Question for you experienced lion hunters

[mark]

Houndswoman, do you need to find the track to make sure the dogs are going the right way or will the dogs spin it around on their own if they are backwards?

[Cowboyvon]

One more thing and then we are out permanently.

Folks dry ground lion hunting is the most challenging endeavor one can pursue with trailing hounds! With out a doubt....like we said previously we have hunted all over and and all tree game. It is something that is never mastered because there are so many variables involved. We only hunt lions now, simply because it is the most challenging to us.

There are damn good lion hunters with damn good hounds in the southwest that may only catch 8 - 10 lions a year. We have caught as many as 32 in a year and as few as 7. The year we caught 7 was a successful year for us because they were all caught honest. With that I mean not off of kills and not from tracks that we found. All but one were long trails (4 hrs up to 8 hrs) before the tree) that the dogs struck while free cast. 7 treed lions and probably trailed 20 to 25. We saw some of the most memorable dog work that year. If we don't trail a lion at least 3 - 4 hrs before catching it it is just not satisfying to us at this point of our hunting career.

Good luck to everyone with their hounds and hunting. Sorry to get my feathers ruffled.

I like this post... "caught honest"

Like she said "apples and apple sauce"

Twist I just think you hit a nerve when you said "it doesn't take much of a dog to catch them" lol

[Cowboyvon]

I have to say we can trail backwards as easy as forward... always try to find a track or something to indicate.. I use to think they walked a certain way going uphill compared to downhill but I've shot that down a few times... still learning lol

[Mike Leonard]

Brett,

I know I have shot that theory down myself a few times. A tip for those of you who hunt dry ground or want to give it a go. Remember that dogs heat up quickly when the weather starts getting nice. It can be only high 50's and seem cool when you are setting on your mule but realize that dogs travel 3-4 times as far as you do casting about and they are down close to the rocks and hard ground that is absorbing a lot of UV rays and warming up quickly.

Example: Last saturday i hit a big tom track about 11 in the morning and it appeared to be only a day old at most. My dogs had been hunting hard and we had been covering country and it was warming up and although i am sure it was barely 60 that super high 7800 feet crystal clear desert sky was letting that sun cut down on us. I have an old white dog called Ben that is pretty cold nosed, and I saw him wind about 50 yards before we crossed the track and when i saw it looked an Ben was gone, and I knew he went backwards. I toned him quick and hollered and in a few he came back giving me a dirty look. I got down and said now listen Ben that lion went this way. And started off on the line telling the other hounds to look for it! Well Ben would have none of it and he just walked along beside me and barked Woof! Woof! Woof! in my ear. Aggravated the hell out of me and the other dogs couldn't seem to move it.
Well we cast around there and i tried my best to get it going but could not and Ben was none too proud of me. Well heck it's too old guess we will go on and maybe get down to the windmill and water these dogs and horses and eat some lunch.

So skip to the next morning. We head back to same place and are much earlier and dogs fresh and it is cooler. We approach that old track and I just knew this was going to happen. Old Ben runs up there throws his head back and roars and away he goes on it the right direction. Why? Cooler, fresher dogs, and some of the life had returned to the track. So if I had packed enough water along to really freshen those dogs up and then let them work on it the day before who knows we might have got it going.

I have had some guys say well my dogs can run a bear when it is 80 degrees so they should be able to run a lion. Remember lion scent is different and it lays low unlike bearscent that rises and is usually run on the air not so much rooting it on the ground.

Anyway we didn't catch that lion. Now here is the kicker Cowboyvon. If I would have left Ben stay on that backtrack in about 600 yards he would have run smack into a fresh elk kill and we would have probably jumped the lion that had circled around back there, but that wouldn't have been caught honest would it? LOL!


My Brother in Law was hunting shed horns and found the kill but I was already loaded and gone out of there.

Maybe next time.....maybe?????????? LOL!

[Cowboyvon]

Good info Mike... similar situation I was on the back side of a ranch I get to hunt on and was circling around to get to a place where a tom had been coming through and scratching ... I had some young hounds with me and I noticed a couple of them had got away and were down in the bottom in some thick cedars chewing on a kill... I took the older hounds to the head of the canyon and started a track going out.. they were moving it real good for this country and really thought we would get him jumped soon.. came across a scratch going the other way... called the hounds off and they weren't that happy with me.. took them back down and circled them around and around and never could trail out... finally decided we were right but he had scratched going into the kill and had walked back out over his same track... by then the heat had taken over and we were done for the day... would of liked to come back the next day but had other obligations ... but I did learn a lesson that day ...but I guess I should say thats not the only time I have turned them around when they were right... but I have also tried to trail some back to where they were born too ...

[dhostetler]

Houndswoman, do you need to find the track to make sure the dogs are going the right way or will the dogs spin it around on their own if they are backwards?

I always wondered the same thing too about dry land hunters, do you guys have dogs that will turn around a backward lion race by themselves. For the most part my dogs are pretty good at turning around a backward bear race but not a backward lion race. Several weeks ago I got a pretty good strike out the box and it was all bare ground except some patches of snow along the road. I couldn't find a track so I turned 2 dogs loose. After they had gone about 300 yards I found the track and they were going backwards. These 2 dogs are veterans and my best dogs for turning around a bear track, so I figured they won't go far. Big mistake 1.5 hours and 4 miles later I finally cut them off with my sled in 3' foot crusted over snow. I turned them loose then on the right end and treed it in 800 yards.

My theory is that a bear track evaporates faster than a lion track, which makes it easier for dogs to turn it around. My recent back track race also didn't help that the further they went they got into better snow conditions.