GRONG

Well I was just heading out today to go back up and set up camp and then be in my treestand in the morning but my Dad called me this AM and said he was on a huge lion track. I got out there quick and it was quite the chase. About 3 or so we finally got the lion. You talk about OLD!!! This sucker was tore up bad! Probably from another tom lion, he had serious cuts and tears in him, puncture marks in his back and chest. His right eye was all tweaked and he had a gaping hole in his right thigh. This dude had seen better days thats for sure.

Hey PT send me the picture and I'll get it downsized for you.

Ok, here's the events in a nutshell of the days that i got to sit on stand. Every buck I did see during my sits I have pictures of from my cameras so that was cool. Day 1, absolutely no deer at all. 9 1/2hrs on stand Day 2, small 2x3, maybe 50" at most, comes into 12 yards and I pass him but I thought I was gonna have a heart attack, buck fever you know. I had to keep saying to myself, "Quit freakin out and calm your sorry butt down, you're not even gonna shoot for crying out loud!". I kinda laughed at myself. There were 2 other bucks on the slope that didn't come close and one was a nice mid 90's 3pt that bedded down at 55 yards only to get up later and walk away. Around 2:30 a mid 70's 3pt was trying to get a couple of does in the mood but they eventually left him. 10 hrs on stand. Day 3, just before sunup I heard a couple bucks sparring less than 100 yards from me but couldn't see them. About 7:30 I spotted behind me what I think was the same to does as the evening before. They went up on the hill where I'd heard the sparring and one of the bucks tried his turn on them but they ditched them again. After about 20min both bucks casually came wandering off the hill in front of my stand. They fed across to my left and came thru an opening around 40 yards. The lead buck was a wide 2pt, approx 70" or so and the other, a 3pt in the mid 70's I'd guess. I drew on them just to see if I could get away with it and held on both of them but knew that I didn't want to shoot at either... yet. They piddled around just sniffing the air, all the while my wind was blowing right at them pretty hard. Anyway, they eventually turned back and eventually bedded at 55-65yds away. No matter how much I rattled or grunted at them they could've cared less. They stayed bedded for an hour and a half and the entire time the wind was at my back. Eventually they got up and wandered off, leaving me all along once again. Can't remember too much more happening that day. 10hrs on stand. Day 4 I had a little change up. My friend Dave Eklund was camped with me, he had a rifle tag. About 1 the day before he jumped a lion off of a brand new kill. He shot and missed and couldn't get a good enough shot to try again. So my dad showed up the next morning with his dogs. All 3 of us walked down to check the kill first (muley spike by the way). Sure enough the lion had been back. We walked back up to the truck and dad sent me back down with 2 dogs just to see if they could get things lined out. After a few minutes of a few barks and some roaming around dad sent another dog down to me. All the dogs went down and across the draw and immediately jumped the lion out of some brush not 50 yards from me and it jumped in a big oak tree. I couldn't believe it. Dad and I were both expecting a typical day long chase up over and thru a few canyons in hopes of getting a glimpse of it. This was our day I guess. Dave popped him with a .357 to get #8 of his big 10. Day 5, I sat in stand till about noon I think w/o seeing a thing so I said to heck with it. I got out of stand and put up 2 digital trail cams over some awesome scrapes I found, hiked back to the truck and drove home for Christmas Eve. The 27th I got a call from a good friend who had shot twice with his rifle right at dark at a huge buck right at dark but didn't touch him. I sacrificed a day in stand to go out with him the next morning to see if we could get him. I glassed up the buck way down the canyon but he was moving across the slope up towards but across from me and away from Dave, who was on the hill next to me about a 1/3 of a mile away. The buck finally walked up on a doe with 2 fawns and the game was on. Dave never had enough time to get from the hill he was on, to mine, in order to shoot in time. The buck eventually walked over a saddle and that ended our search. I'll post pics of him a little later. So Day 6 finds me back in the stand before sunrise, wondering what I missed the day before of course. About 8 I heard a buck pawing in the oak leaves probably freshening a scrape. He finally showed himself off to my right. By this time I had told myself that this late in the season if that ugly 2pt comes near me he's gonna get some carbon flung his way in hopes of filling a tag and ridding him of the gene pool. He was all alone and I grunted at him a time or two. He was about 80yds away but this time he paid me a little more attn when I grunted. He kept trying to walk away but the grunts finally got his interest and he turned around and slowly came my way. He unfortunately was in the thickest crap he could've been in and had to keep going around fallen pine trees so he couldn't just walk right over to me. I stood up and turned to my right incase a shot opp arose. I ranged a clearing where I thought he would come thru at 50 yards. He went behind some trees and I drew. When he hit the clearing I had my 50yd pin on him and made a couple noises to stop him. He stopped broadside and I let her fly! It all happened so dang fast I really am not sure what the crap happened. By the time I let it go, him flinching(I think), the arrow somehow managed to find it's way towards his head. Last I saw the arrow it was deflecting off of his right antler. He jumped and ran maybe 40yds at most, shook his head and went back to feeding as if nothing had happened. My nerves were wrecked and my knees were about to buckle so I had to sit the heck down and relax! Anything with antlers still just rocks me when it comes time to shoot!!! So anyway, he walked off and about 45min later a small 2pt walks across the hill in front of my stand. In mid walk the darn thing plops down and beds at 42yds, facing me. Luckily his head and shoulder were behind a tree so I didn't have to suffer with having a staring contest with a little fella. Anywho, about 30min later he got up and walked off. Around 11:30 I got sicker than crap and had to get the heck out of the stand. I got the heck out of there and did what you have to do when your sick and slowly ambled back to the stand. Since I knew I didn't have the energy to sit anymore I decided to check one of my cameras. Sure as heck the freakin day before, here's 4 pics of the huge eyeguarded 2x4 buck that I've dreamed of getting a chance at, worked the scrape over at 5PM!!!! Who knows if he woulda given me a shot but it woulda been neat as heck to see the sucker in real life for once! That's the way it goes I guess. I took the next day off for sick leave and enjoyed the heck out of my 8 month old son and wife. Day 7, today. I got all clean shaven and pretty (LOL) thinking this is the day it was all gonna happen. I sat for a little over 10 flippin hours and never saw a dang deer! So that's how my season ended. Hopefully I'll get to sit for another 3-4 days this coming week but I got to pay bills too so it's time to start chasing those mountain lions again.

