2017 has started well with a nice mountain lion taken on our ranch.
We actually have too many cats & have lost some really nice bull elk,
mule deer bucks & whitetail bucks over the last couple years.




We've obtained some pretty cool footage on our game camera's as well.
Here's a neat sequence of a mule deer fawn barely escaping!






My buddy Gregg took this nice Tom about 3 weeks ago.



However, we noticed as the weather has gotten colder & more snow has
fallen, that there were a set of big tracks coming around the barns
& outbuildings. We also found more & more deer kills, all concentrated
in one area. I tracked this specific cat every day for a whole week trying
to get him without hounds. This last Sunday I found a kill that was still
warm & just covered. You can see a couple legs under the pine needles in this pic.



I tracked him about 1/2 mile when he went off a cliff into some really
rough stuff. I went back down, talked with my buddy Tony & we decided to
call in our friend who has great cat hounds. I felt somewhat defeated as
I had spent a whole week trying to track him, but we needed to get rid of
this cat, he was killing a deer almost everyday & was spending too much time
around the buildings, horses,...

The hounds got the fresh scent & were off. Typical of cat hunting,
he was hold up in a cave in some of the roughest & steepest country around.
The dogs pushed him out of the cave & up a big ponderosa pine. We got
some nice pics of him in the tree.



After the shot, he fell out of the tree & it was so steep he slid 4-500 yards
down a snowy chute, it took us 20 minutes to get down to him.
He was a nice Tom, weighed 145 pounds. I'm 6'5" & 230#, so I'm not great
for trophy photos. The second pic is Greg, the houndsman, he's 5'6" for comparison.





We ended up taking him to the bottom of the canyon to a trail back to the ranch.
We drug him in the snow when possible & my friend Tony, graciously
offered to pack him across a couple of streams because my legs were rubber
at this point!
You can see the cliffs we went up & down in some of the pics.





It was a great ending to a hard week of hunting. This was physically,
an extremely trying hunt, but worth it.
Hope the rest of 2017 is as productive?

Jim

Nice cats!

Tracking him and killing him without the dogs would be the ultimate.
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Congrats on 2 nice cats.

Kill them all. They really put the hurt on the mule deer.

Great accomplishment.
Congrats and thanks much for sharing
with us.
George

Very nice. That second one is a fatty for sure. You made your deer herd very happy. Congrats.

Congrats good job!

Nice cat! Any advice for going after them without dogs?

Great lions and cool trail cam pics!

Very cool! Glad you got some cats on the ground.

With all the elk and deer dying...are they eating them or stashing them or is a lot of it wasted...killing them and never eating them.

Looks like a lot of fun. A treed cat would be a fun lever gun hunt I think

Great looking cat and excellent story. Congratulations.

Very cool trail cam pictures, I would think catching that sequence is pretty rare.

Thanks for the positive comments guys! Eventhough I hoped to get him by tracking,

chasing him with the hounds was really fun. The shot is somewhat anti-climactic to

the rest of the chase!

Rich - since I didn't get him by tracking, I don't have a lot of "good" advice.
Obviously, if you find a fresh kill, they usually lay up within 1/2 mile or so?
Also, on more than one occasion while I was tracking him, we circled
back on my own tracks. An experienced cat hunter I know told me they often
do that to check on what's behind them? So go slow & check your backside?

Sage - Yeah, I have a couple more game camera shot sequences of that encounter,
I will try to post them all if I get a chance.

Anton - wish you & your camera were there to better document this hunt. All I
had was my trusty iPhone 6!

Good Hunting Guys!
Jim

Thanks for the report! Really enjoyed this.

Have only Mt Lion hunted once, and loved it...will do again.

Out-friggin-standing man! I so wanna do that hunt.....can't even imagine being able to do it DIY like you!

Thanks for sharing that story. I enjoyed it.

May I ask where your ranch is in Wyoming Jim? I haven't missed a hunting season out there since 1998!

Great photo's & write-up. Thanks for sharing!

Sorry, I'm in Old Mexico chasing Sonoran Mule Deer, no luck so far.

I've seen 2 in the 180 class, & 1 giant 6x6 that evaded us in the

thick brush, probably a 200 class deer, we will keep looking.

Topgun, our ranch is West of Sheridan, truly a sportsman paradise!

Not sure why I'm in Mexico, a buddy's son took a 191 Mulie off our place!

Maybe it's the snow & cold this time of year?

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Jungleboy:
Sorry, I'm in Old Mexico chasing Sonoran Mule Deer, no luck so far.

I've seen 2 in the 180 class, & 1 giant 6x6 that evaded us in the

thick brush, probably a 200 class deer, we will keep looking.

Topgun, our ranch is West of Sheridan, truly a sportsman paradise!

Not sure why I'm in Mexico, a buddy's son took a 191 Mulie off our place!

Maybe it's the snow & cold this time of year?

Jim

You are right on that analysis of where you are. If I wasn't married, I'd move out somewhere between Sheridan and Bufflao in a heartbeat. My hunting buddy lives in one of the nice places on the east side of Decker Road right north of the KOA Campground along where they're building the new highway interchange and then closing the one that exits right by the KMart that they say isn't safe. It's been awful cold in Sheridan and they have had a good bit of snow too, so Sonora sounds pretty good right now!