BigGameHoundsmen.com

In all but a very few circumstances when hunting lions with hounds there is a moment or two to reflect and decide if you are going to pull the trigger and harvest that lion. I know occasionaly in a tight situation or to save a dog a split second decision must be made to intercede, but for the most part those scenarios are rare.

The point I am driving at here is that you have some time to make a decision and for the most part if you are old enough to buy your own hunting license you have the faculties to make that all important decision.

I also know most newcomers to the sport want to quickly bag a lion and affirm to themselves and others around them that they can in fact get a lion. This is not wrong it is a part of human nature and as i said it is your choice.

I would just ask that you savor that moment at the tree or the bayup when your dogs have done their job, and now the lion is stopped you have in fact enjoyed the best part of lion hunting. Now there is nothing at all legally wrong with harvesting that animal if it meets the criteria as proclaimed by the state that you hunt in. There are however are other ethical factors you should consider before pulling the trigger. Is this an animal I will be proud to harvest? Is this animal possibly caring for young even though they are not with it? Will I be proud to dispaly this animal in my home and show to my friends and hunting partners?

This may seem very elementary to most but obviously it is disregarded by many houndsmen today. If not why would a person run a female lion with two sub kittens make the decision when they got to the tree to shoot out both female kittens? Possibly they looked bigger in the tree? Maybe but for the most part anybody that is familiar enough with lions to have dogs and be able to find sign and get to this point should know what a sub adult lion looks like. Well my dogs needed to chew on a lion to really get them performing. I know we have all heard this one before but we also know there are plenty of ways to inspire young dogs without killing a big game animal. Possibly invest a little more and buy better dogs. What I am saying is, can you really see any justification for doing such a thing? Was somebody twisting your arm?

I know everybody is different and possibly what one person sees as poor sportsmenship to another may be just another walk in the park. I do however know that there are many dyed in the wool houndmen out there that severely frown on this type behavior because they are into their sport for the long run.

I know we can't be idealists when you are dealing with all different type of personalities and their reasons for hunting. I mean we see the normal things we might think that are an injustice to us like hunters from other areas coming into your area and acting as a guide of sorts for some hunter or TV personality and turning loose and killing female lions for a quick buck knowing they probably won't be coming back to hunt in that area so who cares about a few female lion or if they have young stashed away some place. That reasoning is pretty easy to read and that is just greed and gain, and you are never going to get ahead of that.

But kitten slaughter that one is a real puzzle to me.


Enough of my rambling but if you can take that moment I talked about and truely reflect on your lion hunting before you decide to pull that trigger.

We need a "like" button on here

Mike,

I really like your post and I think it is spot on. I will say, I think some people, especially some of the old timers (I am a newby compared to most people), can take it too far as well.

My father, who has been on 3-4 guided lion hunts and had an unfortunate amputation a few years ago, recently drew a hound hunter permit in Idaho. He came down and hunted for about ten days. During that time, the lion hunting was slow, it was bitter cold (which is very hard on an amputee’s leg because they are very difficult to keep warm due to the metal and plastic against their leg), the snow was deep and the lions were in some steep country. We passed up a few females. I finally found a tom track and I turned loose. After getting my dad three quarters of the way to the tree, I got there and they had an older female treed. My dad was still behind me making his way up and down some steep slopes in snowshoes, which is VERY difficult when you have prosthesis. Long story short, I allowed my dad to harvest the lion. He had a bad limp the next few days but a huge smile on his face from a memorable hunt with his son that he rarely gets to hunt with anymore. He was proud of that lion and I was proud him for pushing through and hunting hard.

Despite my father’s disability and days of hunting in rough conditions, I still caught quite a bit of grief about being a “female killer.” I will be honest, it’s something I don’t need and don’t appreciate. I have hunted on and off with hounds since I was 16 years old and have had my own dogs for four seasons now. In total, I have harvested one mature tom myself (after 3 years of hunting lions) and allowed my dad to harvest his first cat after a memorable hunt with him.

I am of the opinion that too many guys are killing smaller toms. If we want more lions, we need to leave more lions in the tree. This should include females and TOMS. I guess I am of the opinion that the more toms we have, the more often females can get bred and the more tracks we have to run. I certainly don’t think me killing two lions in over ten years of hunting is overharvest and I certainly don’t need to hear it from some older timers who knock every tom they catch out of the tree.

The reality is, in most states, it is up to houndsmen to regulate lion harvest. We all need to be smart and put our egos aside. To me this extends beyond leaving females. It means looking up at a lion, realizing it is a nice tom, maybe even a tom someone else would kill in a second, and walking away knowing that maybe next week, maybe next month or even maybe next year you will get to hear your dogs trail that same lion in an adjacent canyon and with some luck get to hear them barking treed.

Good post though, there is a lot to consider before harvesting a lion. We all need to be conscious of our future and the future of lions. I appreciate your thoughts and wisdom on the subject.

Ian Chestnut

Mike,

Good post! More simply put. I would add if a guy has to feed their dogs everthing they put on the wood. They are surely hunting the wrong caliber dogs.

Take care,Willie

I have spent a lot of time extolling the benefits of not taking females and sub adult lions. It is really nice when a houndsman talks about catching a lion and taking pictures and letting it go. Here in southeast Utah we have a harvest objective unit. When a good snow hits outfitters move in and the lions get killed. The female quota was hit february 9th. Unit was shut down. I caught a female twice this year in the same area, she had a cub that was in the forty pound range. She is gone, saw the young ones tracks dont know if he or her will last I doubt it. I had the question put to me why should we let them go only to be killed by someone for a dollar. I can't really come up with an answer. I guess Utah is accomplishing it's goals.

i would just like to say that this topic is a very good one to talk about and it is very good to hear other peoples opinions on this subject. Dogwork is the number one thing ( i think that is ). The second thing is how is taking that animal going to make you feel? Everyone has a different idea of a trophy!!

