Lion Up

I loaded my hounds today hoping we'd find a lion or bear track for those dogs to go down. The sun had cooked away much of the snow so the canyon bottom only had patchy covering, probably less than 40 percent and only in the trees and the north faces. That four-year old Goldie dog (and a few of the others) went off pretty hard before 8:00 AM in a place where the ground was frozen and void of snow covering, so I put her down with nine year old Kody dog to show me the track. They picked around for several minutes before working the ground approximately a hundred yards along the north side of the canyon wall. Then they both opened and headed down the tracks??

After running over where the dogs had struck, I could see that they had a single, adult female going the right way so I hurried back to the truck and shipped the others. That lion had not crossed the road, matter fact it had hit the canyon bottom and stayed along that side until it found the next narrow drainage and turned back up from where it came. Had Goldie not gone off like she had a bear , we'd missed that track. I can't imagine hunting without her. Thinking back, I've had dogs that would rig a lion track or scratch for twelve and one half years and have become spoiled. If the day ever comes that I don't have rig dogs that will strike a cold lion track from the box I'm going a get out of this sport??..

LAST EDITED ON Apr-20-13 AT 08:04AM (MST)[p]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XcWF4Saa-w

That little video clips shows my old Ike and Choco dogs striking a dirt lion track from the box, and this four year old Goldie dog is out of Choco who came from Ike. Choco has gone on to that big tree in the sky but his pups still open on lion tracks from the box. May Choco find plenty of scent on the other side.....

Congrats Ike, good looking dogs.

Thanks for sharing. Got to love hunting and watching the dogs work!!!!

That is awesome!!! Thanks for sharing with us.


Eric Santana
www.SantanaOutdoors.com
"Premium Hunting Gear"