I've seen that truck too. Isn't there a big rainbow sticker on the tailgate as well? HA HA! Just kidding!

Wow speaking of those I know of a whole slope of a ridge in 21 that is covered in geods. Those things are pretty cool. I did haul a pretty nice one out and it's in my yard.

Here's a picture of my good friend Pat Feldt and his enormous lion he got a few years back. He said he weighed it and gutted, it was 130lbs. Now if many of you are'nt familiar with a cat's inner organs, there's not much to them. So Pat's lion was probably in the 145-150lb range. Freakin huge for an Arizona mountain lion.

Buckhorn, I don't remember what lion you're talking about. We've chased several lions(key word there is chased) lately and I can't think of one that disappeared over a ridge. .270, Believe me, I'm not calling anyone a liar here at all but some of that stuff sounds like one heck of a "hunting story" if I've ever heard one. If they were 14 and 11 at the time and killed a 10' long cat and a 1000lb grizzly with a single shot .22, sounds like a whole lot of "hunting stories" going on there. Again, not calling anyone a liar but as far as the weights of lions go, a whole lot of people think a female will weigh 150 lbs here in the desert. Maybe in Alberta but here south of the Colorado River, I don't know. My Dad has been professionally hunting lions for over 35 years and has caught his far share of cats and this is the biggest one he ever caught, by far. Tony Mandile actually killed it. Couldn't tell you how big the skull was as the taxidermist mixed up a smaller lion for this one and Tony didn't get his skull or his full body mount, what a shame!!!! Obviously it's a huge cat, probably pushing 180+lbs but I'm telling you it's the biggest cat he's ever caught. Caught it on Bunker Hill, south of Flagstaff, in 6B. I killed a 120-130lb lion, (we actually weighed that one whole but the scale only went to 120lbs so we guessed at the actual weight) back in '98 and Dad was pretty impressed with that one. At the time it was "just another lion" to me. There's actually a short video clip of me shooting him with my bow on my site. http://rimrock-outfitters.com/images/joshslion.mov Regardless, I've seen a lot of dead lions in my life time and some that I know were smaller than my 120+lb lion and the hunter claimed was around 200lbs. I think it's just an ignorant error that a lot of people make just cause they don't know. The old lion we killed last week, the guy told me that he thinks it'll be 15 1/2". Now I know it's got a big head on it but I'm not gonna say till the thing is boiled out. As you probably well know, a 15" skull is pretty freakin huge! I think it's over 14" but I don't know how much more. We didn't measure the lion either but I'll ask the guy to run a tape over the hide. I know that won't be an actual body measurement, cause you can stretch a hide, but I'll ask him.

Man I'd love to find a nice muley like that someday. Next time, for proportion's sake, have someone hold them that way we can see how big it actually is. That way there won't be any confusion as to what species it is and it'll show us just how freakin nice it is too. Thanks for posting the pics, awesome!!

I'm thinking about hitting it for the next couple of days, we'll see. I'll let you guys know if anything good happens.

TLH, I think I would be spooked but also be in awe of what I was looking at. To be the first person to see something like that since they laid him to rest would be unreal. I woulda loved to have taken pictures of something like that. Like you, and probably many others, I wouldn't have taken anything but just realized how cool and rare it would be to see something like that. Wow man thanks for sharing that was probably the coolest thing anyone has shared so far!! Awesome! Oh and what is naval jelly and where can I get some?

