Frustrating day

[Uncle Dave]

Decided to check my trail camera today that I had placed on a trail close to a stock pond in some semi-open P-J (more for deer watching than anything). The way that I walked in had me pass the pond on the way to the camera and lo and behold there lie a few female lion tracks in the mud. Awesome - now I run over to my camera and check the pictures and realize that this lion had literally just been there and nothing else had walked by in a few days. So I haul arse outta there back to the truck and grab my dogs. I have been trying to be more deliberate with what I get them on due to not wanting them to run bear (hense why they were still in the truck). Anyway, get the dogs back down to the pond and exactly 1 hour has passed since that lion had been down there. I'm thinking this will be great - hour old track, fresh dogs, overcast, only like 65 degrees, very slight breeze. Well sure enough I counted those chickens before they hatched. Dogs didn't open at the pond so I looped around in arching fashion further and further from the pond and they finally found the scent and off we go. About 2-300 yds later they lost it. After that it was an open-lose-open-lose-open- lose for about 3 hours and about another 7-800 yrds then the dogs just fizzled out into nothing. I looped around that spot a bunch of times but to no avail. I can't for the life of me figure out how they didn't trail it better. I've heard some guys say that mud on the pads can cause it to leave less scent, but surely that mud was worn off after a few hundred yards over rock sand and gravel, and surely some body scent should have been left on the grass.

I don't know how to feel at this point. ..seems like this should have been a gimme for some experienced dogs (something my youngins are lacking). They sure seemed like they were trying hard to find it when they lost it, but this is really making me think that they may not be cut out for the dirt lion game. I guess we will just keep trying to put them on tracks and pray. And believe me, every spare cent I have is being put aside for a finished dirt dog, but for now we shall push on with these knuckleheads. Just had to vent this out.

[1bludawg]

Sounds kinda like they got on the backtrack.

[Uncle Dave]

That is entirely possible, as the only tracks I found were the ones at the pond. I guess the handler could use some more experience too!

[dhostetler]

I agree too it was probably a back track. Don't get discouraged 65 degrees with a slight breeze and very dry ground, is not the greatest conditions. The fact that they couldn't start it at the pond but could start it away from the pond and could move it, could mean they had the right end but couldn't move it fast enough to keep up with the scent evaporation.

You say you have young dogs how much big game have they caught? I personnaly think unless you have a high cat population where you can get those dogs on a lot of cats you will gain more in running bears and having the dogs be successful. I think a lot of hound guys under estimate how much success translates into running to catch in hounds and the effort they will put into cold trailing especially if don't just run red hot bears make them cold trail tough tracks. In my opinion the more cold trailing you do on either cat or bear makes better cat dogs if you can get the cold trail to the jump on a frequent basis.

[Mike Leonard]

Did you get a big rain thru there a day or two before this? I noticed you are from NM and I know we had some clusters of hard rain that came thru last week and the temperature dropped off pretty good but when it heated up from the sun the evaporation really kicked in. Just wondering cuz I have seen this too and usually the dogs will tell you more about the track than that sneaky lion on the camera will reveal.

Female lion at times seem to leave almost no scent and this will frustrate you for sure. I am known to have pretty good dirt dogs and we do catch lion but certainly not all of them.

Hope this will make you feel better: My wife and I are out hunting on horseback and the dogs are working good and I have seen some older lion sign but nothing fresh. I top this little hill and look down the trail and all of a sudden I see a flash coming from left to right with a long tail. It's a little female lion and she is really going and only about 250 yards ahead of us. Well just like you I thought. Slam dunk! I have 3-4 really nice lion dogs in the bunch and they strike pretty tough tracks so I thought this would be a walk in the park.

