Hunt Report: 2013 CO Mt Lion - Beginner's Luck

Hi there.

A new friend offered to let me tag along on a Mt Lion hunt today.  Conditions weren't great for finding a fresh track but it is kind of like fishing, you have to have a line in the water if you are going to have a chance.

We drove up some mountain roads as the sun was rising, looking for tracks from the road.  Our first road revealed nothing of any interest, so we went to another one.  On the second road, we stopped almost as soon as we started and I was told something like "the pain starts here".  We were essentially parked at the bottom of a canyon and it was steep every direction I looked.  Those of you that know me, know I don't do much in the way of exercise unless I'm packing a rifle, and October was the last time I packed a rifle any distance.  I thought hunting season was over and the winter layer is pretty thick.  I was pretty winded trying to keep up with a young whippersnapper and a pack of dogs but I made it to the top of the ridge and eventually caught my breath.

We climbed the ridge a ways and stumbled into some tracks that looked a couple days old.  It had been about 2 weeks since it snowed at this point and things had been melting fast the last couple days.  The dogs showed some interest and we found some skat that wasn't that old either.  We had found some chunks of deer hide and leg bones just down the ridge too.  Lion country!  We had the tracks going in both directions but two of the dogs were real interested in following one set.  It wasn't more than a couple minutes and we could hear them getting excited.   We could hear them howling and the gps tracking collars showed them pretty stationary which was a good sign.

After sliding down a pretty steep slope several times, we finally caught up with the dogs and sure enough, they were trying to climb a tree.  And, there was a cat standing on a branch mid way up the tree.

Walking up on the treed Mt Lion.

It was obvious that it wasn't a big cat, which pretty much means it is a female.  When we got to the base of the tree and could get a good look at her, we noticed that it looked like she was nursing kittens which is a deal breaker on shooting the females which are legal in Colorado.   This one got to live.  Catch and release.

The dark spots on her belly were indications that she had feeding kittens.

I had never seen a mountain lion before, let alone stand 15 ft below one.  That was cool, but the coolest part was watching the dogs and how excited they were to be doing their job.  They have an amazing desire to get those cats and would climb right up there and tie into them if they could.  The little guys must never look in the mirror...

A rare picture of our helpers with most of their feet on the ground.

One last photo before calling the dogs off.