Jay C Bruce "The Couger Killer"

[guy54]

In the Feb. 2010 issue of "American Hunter" there is an article about Jay C. Bruce the early day California state lion hunter and the book he wrote called "The Lion Killer". Has anyone read this book? Does anyone on this forum ever know him? He died in the 1960's. What breed and bloodlines of dogs did he run? He had to of had several dogs over all the years he hunted.

[BlacktailStalker]

I have it, pretty good book.

[taz]

I also have it and thought it was good

[Mike Leonard]

I liked the bood too it was simply written and told his story well. Jay was a hard hunter and operated at a time when many of the modern technologies we have today would have been only a dream. I don't think he really had a line of dogs he just found a hound that would trail and usually had a cur dog with it that would tree well, and he got by that way.

The American Hunter magazine said he might be the man that has taken more lions that any other human including Ben Lilly. They are saying this because Jay did keep accurate records on the lions he killed for bounty, and Ben Lilly's recording was sketchy at best. 668 lions is a bunch of hunting for sure but it is far from the record. The Lee Brothers collectively killed more than 1000, Giles Goswick while hunting for the State of Arizona has recorded over 700 but no telling how many more he killed with sport hunters. The Glenns of Arizona, Marvin first and then his famous son Warner Glenn have been hunting lions over 60 years and have kept a diary of each lion, the dogs that were on the hunt and many other fact I am told. This hopefully will be out in a book some day. Kelly Kimbro Warner's daughter and excellent bare ground lion hunter in her own right is keeping the tradition alive along with her dad. They have records of well over 1000 lions.