So we just ride down there not saying a word and the dogs are busy hunting around us and I am just about to burst thinking any moment they are going to blow up. WRONG! We rode right thru there and not one of them said a thing. I stopped and got off and found the lion track so I wasn't imagining things. I told my wife don't say a thing we will just ride along easy in the direction the lion was going and see what happens. Well we get down in the brush and trees, not really thick but still we had to work around a little to get the horses thru it. Still nothing. What is going on???? We went maybe 300 yards or so and came out on a little ridge that dropped down across another sage flat and then up another little mesa with brush and pinions on it with a few ponderosa pines. Well I am setting there and I look at my old Ben dog and he looks up at me as if to say...What??? I never said a word so he trotted off the little ridge and all of a sudden stopped dead still and then sort of reared up like a horse does and worked his nose way up in the air and then came down and let out a big bellowing bawl, but he couldn't go anywhere with it. After Ben let out his war whoop, Tiny and Sis just went to flying around there like a couple of pointer bird dogs and as they worked they fanned out further and further and way down in the bottom they both struck and just disappeared into the trees. Well Ben and Red headed to them and we followed along. Up on the other side we had to climb a little mesa that was pretty bald on top and when we got up there the dogs had come to a big loss and were just milling and trying to work out of there. Well by this time I am just about to take up golf, what is wrong with these dogs?? They would go back to the same spot over and over and open on it but could go nowhere. Finally Ben just came over near my horse and just started barking like he was treed. Has this dog lost his mind? he would not stop and just kept looking at me and barking. He was asking for help.

We I get off my horse and try to find a track but it was as hard as concrete up there and even the dog tracks were not showing. I checked the wind and then started to walk around in the direction it was blowing from. Finally I spotted a few large boulders up against a clay hill so I walked over there. The dogs had not been there that I had seen yet, but they followed and when they did they just ran around those rocks and then started baying back in a hole formed by the boulders laying against one another. I could hear the lion growling so I jumped up there and the dogs could not quite make it up to where an opening was so I crawled up there and looked down and there was this female lion backed in under this shelf . I watched a bit and I saw part of a spotted kitten revealed down in there with her. So she had kittens in there so I got down and we tied the dogs back so they didn't have a chance to get around in there somehow and kill a kitten.

Now I don't know why they couldn't smell that lion right off the bat, and why they couldn't locate this hiding place until they were right on it, but for some reason this female was just leaving almost no scent and what she did leave seemed to be rising quickly up in the air and not laying on the ground like lion scent is suppose to. I think there is just a whole lot more to lions and their scent than we know at times.

3 days later these same dogs struck a tom lion track that I know was well over a day old at a mud puddle in the trail and worked it for several hours at a good clip, jumped the lion and treed him like good lion dogs are suppose to.

Made me feel some better but I still laid awake at night for awhile and tried to figure that first deal out???????

I guess these kind of thinsg are what keeps this game interesting...

[Uncle Dave]

Thanks for the replies and encouragement. We had some rain previous but when I was there the ground / grass was dry (no morning dew either). This lion had walked through at 9:06 and I checked that camera at 9:17 and got down there with the dogs at 10:05. Usually by 10-10:30 it's starting to heat up pretty good but with it being overcast and only 65ish I thought we'd be good to go that morning. Scent sure is an interesting thing. Hopefully we get a chance to redeem ourselves soon.

[Chris Todd]

Don't give up on those young hounds just yet. Mike touched on some real important facts about trailing females especially on dry ground. They can be tough. In my experience they just don't leave as much scent as toms. Alot of people will say that makes sense because of the size difference. And maybe the fact that on alot of Tom tracks. The Tom will be scratching, and just leaving a easier trail for hounds to follow. But I think there is alot more to it. Mike mentioned trailing a female that had young kittens. I have had the same experience several times over. And have begun to believe that the leaving of less scent by these females. Is nature's way of keeping the location of young kittens secret. Sounds crazy , maybe but I think there is still alot we don't know about lions. And the scent they leave behind.
I have had alot more days of just trailing then I have had catching them . Now that is on dry ground I should say. I have had other hunters say. Just out for another trail ride. When I tell them I trailed a lion all day and didn't catch it. I think it is like was already said the more time you can spend on lion tracks trailing the better your hounds will be. But as you learn even the days you don't strike a lion track are not wasted. There are so many things you can work on with young hounds while out on a trail ride. That you can't work on keeping them in the kennel.
Keep after it .

[Mike Leonard]

Chris,

I totally agree with you out on the trail they learn a lot even when they don't strike a track. I have had other guys dispute this but Steve Smith is a lion hunter's lion hunter and catches about as consistent in bad stuff as anybody I have ever heard of. We were talking one day and he said that those days you pound the ground without a strike and those dogs keep working really shows you what you have. A hounds has to be steady and patient to become a real dirt dog, and you have to leave a lot of tracks thru the country most of the time to get on a good track but when you do that is the reward for these dogs.

