07 December 2015, 03:11
buffybrColorado Mtn Lion November 2015
2015 turned out to be my "Year of the Cat." I've wanted a mountain lion for more than 40 years. I've lived in lion country most of my life, and have actually seen 3 lions within 1/4 mile of my house. For many years I've bought a resident lion license with the hopes of seeing one while deer or elk hunting. I even went lion hunting a few times with friends that had lion dogs, but to no avail.Then a couple of months ago I was looking at the AR Offered Hunts Forum and saw an offer by JT Robbins of Allout Outfitting in Fruita, Colorado for a lion hunt in late November. Since I already had plans to come to Colorado for Thanksgiving, I thought I would give this hunt a try.
Unfortunately, a family tragedy changed our Thanksgiving plans, but JT was gracious enough to delay my hunt until after Thanksgiving.
I was born and raised in Colorado, but I hadn't been in the Fruita/Grand Junction area in over 50 years. So when I drove from the Denver area to Fruita on Sunday, November 29th I saw how beautiful that part of Colorado is.
JT Robbins has a small family outfitting business located outside of Fruita, Colorado. JT books deer, elk, and lion hunters, and his wife Breanna does the cooking and keeps the books. Next to their house, they have a comfortable guest house for hunters. JT also raises and trains lion dogs.
So after getting settled in and dinner, JT informed me that he wanted to be on the road early the next morning. I set my phone alarm, but it wasn't needed as JT's dogs woke me as he loaded them in his truck at 2:30 the next morning. JT brought me a hot plate of biscuits and gravy, and we were on the road by 3 am.
It was still dark when we turned off the pavement onto a maze of old uranium exploration roads on BLM and Forest Service lands. As we climbed out of the valley, the roads were covered with fresh snow, which was ideal for finding fresh lion tracks. We crossed plenty of deer tracks, some with deer still in them, a couple of sets of bear tracks, and even jumped a bobcat, but unfortunately we didn't cut any lion tracks that morning.
So that afternoon we went down country to the western edge of JT's lion hunting area. This area was mostly red sandstone plateaus that looked more like Moab, Utah (which actually wasn't too far away) than Colorado. We were again the first vehicle to go up the side road that JT chose, and as we approached the top of a plateau, we cut a fresh lion track.
I measured the width of the track at over 4", which would indicate an adult tom. JT released two of his dogs on the track, and before too long we could see them trying to get up the rimrock at the top of a plateau. JT tried to drive around the north end of the plateau to get in top, but the road became too narrow, steep, and the snow got too deep to drive to the top, so we backtracked and were able to get around the south end of the plateau and eventually to the top.
We were able to drive to within about 400 yards of where we thought the dogs had the lion treed. JT released a couple more dogs and two pups and we followed.
I had planned to use my Ruger SBH .44 mag, but just before we left the truck, JT asked that I also bring my Winchester Model 94 .30-30 as the dogs had kept the lion in the tree for quite a while, and JT didn't know how much time we would have for the shot.
When we got to the lion, he was in a large pinion pine tree that was halfway down the rimrock cliffs. One of the dogs was also up the tree, almost as high as the lion.
JT was concerned for the safety of his dogs, and especially for the one that was up the tree next to the cat, so he asked me to quickly shoot the lion. I had carried my Winchester in my backpack scabbard, going through the snow covered trees, snow had gotten into the scabbard as when I shouldered the rifle, the hooded front sight was packed in snow.
I quickly blew the snow out of the ramp, and moved above JT to where I had a clear shot at the lion. The cat was facing us from near the top of the tree, JT was trying to film the shot, and he barely finished saying "When you are ready shoot" when, BOOM, I put a 150 grain handloaded Hornady Flat Point bullet just inside the lion's shoulder, and he fell dead out of the tree.
He landed on the snow covered edge of about a 20' high rim rock cliff, and the dogs were immediately on him. We were able to pull him up a bit for a couple of quick pictures, but we were having trouble keeping the dogs off of him.
JT was able to get a leash on three of the dogs, and we decided that it would be easier to take the lion down off the cliff rather than try to pull him up. So I pushed the cat off the rock, JT asked if I could drive his truck around and off the plateau, then he followed his dogs off the plateau, and I drove around to where he was waiting with the cat by the road.
That night we skinned the lion and boned out the meat and put it into JT's freezer. The next day we registered the lion with the Colorado Division of Wildlife office in Grand Junction, and I was then able to freeze the hide for my trip back to Montana.
With my lion up on the rim rocks. The blood on my hand is mine, not the lion's. I sprung a leak coming through the brush getting down to the lion.
Down off the rim rocks.
JT and I with my lion on the back of JT's truck.
So again, a huge thanks to JT and Breann Robbins for fulfilling my 40 year mountain lion dream.
And what really makes 2015 my "Year of the Cat" was that I also shot a beautiful tom Leopard last August in Mozambique, but that's another story...
