John's first lion

[Big Horn Posse]

Well, went out Monday to go look for a lion we knew about on one of the private ranches I hunt here and just happened to turn my phone on and got a voicemail saying my sweetie never made it home the night before while traveling back to Ten Sleep from Kaycee on the back roads over the mountain. The lion hunting was put on hold to go look for John. We found his Jeep stuck on one of the roads there (his 4x4 went out) We got him put and headed back to Kaycee. As we were headed back we crossed a lion track from the night before. Since we had the dogs with us we decided to run the lion. John had a tag the last couple months and has been hunting with me since we got together. He is also my partner in my hound business and a fellow hunting guide. We dropped Ozzy and a dog a friend who was with us had. They took the track up and over a ridge and kept going. This was about 11:30 in the morning. We thought it would be a quick run, but oh no. This cat had been hunting all night and was all over the place zig zagging from ridge to ridge and down in a canyon. My friend had the Garmin collars and we saw the dogs were covering some major ground, but working slow on the burnt off south slopes. We kept walking into them and they kept moving in circles and all over the canyon. A few times we thought they were ledged up and trying to find a way out. As we walked into them in the bottom of the canyon John found a very fresh kill. A young cow elk. The dogs were barking not too far from us, but since the trees were thick in the area it took awhile to find the lion in the tree. We looked the lion over and decided it was a good cat. It had its rear end to the tree and was looking down at us. I questioned the sex on it as I couldn't see beneath the tail. It had a pretty face like a female, but the size of the cat, the big round head and track made me wonder if it was just a beautiful faced tom. John decided he wanted to take it. He shot and it eventually jumped tree and the race was on again. It ran a ways and treed again. John couldn't get a good clean shot from the bottom of the tree so he climbed the lodge pole next to the lion tree and made a clean kill shot. The lion died in the tree and he had to once again climb up another tree to get the cat out. It ended up being a very big female. The biggest I have ever seen. We are estamating 140 pounds and taped 7 ft on the carcass. She had an empty stomach as she had not eaten any of the elk she had just killed. We looked on the Garmin and noticed we were 3 miles from where we had dropped the dogs, but it said the dogs had ran over 12 miles on the track. Ozzy and Freckles did an awesome job and my sweetie earned that cat. He is now addicted to lion hunting and said from now on he wants to climb trees to take up close and personal pictures of them. And no the lion is not missing a foot, we started to skin it out before we decided to take pics.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

Good to see your dogs doing well, but from here on in please refer to sweety as John.

[Benny G]

Good to see your dogs doing well, but from here on in please refer to sweety as John.

Or maybe even cougar bait?

[wildcat]

Tessa, Not to take any thing from sweety on his lion , but didnt run down some MT people for running females with kittens ???????? Then you go and kill a baby maker WTF why was she so heavy? What did she have some kits in her ??????? 140 lbs on a female is pretty big ???????

[Benny G]

The picture of John holding the lion doesn't look like a pregnant, much less, HEAVY bred lion to me. Good grief!!

[Big Horn Posse]

wildcat,
I wouldn't harvest a female with kittens much less run one I knew had kittens. The track we put the dogs on was the size of an average tom not a female. As I said when I got to the tree and looked it over I was not 100% sure if it was a female or a male as her size and head made me question it. i could not see the sex of the cat as she had her rear to the trunk of the tree and was a ways up there. It was a good cat never the less and even the game warden that checked her in said he was amazed at the size of her and he had never seen one like that. She aged about 3 or 4 years and she had never had kittens. You could tell by her teats. I am not ashamed to post the photos and tell the story as if I was I wouldn't have done so. I have seen pics of both tom and female lions on here a lot smaller and younger people have harvested. I am proud of the job Ozzy did and proud of John for getting to experience the hunt with me.

Benny,
yeah John now has 2 cougars

[luckylqh]

hey tessa, dont let any of these assholes on here take anything from you,they are just jealous because their wives arent out catching lions,and probably arent as pretty as you, dont pay any attention to what they say,keepup the good work,john is one lucky man to have a gal that likes to hunt with hounds

[Big N' Blue]

Ma'am, you are way too pretty to be a cougar! Now I know why everyone flirts with you.

Good Job!!

[Mike Leonard]

Big N Blue you old silver tongued devil you! LOL!

[Emily]

Good job, Tessa! Sounds like you've got John trained as well as you hounds! Glad you found him when he got stuck. He may need a Garmin collar...

Wonder why she had never had kittens. That may have something to do with how she got so big. Kittens take a lot of energy to raise.

[Big Horn Posse]

Thanks guys You know it has not been easy as a woman in this business. Seems I have to work 100 times harder for people to take me seriously. I am just trying my best to do what I love and be good at it. The last 10 years has had it's ups and downs and I have met some wonderful people that have become lifelong friends and some people I do not care to meet again, but in the end I am happy with my hounds and all I want to do is hunt and be in the mountains pursuing the big cats. John is a good friend and I saw early on in our friendship that he had an interest in hounds and hunting and there is nothing better than finding someone that shares the same interests as yourself. He got bit by the lion hunting bug big time after this lion and I hope he makes it to many more trees behind Ozzy and Bella.

[bowhound]

I think I'm gonna throw up .... save the oppressed woman sob story, your lack of respect has nothing to with your gender.

[catdogs]

140# female with an empty stomach and no kittens??? Good job anyway!

[bluewalkerlionhound]

Call of the hounds.... read towards the back???Charts: size of skull, and weight of cats(male and female).. Great job on the cat,sounded like fun. however I don't think the women card plays here..

[TUCO]

just goin off what that cat looks like in the pics, i probly woulda thought it was a tom also. of course im in utah where every cat thats old enough its lost its milkteeth is a trophy tom sounds like the dogs did a good job catchin her.