Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Stories! As hunters and outdoors people that seems to be a common thing we all have lots of. Join your amateur guide and host on this channel Ken as he gets tales from guys and gals. Chasing that trophy buck for years to an entertaining morning on the duck pond, comedian ones, to interesting that's what you are going to hear. Also along with some general hunting discussions from time to time but making sure to leave political talks out of it. Don't take this too serious as we sure don't! If you enjoy this at all or find it fun to listen to, we really appreciate if you would subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for. checking us out! We are also on fb as Hunts on outfitting, and instagram. We are on YouTube as Hunts on outfitting podcast.
Hunts On Outfitting Podcast
Lions, Hounds, And Culverts: A Lion Hunter`s Journey
A mountain lion's paw print in fresh snow means something different to Scott of Montana Mountain Lion Adventures—it's the beginning of a primal pursuit that represents one of hunting's most specialized traditions. Through decades of experience training "long, sophisticated tracking machines" (his hounds), Scott has developed a deep understanding of both the cats he pursues and the dogs that help him do it.
From his childhood fascination with a life-sized mountain lion mount in his family's kitchen to becoming president of the Montana State Hounding Association, Scott's journey reveals the extraordinary patience and perseverance required to master this craft. He shares the pivotal moment when an ornery but skilled local hunter took him under his wing, leading to his first successful mountain lion hunt and the realization that his previous failures weren't due to a lack of tracking ability but working with dogs unsuited to Montana's challenging conditions.
Scott provides fascinating insights into his selective breeding approach—by 18 months, his dogs must independently trail and tree lions, and by 30 months, they must perform on dry ground without snow to assist tracking. His commitment to quality over quantity is evident in his guiding philosophy, typically using only three dogs when most would run six or seven, ensuring every hound genuinely contributes to the hunt.
Beyond the hunt itself, Scott's participation in Montana's Mountain Lion Monitoring Program reveals surprising scientific discoveries about these predators. GPS-collared cats have shown that while some lions kill deer weekly, others might survive 20 days between major kills, relying on smaller prey. Perhaps most striking is the evidence that mortality rates in non-hunted lion populations closely match those in areas with well-managed hunting quotas, challenging common assumptions about conservation approaches.
Call Scott directly to discuss booking a hunt—with only a limited number of clients accepted each year and typically booked 1-2 years in advance, these specialized experiences require advance planning but deliver an authentic connection to one of hunting's most challenging pursuits.
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this is hunts on outfitting podcast. I'm your host and rookie guide, ken meyer. I love everything hunting, the outdoors and all things associated with it, from stories-tos, you'll find it here. Welcome to the podcast, All right. Yes, Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate it. We'd also appreciate it if you had the time to leave us a rating or review on Apple or Spotify, All right.
Speaker 1:So this week, what are we talking about on the podcast? Well, we're talking with Scott with Montana Mountain Lion Adventures. This week on the podcast, Scott is going to talk to us all about himself, how he got into it and what it's like using man's best friend to track down and tree these magnificent, unique, tough and huge beasts. I mean these cats. You think about how tough and strong you know some barn cat is. These are mountain lions. So, uh, it takes a special kind of person and hounds to get it done and that's what we're going to learn about. Stay tuned. Yeah, Scott, I mean, uh, thanks for coming on and you know before, I'm excited to talk about mountain lions, hunting them, all about them, and everything, the use of the hounds. But before we get into that, who's Scott? How'd you get into where you're at today?
Speaker 2:Well, my dad has been an outfitter since the 70s, so I kind of grew up with all aspects as a youth hunter. And then on the side, my dad did taxidermy. And when I was a little kid, we always had this life-size mountain lion in our kitchen because it didn't fit anywhere else in our house, and I was always fascinated with this mountain lion. I didn't give it much thought until I was about 11. And my dad wanted me to get a bear in Montana with this mountain lion. Um, I didn't give it much thought until I was about 11. And, uh, my dad wanted me to get a bear in the Montana. He had to be 12 times. And so we got some dogs from Utah, some hounds, and hauled them up to an outfitter in British Columbia. And on that trip I was more excited to to be around these dogs, um, the longer sophisticated tracking machines I call them Then. Then I was to go on a bear hunt. I didn't really care about the bear. I want to play with the dogs. Um, so that that's kind of what triggered it, and from that time on I always wanted a lion. Um, so that that's kind of what triggered it, and from that time on I always wanted a lion. Um it it first. I want it. I want a hound, but my parents wouldn't let me get one.
