on how commited these friends of mine are to lion huntering!
We went out and checked the tracks, but found nothing fresh enough to send our dogs on. Checked another area after lunch and found a fresher set belonging to a medium sized lion. Sent our her two best trackers - Turk and Bell, her pup - Bruno who's learning, and my dog - Boomer who's also pretty green, out on the tracks. (Bell is Boomer's mother.)
The pup came back after only a hundred yards or so while the two learned dogs followed the cat up a VERY steep ridge. My dog followed the pup back - I was pretty mad at him, but figured the track wasn't fresh enough to really give his inexperienced nose a good smell. (It was between 15-25 hours old) After all, he didn't know what a lion was - YET!
We watched the remaining trackers work around a cliff face from the road for twenty minutes or so before one started to bay. The mountain was very steep, with a rockslide extending from the base of the cliff right to the road and a good two hundred feet in elevation rise. But our view of the action was open and unobstructed for the most part. Pretty soon we could see the lion climbing through the rock with Bell and Turk in tow and knew the chase was on... It didn't last long as the lion worked out on a point and hung up while the pair of dogs cut him off. All right in direct view of my zoomed video lens!
The pup Bruno and my Boomer headed up as soon as they heard the commotion and were soon part of the pack in action... Finally.
We started making our way up the sidehill, but the going was slow and the sun was fading. Still my companions pressed ahead to beat the failing light and I fell behind - stopping to take pictures. Soon they were far ahead of me so I found a good spot and filmed video while they moved into shooting position.
My friend realized that we would never get to the site before dark. The hill was so steep and the cliff crumbling rock and snow and ice that it would have been very dangerout to pull the inexperienced dogs off the lion in the dark, so she decided to shoot the lion and end it while we could still see. I took some great video - though I'm not a world class videographer by any means, lol. The cat fell from the cliff about sixty feet at the shot and tumbled down the rockslide another couple of hundred feet - almost a fourth the way to the road! I got to it
and gathered up the dogs as they came in. Then we spent the rest of the night in the glow of a successful and most thrilling hunt! The lion measured just over six and a half feet and weighed in around 135 lbs. Not a big one by any means, but beautiful none the less. The pup Bruno and my Boomer got some valuable experience and no one got hurt, though Bell did take a swat or two. Good stuff.
And the big one's still out there - maybe next time will be my turn to shoot. That is, if we decide to take the cat.... Catch and release is great fun too.
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Are they all trophys?
Yes. Yes they are...
I've taken many big game animals and a few that would deffinatly be considered trophy class. But
you won't see pictures of many of those here. Why? Well, I haven't taken all that many worthy of bragging about and want to reinforce the notion that all animals taken are trophys in my eyes. It isn't the end result that makes hunting worthwhile to me - it's the preparation, the dedication, and the spiritualization of the whole process that matters! Take this little buck antelope at right. He's little by Wyoming standards, about 11 1/2 inches, I think. But I was mighty happy to get him that day - You see, I took this antelope one year when I didn't have any time off to dedicate to the hunt - work demanded that I be available all but three days. On the first two days I spent all my time making sure my wife got her antelope - and she did, a nice buck bigger than any I had to that point or since taken myself! Then on the last day I went out and put a stalk on a group of speed-goats near a waterhole I knew of. My time was limited as I had to go to work that evening, but you have to work with what's available.
I found them at the water hole as I knew I would. They were spooky and ran off several times during the day. I stayed put, having decided that one of the larger bucks was in the fifteen inch class range and would be coming home with me. The heard kept returning to the waterhole - wanting to be near water and because they hadn't actually sensed me yet. I had stayed flat on the ground for four hours in the sagebrush and cactus watching and deciding what to do. Hoping they would come closer. I watched as the buck courted his does and chased around some of the smaller bucks. He was putting on quite a nice show, but at last I noted that the he was gathering up his harem in preparation to move south - away from the water hole! I knew they wouldn't return until after dark and my chances of a shot at the big one were dissappearing with every minute - I would have to go to work before they came back. This was it. They were about seven hundred yards off and moving slowly away. And my season would be over after that...
So I determined to make a long shot of it. I don't condone shooting at extemely long range at animals - there are too many things that may go wrong and crippled critters is something my conscience does not enjoy. But it was my only chance and I knew my rifle, it's loads, and have practiced religiously for years so I can make such shots when the heat is on. So I started crawling into a position to get a halfway decent shot at the antelope. I am confident, but not foolish enough to risk a seven hundred yard shot on moving antelope.
So I started closing the distance - I got down behind some brush and jogged, walked, and then crawled for several hundred yards - the last fourty or so on my belly. It was tough going and I think I still have cactus thorns embedded in my arms now, even after several years. But at last I was as close as I was going to get - about four hundred yards. I set my Mauser custom .270 Win rifle to rest in the top of a sagebrush, on my fanny pack. It was steady. And I looked for the shot... The big buck just continued to walk away and all I could see was his butt. Never once did he veer to the side for a better shot. Never once did he climb a hill where I could shoot over his butt into a shoulder. He disappeared into some tall sagebrush and was lost to view forever. I could see the rest of his heard start out onto a hillside a mile or more beyond - they were still going and I knew the big one would follow.
The opportunity just hadn't been there and I wasn't the kind to take a poor hind quarter shot. It was maddening. I had spent all day laying in the brush, tearing up my flesh in the stalk, and now my time was slipping away. My opportunity was gone.
Then I noticed a doe and a fawn a couple hundred yards closer. She was following her buck, but wasn't in as much of a hurry as the rest. Someone else had noticed her too. It was a little buck who wanted a piece of the big boy's action. He came running for that doe as if anxious to get away with her before the big boy noticed. In truth, I'd watched him be chased away several times earlier in the day, but the big boy wasn't in sight and was not coming back. So I settled for him. He ran to within three hundred and fifty yards of where I had settled, stopped, and turned broadside. I put a 130 gr Sierra SPBT behind his right shoulder and anchored him.
No where near a big buck, not much of a trophy in many people's books, and I had been looking for one a lot larger... But I felt great as I approached him. I'd worked hard to get that buck and I made the most of my hunt. I had countless memories of him and the big boy establishing rigts to the harem, my journey through the cactus, and the shot. It was enough. And I had my trophy!
Don't get me wrong - his mount isn't hanging on my wall. But he'll always hold a special space in my heart and isn't that what a trophy is about?