Mountain Lion Hunting – The Real Gunsmith

being a hunter I've always been interested in hunting just about everything there is to hunt and I've hunted firstly everything there is to hunt in this this part of Wyoming and killed a lot of game in my lifetime my 54 years of a big game honey when I was young this country there were there were old-timers that have killed out most of the Lions in this country but there's always just an odd one or two lying around and I saw a line or two over my years of in them in the mountains but I always wanted to kill a big lion about 27 years ago I had really had the desire to you know to hunt lions and hunt lions with hounds I didn't have any hounds I learned to somebody that had a hound and so I I went and and I was given this this Walker hound dog and it it worked out to be a tremendous dog and my my son and I we started hunting Lions with this with this dog and the very first very first lion track we ever put on this dog I mean put this dog on the lion track it was maybe an hour hour and a half we hadn't turned this dog loose and we had we had three dogs with us didn't turn any of them loose we had him on leashes and anyway we followed that lion track and I come around the corner in a ten feet there was a lion right there the dog knocked me over because the dog headed for the lion and I unsnapped the leash from the dog and the dog run down running down the hillside where the lion went in about a minute and a half the dog was being bent read and put this great big huge lion up about a 240-pound lion in the tree and that was really the most exhilarating thing and it was so exciting that we continued to hunt lions my son and I we really enjoyed ourselves it was really great to see these dogs and these dogs work with two other dogs that were long had really no experience much with the dog the treat that great big cat was a very experienced dog and that dog became ill and we didn't have a dog a year later later I got another dog it was another Walker hound like the hound that I had it was also a tremendous tremendous lion hound and we believe we believe just maybe 20 30 minutes before daylight to get in the country where there might be lions traveling and we may always needed fresh snow and just shortly after daylight with this other dog we've got a lion track it came across the highway and it was a big big lion track and he was not very old it probably was no more than an hour so old that lion track well we had two dogs and had the Walker the Walker hound and I had had a Red Bull walk across and he was an experienced dog but not as experienced as the his the Walker hound her name was Chris there were several feet of snow on the ground so it wasn't easy traveling and it was in really rugged country and we turned the dogs loose after a while we didn't travel very far I knew that track was really good and I knew that cat I mean that dog would put that cat up probably a pretty short order we turned the dog loose and we we basically took those took that lion track and those dog tracks and the dog finally just was kind of you know Wendon wending this wending this cat because it was traveling so fast the dogs were the dog's nose was so good it didn't have to run right in the track it could run ten 15 feet from the track and be right on the scent that's how good this dog was and in about 40 45 minutes we could hear those dogs Barkin treed well it took us another about that length of time to get to where this to get to where this the site was where the where the dogs had this lion beat up we got there we did see we didn't see that didn't see that cat and finally we see the cat well we were really in some deep snow now we're in the snow the three and four foot deep this was awful awful hard to travel we had day packs and we had food things with us and ability to build a fire if we had to to warm up or anything and it ended up that this cat there were some cliffs then there was a deep canyon that dropped off a couple hundred feet and then it come up on the other side and there were there was various trees around well not far from these cliffs that cat and I think jumped from the cliff out onto a tree and we first didn't see it because it was down kind of below where the cliffs world but the dogs what was there we couldn't see it with the bark and the cat just simply went up the tree a little bit to where we can see this big cat in the tree now this cat isn't it isn't 25 or 30 yards from us and the dogs are right there on the cliff because they can't go anywhere the trees out from the cliff my son my son shoots the lion oh man all hell broke loose the cat fell out of the tree the cat fell down in the canyon the dogs are going nuts the dogs figured out on their own that they had to leave the cliff because they couldn't jump off of this tall tall cliff and go around and they went down down in the canyon and we filed them down into the canyon now the snow is right here over our heads that's how deep the snow is in the in the canyon we've got a tree limb a piece and we're pushing this snow and we're pushing this snow we've had snowshoes on we got snow shoes on our day pack we can't use them and all that deep snow because the snow is right at right at 6 feet deep absolutely and we're pushing snow all the way and we get across kind of the bottom of the canyon and and the dogs are just going for frickin nuts on the other side of this canyon yeah we're so excited we're so wet we're just running out with snow and sweat and exhaustion and the dogs are just going nuts and we don't know where this cat is but it's over there somewhere well we get across this across this Canyon it's only maybe 