Dude that was awesome! Thanks for the pics and the story. I've got one ? though, how do you post so many pics in one post? Isn't there a 100kb limit or something? I can never get more than one in my posts, unless I make them really small.

Bill, No there wasn't at all. It was in an awful canyon and on the slope of it, bad place for a cabin or a tent for that matter.

Here's another of it.

Lance that was some pretty cool stuff you mentioned there! Vinihunt, that is freakin awesome to find an old pistol like that! I forgot a major one that I found, it was the metal part of an old rifle. You know, the part that houses the bullets and trigger. For the life of me I can't remember what that is called! I was working in Sedona at the Red Rock State Park back in the early 90's and found it while looking for pottery and arrowheads around the old fields that the Homesteaders used to farm. I gave it to the park but I bet it's just in some drawer somewhere. Back in the 80's my Dad was lion hunting on Mingus Mountain horseback in the snow up behind Potato Patch. I'm thinking he was on the Woodchute Trail. Anyway, his horse stepped on the tip of a scabbard under the snow and it popped up and the guy riding behind him saw it. There was a real nice hunting rifle in it that someone during the recent deer hunts had lost off of their horse. I just found this picture and had to share it with all of you. Ol Redbeard and I were hunting in 22 several years ago and found these GIANT agave plants. We'd seen them from up on the rim about 1000 vertical feet up and weren't really sure what the crap they were. Anyway, a launched and missed arrow at a whitetail buck soon turned into a shed antler hunt. We ended up walking by these beasts and Redbeard took a couple pics of me standing by them. I'm 6' tall so that will give you some perspective. I've NEVER seen anything like that in northern AZ, maybe Texas but not here. Has anyone else seen ones like this anywhere? Oh and by the way I think we found 7 sheds between the 2 of us.

You know I've thought about wearing my Thrasher shirt incase I killed one. I'd have to take some trophy shots with my buck and my shirt just to crack you up! LOL!! Maybe it'll do just the trick to turn things in my favor.

Oh man that is a freakin nice lion for sure!!! Way to go man and thanks for sharing. Some pretty hounds that guy has! Glad some of our luck rubbed your way. Must have been the comment you had just made to your friend before you got to the kill that made it all work! LOL! Great picture of your cat in the tree too!

WOW, freakin nice!!!! Love the cheaters for sure!!!

Uh oh. I kinda like Remodeled. Sucks to have to change your handle though, not that you do but I know what you're saying. How bout Retired?

Good grief, a guy brought by his 18yr old son's first Coues buck and I measured it at 104 5/8" gross! What a nice buck for a first buck, sheesh. I also got a picture of the 123" gross NT buck killed in 6A too. I'll ask the guy if it's OK to post it b4 I do.

I can't believe all the stories about big bucks being killed in 6A this year. My dang backyard for crying out loud!! I know of a couple legit bucks so far that have been taken that are toads! A 122" NT buck, a 115" typ 4x4, a gorgeous 108" 3pt with big butt eyeguards and just this morning a friend of mine from Cottonwood hammered a monster 122" gross 3x4!!! GAACK!!! Unfreakin real! I'll try to get a lot more of the specifics for all to read and see. I'm hoping to get my hands on the one my buddy killed tomorrow eve after I'm done smacking that big 2x4 from my stand of course! I'll get pics soon!

Happy birthday to Bowhunter89 and Ryan today!!

HAHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHA!!!! I hate pit bulls and I wouldn't trust them for nothing!

RAC, it was in 6A. No problem BUCKHORN. ARIZONA GUIDE, That's an awfully nice comment, I'll pass it to my dad. You're right, dry ground hunting is as tough as it gets too. As dry as it has been the past few months have been PERFECT for what we love to do. Soon as it snows you'll have every wanna-be lion hunter out there running every road in the state 24 hrs a day. That's fine with us cause we'll already have caught them by the time it snows. .270, the head on that lion is pretty darn big. It's hard to tell from pics you see of guys holding a lion under the armpits that looks like it's got a african lion head on it. You cut away all the meat that's on a lions head and you'll see how big they really aren't.... most of the time they'll fool ya. This lion had no meat on his head or the rest of him for that matter. In his day he was probably well over 130lbs, when we got him he was lucky to be 80lbs. Seriously, if you can't tell from the pics the thing was all withered and just plain shrivelled up. It'd be like going into an old folk's home and taking out the oldest dude in there. I'm curious to see how big the skull is and how old he was. Hopefully our luck will continue and I'll post a few more pics of dead lions before it's all said and done. Later guys

Nice bucks for sure!! JEEZ!!!!!!

That's Erv Earl and his buddies, they took those back in Oct. Gil is the name of the guy that shot the drop-tined buck. I think it went 109". Freakin awesome!