Azlongears Report post Posted April 12, 2007 It has been a busy last five days for the dogs, ha ha. Dogman and I caught that nice lion on Friday on the Kaibab, and Tuedsay morning Becker helped me run this one down in the Rincons. We got a call about a calf kill and Becker was on his way to put a trail cam on it. Dogman was helping Grong at work and couldn't go so I grabbed a few of his hounds and mine and headed out. We got lucky and the lion came back and fed on the calf. We got the dogs started on the track and away they went. The lion traveled about 3.5 miles and it took us 2 hours to catch up to him. Which was pretty amazing considering we were only about 45 minutes behind him when we started!! Hap bird dogged him (like usual) out in front of the other hounds and ran him up an old Juniper. As we were taking some pictures and getting the dogs tied up underneath the lion he got a little uneasy and jumped on us. The lion quickly gained on the dogs and we were off again on another race. After about 30 minutes of the dogs not really picking up the track we began to lose hope. Then Becker heard Hap barking treed up the canyon a ways and went to check on him. He got up there to see Hap barking at an empty tree, but it wasn't the tree the dog was barking at. He was barking at a hole in the canyon face that this lion had retreated to and the dogs had just over ran him. By the time we got up to Becker(a matter of a few minutes) that lion had grabbed every dog that stuck it's head in the hole and tore them up pretty good. We quickly got all the dogs tied except my Bonnie dog, she stuck her head in the hole and that lion had had enough. He some how grabbed her by the meat between her ears and was not letting go. I had hold of her tail so the lion would not pull her rest of the way in. What happened next none of us will ever forget. As you could imagine it was a pretty intense few minutes (even more so than walking a narrow ledge to rescue a dog). We got the Rancher up along side the hole and came up with a plan. The hole was so tight that when the lion would pull on the dog she would completley cover the opening. So the only thing we could do was have a little tug of war with a lion using poor Bonnie. The Rancher grabbed the dog's tail with his left hand and pulled her back just enough so he could see the lion's face just over the dogs head, with her hide still in his jaws!!! He then layed the barrel of his pistol on the top of the hounds head and I'll be damned if he didn't shoot that lion square between the eyes!!! It was amazing, the dog was saved and we had the lion. It was an adventure to say the least. Randy thanks for the use of such finely trained hounds, and I couldn't have done it without Devin keeping me straight as to which were lion tracks and which were dog tracks all morning! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WHT_MTNMAN Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Crazy and cool pics and stories.... One of these days I'll get back behind some good dogs, my first dog was a black and tan that treed a many of the neighbors cats..... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
COOSEFAN Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Awesome job to you guys and the dogs! That's gotta be one heck of an experience!!! Is that Bonnie in the last pic on the right? She's probably a little longer head to tail now hope she heals fast, great pic's, thanks JIM> Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
firstcoueswas80 Report post Posted April 12, 2007 holy crap!!! now thats a lion!!!! that thing is huge! what is estimated weight? looks about 130 or so to me but i could be way off Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KGAINES Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Congrats to you guys and your dogs, awesome story. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CouesWhitetail Report post Posted April 12, 2007 I hear they did get it on video and my friend will be dropping it off at my house Friday so I can make some DVDs for the guys. Should be interesting video! I can probably put the clip up here too if you want Andy. Amanda Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
azcouesandelk Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Great job Andy those are some awesome pics!!! What did that cat end up weighing? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ForkHorn Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Wow that is a amazing story. Sounds like Hap is quite a dog. Great job on the huge cat. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Azlongears Report post Posted April 12, 2007 The lion field dressed just over 100 lbs, we were guessing 120 live weight? Amanda- He got some great footage, you are welcome to put any of it on here. No footage of the dogs in the hole with it though, we all were doing the best we could to hold the dogs back, cameras wern't exactly a priority at the time, ha ha. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
azryan Report post Posted April 12, 2007 you cant beat a story like that....awesome stuff Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
111 Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Wow...what what a story, the best part was when he shot the lion between the eyes, I was a bit irritated with that lion until then.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Huntn coues Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Holly molly... What a story.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coues 'n' Sheep Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Son of a......!! Man!! No such thing as routine, when out chasin' Kitties.... That sounds like quite the adventure.... glad it ended well! Congrats!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cramerhunts Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Sounds like you had one heck of an experience on that one. Great pictures and story. Thanks for sharing it with us. I too hope the dogs heal quickly. Congrats on such a nice Cat..stay after em guys. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
azyoung Report post Posted April 12, 2007 Awesome Story and Pics Thanks! azyoung Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