40-foot wide across the bottom steep up the other side and we had to use tree limbs on in each hand to work our way up the other side about 70 or 80 feet up the other side up to where we could stand and try to figure it out and the dogs are still going down nuts and we can't figure it out and finally we looked way up a spruce tree that hadn't hardly no limbs on it and up there about a hundred feet is that lion and I walked over underneath the tree the snows not as deep as it was in the cane it's only about six foot deep there I mean four foot deep instead of six and there's blood there's blood dripping from about 80 feet up or whatever whatever it was 80 to 100 feet in the snow and I look at that cat and that cat just shaken you just shaken I thought was gonna follow the tree cause it was shaking so bad now these dogs are just going nuts the one dog is off to one side the other ones off to the other side so I said to Leyland I said there's the cat and you know he he couldn't hold off hand you know at that distance very well and I plugged my ears I plugged my ears and I let him rest both his hands on this apprentice 45 long colt over my shoulder and he shot the bullet hit the cat that cat just comes flying out of the tree pretty much lifeless it hits the ground it hits the ground now these dogs are just virtually almost right on top the cat hits the ground and the snow just flies because it's four foot deep and that cat couldn't stand the bay of those hounds and the cat went in a tree 20 feet away up the tree only about six feet and this cat is nine-tenths of the way dead and it's just hanging in this tree just hanging in this tree and my son Landon I get a hold the dogs so we don't hurt a dog so the cat doesn't get to the dogs get a leash on them and the cat just absolutely trembling beyond your imagination in a cedar tree up six feet off the ground just hanging on in there for dear life Landon killt shoots the cat the cat just falls down and falls down the cedar tree was right on the edge of the canyon the cat slid all the way to the bottom of the canyon in the snow we had to go back down in the canyon we dug for 10 or 15 minutes to dig the cat out of the snow down on the bottom of the canyon we had we had the dogs with us right down in the bottom of the canyon luckily there was one tree there that's all there was chained the dogs to the tree and landon held the cat kind of kept track of the dogs and i skin the cat and i'm right down to my wool shirt I always travel everything I wear is wool because when will gets napping and for just some warmth it took me pushing an hour to get that cat skin now and now we've got to climb out of the canyon well we climbed out of the canyon with the help of the dogs we had leashes on the dogs and they help kind of pull us up gradually gradually we got up out of there and Landon carried in the draped cat cuz no it's just cat he's carrying it and has draped over shoulders and we only get I don't know a couple hundred yards we're kind up on the ridge where we got better traveling and it's only several feet of snow and I've got I've got I've got a dog on the leash and he's got a dog on the leash to help us get along to kind of pull you along and he says I'm getting cold oh boy oh boy you know he's got this lion skin over his shoulders and anyway I said we'll just take that cat off your shoulders and I took off I had on you know long johns and a regular weight wool shirt and a heavy wool shirt and a wool vest and and I gave him my heavyweight wool shirt so I had on just like light wool then and we know the temperatures dropping and when we left it was about 20 degrees and I can tell us probably five below because the temperature was just going down down down and he got that heavy wool shirt on I said I'm gonna stay just fine no matter what because you know that's just me and it was a long traveling you know quarter of a mile or so Landon was pretty warm he had that hide with the hair towards him over shoulders and keeping him warm the dogs are pretty damn exhausted and we're exhausted and it's all kind of downhill country we get to the outfit and we put the lion in the back of the put the lion in the back the pickup have camper shell on it and we got the two dogs right away the female Walker dog Chris she wants to jump up in the back cuz that boy she that's her cat that's her cat the dog got into a big damn class and we had to separate the dogs we ended up putting Chris up in the cab with us where it was warm because she was she was even cold and the other dog he wasn't he wasn't that cold he wasn't affected and once we separated the dogs put him in then put him in the with the the other dog the male dog in the in the back end with the line everything calmed down and we were fine and there's the the pickup started fine we warmed it up for about 15 minutes until we had good heat and of course we're soaking wet and you know we stopped moving and everything some Albert we're getting kind of pretty chilled and but anyway that is just one of our many many lion hunts but that was the most you know most exhilarating hardest hunt that a guy could probably ever go on because of the conditions the snow conditions and the whole makeup of this hunt so we continued to hunt hunt lions for a number of years and gradually the are our wonderful dog passed away you

Channel: The Real Gunsmith

Views: 30,618

Keywords: the real gunsmith, gunsmith, mountain lion hunting, lion hunt, hunting dog, hound dog, walker dog, hunting story, randy selby, randy's custom rifles, hunting partner, hunting companion, man's best friend

Id: tSo2jD5PDu8

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 11 2018