I like this post alot. Im from michigan and we hear about guys doing this with bear in the raining season killing cubs out to dogs to get them going for the yr i find it unethical. we do take a select few females but with the knowledge of a months worth of pictures from a bait sight that say she is a lone bear and even then we try to only take them if the are known dog fighters/killers. I have also came west for a few years now with my dogs after lion and our first lion was a 5 yr old female whos track we had cut several times and never found there to be young traks with her. After several atempts in poor snow to run old tom tracks we ran this female of a fresh kill and treed her about 3/4 of a mile away my girlfriend decided to harvest her and did she was a 110 lb female that was dry and i dont belive she had any sub adults with her as there was nothing to indicat she had in the several times we found her tack. Now there is nothing wrong with this leagaly i have had mixed feelings about it since and have made the personal decison to not take females or sub trophy class males in the future. regardless if you " pull the trigger" or not that is forever your cat you treed it and let it go. also just how many lions can one person display in there home .lol so when it comes to all game just know it never feels bad when you decide to let one walk.

That's the difference between a hound hunter and a houndsman. I know way too many people whether it be hound guys or deer hunters with the same mindset, if I don't shoot it someone else will. Well I'll tell ya, if you shoot it, the animal has zero chance and if you don't shoot it the animal at least has a chance at surviving. That's a good enough chance for me..

To me.... there is the rule: (Mike Leonard's post), the exception to the rule: (Im Chestnut's post) and then the general rule that dead lions don't make tracks and don't make lions.

This was a good post. Even outfitters here in Colorado need to start realizing if they continue killing females and sub adults they are jeopardizing the future of running hounds in our state. I have no problem with running females for training and releasing them but the killing of females is getting out of hand. The division has simply asked all of us to limit the take of females and if we dont they will change our quotas. The guys killing the females will be the first to complain.

One other comment I would like to make is that not everyone can afford to buy top quality dogs. Some of us do it for fun and work other jobs. The dogs I raise and train myself mean more to me than a dog that was purchased and trained by someone else.

excellent topic! We have our share of female/kit killing people out in this part of the state as well trying to make a quick buck. What these people dont realize is that letting smaller animals go now will save them extra mileage driven in the long run. Now at days a lot of people shoot out everything that goes up a tree to prove to people they can catch. I guess they will realize the value of not killing everything they tree, when they end up driving around for 2-3 weeks at a time looking for any track to run and they cant find any because they decided, at one time or another, that putting money in their pockets or proving to friends that their dogs can catch game was more important than having game to run in the future.

So, how do you sell this mindset to the "outfitter" (I mean houndsman ) that wants to make a quick buck. Or the "best houndsman in Colorado, actually the best houndsman in the western US" that ONLY shoots females when they're "problem cats"??

Here's a sad example:

http://forums.bowsite.com/tf/bgforums/t ... S=51&FF=16

READ : "Late in the day I found two tracks that were too cold to track. The next morning I found the same two tracks on a cow elk kill. One of the tracks looked like a good one. The track was smoking and the dogs were all over it. It went probably a mile and over three ridges before it treed."

Obviously, the "good one" was the mom and the other (smaller one) was her kitten!

Wonder if these same hunters would be so proud to post a story and pics of a lactating doe deer they just killed, knowing that they had just orphaned her spotted fawn, after having evidence (tracks) that the fawn was standing beside her? Or worse yet, would 20+ "hunters" give a huge congrats for that accomplishment....as displayed in the above link???

Ego, ego, ego. . . . . what a shame!

This is one HELL of a post! Mike you hit the nail on the head. Im in it to watch the dogs do there job and be proud that I taught them to do it, or helped them with what they are already born to do. Here where I live we have gone to a kill season on any cats. They overharvested females in one are. They are redirecting are elk problem away from the wolves and to the cats. I know of some out of staters that came and killed 3 females just cause they could. I support anyone coming to the wonderful state I live in and chase lions. Just dont think you have to kill anything you can. This is an awesome post.

Great subject for a discussion. I am new to hunting lion and have been trying for almost five years now. I have never treed a lion before and dream of the first time my pups do tree. Last weekend a fresh snow fell and I cut a track that I thought was very fresh. There had been no snow the day before. I loosed my hound and the Mac dog struck right away. My two one year old walkers did a good job I feel and stuck with him for most of the run. I did not tree that lion but the sound of the baying hounds electrified me and my girlfriend. It was her first time ever to hear a hound running game. She was so excited right up to the end when the pups lost the track. Hunting values is something I was taught at a young age. I believe that when the time comes I will make the correct choice. The gentlemen that commented on how he felt ashamed for letting is father harvest a female I belived made the correct choice for he and his father. My father is getting old and I take him hunting with me every oppurtunity I can and my daughters. We need to share our value with the younger generation to maintain a sport that all can enjoy. As hunters we are the only ones who can save our tradition and heritage of hunting against some many that would take it away. If the older hunters and young hunter do not instill good values in the coming generation those things we love will surely be taken from us.

I wish states would mandate toms only. Seems like there is always some kind of justification for killing a female. The result however is the same. Dont understand the rationale of expressing concern for the future of the game, and then engaging in practices that are detrimental to that game! Double standard? Do as I say, not as I do?