It is absolutely imperative that you have dogs that have a great handle on them if you are going to be successful at dry ground hunting. You get that handle by long days on the trail and lots of situations. You can get some in the back yard but you never know what you have till you are out there and the pressure comes on. I see guys with dogs they have to wrestle out of the truck strap on a leash that half drag them around and have to be tackled to be caught but they still catch lions in ideal conditions. This won't work for traditional lion hunting which is either horse or mule back or on foot. No quads don't count. Why? Because as great as they are for running roads and trails you just can't get thru real lion country with them and most guys are always cutting around to get up to their hounds and therefore they are not working right along with their hounds and helping them when they need it. Some say I road my dogs along wiht them and let them strike, and then I get off an follow on foot. maybe occasionally but I have found that after awhile everybody has a tendency to rev them up a little and travel way to fast for a hound to find and strike old tracks.

George Goswick famous lion hunter from Arizona said if you are riding thru the country a lot and you know there some lions in there but you are not getting strikes you most likely are riding too fast and pushing those hounds. He said get off and lead you horse or mule and I will bet you your dogs will slow down and start picking up on the faint trails you have been missing. I have to agree with him because many times during a lunch break or just a long stop to check out the scenery many times this is when the dogs pick up on track.

At times it is very hard to determine quickly if the dogs are on the right end of the track or going backwards. And don't think if they go a way and slow down it is because they are backwards on it. I have seen a lot of trails dogs could run a lot better the wrong way. Why I don't know but some said they may have come off a kill or a scrape and that scent is stronger back where they came from. Who knows but the only sure way is to find a track and check it or hope like heck you see a lion in the tree pretty soon. LOL!

[puma sj]

Mike, had the same slam dunk experience with a super hot female lion track in the snow.. dogs just kind of bay a little and couldni move the track more than 100 feet.. had me stumped..i kept going back to the track to make sure it was a lion not trash.. snow was about 8 inches but real fine powder...finally after about 15 minutes of waiting for them to get it lined out.. i followed the track and dogs up the hill into rocks and small boulders.. about 30 feet from the vehicle i discovered three kittens about 9 inches in length.. dogs had been all around them but hadnt bothered them.. started collecting dogs and leashing up..dogs were easy to catch since they were not fired up from scent...had all but two dogs back to the truck , went back up toward the den to catch the two dogs...went about 15 feet past the den trying to get to where the dogs were about 50 feet in front of me. at that 15 foot spot heard the female growling under a large rock i was circumventing. as i backed off and around to catch the other two dogs, the female came out and ran up the hill in the direction of the two dogs.. dogs took her out of there and treed about 200 yards up the hill.. only problem was ..no lion in the tree...tied up dogs and started trying to figure out what had happened.. there was a snag that has fallen above the lion tree and its top was about 12 feet from the lion tree..judging by the dislocated snow on the snag it appeared the lion had gone up the tree, jumped to the snag, and traversed it out to its base and made its escaped... steep, big rocks, snow, by myself, figured i had better quit while ahead.... always enjoy your posts and comments on bare ground lion hunting..

[Mike Leonard]

Glad you were able to save the kittens.

I have had some strange things happen in snow as well. One time quite a few years ago I was out with some friends early on morning. We had about an inch of wet snow that night. We cut a female track crossing a road and we were just goofing around nothing serious so we decided to run it. Had a few pretty darn good dogs in the box and we put them on it and in about 5 minutes we saw them jump while we were still at the truck and they treed it about 200 yards away in juniper tree. We didn't need to hurry so we drank a little coffee and watched the dogs tree. The sun was up now and it started getting real foggy, and looked like the moisture was just coming off that light snow and causing it.
We started to the tree and we got up about 50 yards from the tree and the female saw us and she just bailed out of the tree. Well no problem we thought they will just pop her up another tree fast. Wrong! after they lost the sight race and she got into some light brush and timber we had dogs looking this way and dogs looking that way and they couldn't do anything with her track. She got to circling and going back over her tracks in there and we would follow it by sight and try to get the dogs to work it, and they just couldn't get any real scent off of it. They could smell it some in the air but not good enough to drift it. She made a dang fool of us and finally we just gave up and chalked it up to experience.

I think that evaporating snow and fog coming off the ground just took what little scent she had and blew it away. by the time we were done fooling with her the snow was just about all melted off.