A BIG KITTY HUNT!

Lots of cat hunting this year.  Got these photos and story in an email yesterday....

Just got back from one of the hardest, most physical, and challenging hunts I have ever experienced. I was in Salida, Colorado last week hunting mountain lions with dogs. We had a pretty slow start without any good snow to make for any good tracking. As luck would have it about mid week it started snowing but the down fall to that was that it wouldnt quit.

The outfitter assured me that if I had the time to hold out until the snow quit we would get a lion. On my seventh straight day of hunting we cut a fresh lion track about 7:30 in the morning. The outfitter looked at the track and said that we would get this lion.

After having been gone from home now for nearly 10 days I tried not to get my hopes up. We let the dogs out and took them to the fresh track and in the seven days I had been hunting had never seen those dogs react like they did then. The took off on that track like they were being pulled by a freight train.

As we stayed near the truck and listened and monitored them with the radio collars we started to hear the baying barks. This is when it got real interesting. Being a flat lander from good ole Texas I wasnt looking forward to reaching the area where the dogs where baying. The outfitter assured me that the dogs would hold the cat at bay till we got there and to just take my time.

Well that I did, about two hours later the outfitter and I reached the top of Trout Creek Loop mountain which he guessed at about 10,000 ft. elevation and 2+ miles from where we let the dogs out. As we worked to the top we were definitely right on the dogs. As we rounded a rock outcrop there it was, the first mountain lion I had seen all week other than tracks and fresh elk and mule deer kills.

As we closed in I snapped the picture you see with the dogs baying the cat out on the rock. When we reached the cat it was swatting and throwing the dogs around like rag dolls but they didnt give up. As the outfitter started calling the dogs off the cat he told me to get ready. I ended up shoooting the cat with my 44 mag. Super Redhawk but not until it decided to latch on to one of the dogs heads and put a few battle scars on several of them.

All in all it was a awesome hunt and by far the largest adrenaline rush I have ever experienced. The outfitter estimated the cat and just over 130lbs. and after skinning out it measured 7' 10" from tip to tip. Most definitely one of my most prized and rewarding trophies.