Speaker 2:Um, so life went on. I went through high school. Um, I started running with some guys when I could in high school and we could never catch cats. Um, so I went to college, um, and would come home on the weekends and hunt. And as soon as I got out of college, I I started hitting it pretty hard, like a lot of guys would do. I'd look for a lion and then call somebody to come run it. Well, I did that for two years and nobody ever caught a cat. I'd call them off the track, they wouldn't show up whatever. And the one individual we just we never caught the cats.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking, man, catching these mountain lions is tough work, um, and then there was this gentleman that he felt sorry for me and he was kind of the elite lion hunter of the area and an older guy and kind of ornery. And one day he just told me he said you know, you've put your time in, you can go with me tomorrow. So I went hunting with him the next day and we treated this cat and I was so excited to finally get to see him out in the land. And the cat jumped out of the tree right when we got there and I said now what he said well, that's it. He said my dog knows how to count and that's the third time it's jumped. I'm going to go back to my truck. He said go get my dog and bring it back to my truck.
Speaker 2:And I mean, this guy didn't use tracking cars or nothing, he didn't believe in any technology. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't, I don't know what to do. So I'm like, just what? Get your dog? He said just follow dog tracks. Eventually you'll find my dog. If it catches the cat, you can shoot it. I'm going to go to the truck. And he just left and I didn't know what to do. My buddy goes what do we do? I said I guess we follow the dog man. This guy will kill us if we don't get his dog. So we're following dog tracks in the snow. We didn't know any better.
Speaker 2:And the dog had treated the lion right over the hill. Again, we didn't have a leash, so we took our belts off and tied around the dog's neck and uh, I, I shot the lion. Yeah and uh, anyway, we, we went back down to the truck and he was sitting in the truck smoking a cigarette, drinking some whiskey, and he said oh yeah, you got a lion, and so that that kind of kicked it off. And that night I knew that the last four or five years I've been doing it wrong. It wasn't wasn't that I wasn't finding lion tracks, it was that I was hunting with guys that didn't have qualified dogs for the environment. We were hunting in in the conditions.
Speaker 2:So the next day I went and got a dog and then from then on I just never looked back and, you know, I went to get my degree. You know, at this time I've now graduated college and I had a very good paying job at the time, um, but I knew right then that this is it I'm. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hunt these dogs, I'm gonna be a hound guy. And this, this job at this, mine wouldn't, wouldn't guarantee me the 10 days off off work that I needed. So I quit and I decided that I was just going to make my passion my profession. Like that's it. I'm going to make a living with my dogs one way or the other.
Speaker 2:And so I went back to the outfitting world with my dad and would guide deer and elk hunters and fishing trips and everything and trail rides all summer and then come wintertime I would lion hunt and my dad had to go through a two-year process in order to obtain the legal permitting to add mountain lions under our permit.
Speaker 2:So he did that and then I started guiding a couple of lion hunters a year and then just to make enough money to survive, and then I would go work for other outfitters for free around the state just so I could get more lions under my dogs, you know, trying to build good dogs. And then, kind of after that, I just I did that for I don't know years and then in 2015, I'd spent probably 10, 12 years running hunts for my dad and then in 2015, I got my own outfair's license and we started Montana Mountain Lion Adventures. So all I did was lion hunt and then, when I wasn't lion hunting, I guided for my dad for Iron Road Guest Ranch that we ended up buying in 2019. So a typical year for me is we'd run dogs, you know, December 1st to April 14th, and then coon hunt in the summer and start doing fishing trips and and bear hunts and trail rides and archery elk and rifle elk and just be around. That's kind of what I've done my whole life now for elk and just be around.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what I've done my whole life now. Wow, so you're living the dream, but it sounds like you paid your dues to try to get to that position to live your dream. Yeah, no, I thought that was interesting. On your website it said that you're a second-generation houndsman, or not houndsman, sorry, second-generation outfitter. So I assume, though, just how you've made your passion and your profession a lot of work focusing on the lion hunting, that you grew up around hounds and all that. But that's interesting to see your family you guys never had any growing up.
Speaker 2:Well, kind of, my grandfather had dogs but I never really knew him. My grandfather had dogs but I never really knew him. And my dad had hounds but he got rid of the hounds when I was born.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:He didn't really have time to hunt them, but he had some guys from Oregon that were guided for him and they had plot dogs and so when they would come down they would bring their dogs. So I always grew up with hounds in the yard or around them one way or the other, but I never got to really experience them hunting-wise until I was older, you know, until I got into high school, before I really got to actually go with somebody with hounds and actually catch raccoons or whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah, that's that's uh, that's neat. So you, the one that you got with that old guy there, that was your first one. So you went through part of high school and then a few years out of it chasing cat, but just that was the first one that you actually had gotten treed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but just that was the first one that you actually had gotten treed. Yeah, I spent three years, uh, chasing cats on weekends and, uh, you know, winter break and whatnot, with other helmsmen um, that had dogs, experienced helmsmen, but we just couldn't catch cats, you know, and that would have been in 2003 and in 2003,. Let's see I could tell you right now. Uh, the lion population, the license sales, were an all-time high. There was a almost 7 000 licenses sold in 2003. So that's when montana came off of that that kick from the 90s, this big spike in lion hunting, and basically all our cats died. So it's pretty tough hunting for a while. And then it went back down and, you know, 2015 started coming back up, um, you know, and got to where we're at now with kind of going the other way again.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, so I, I guess I did that, and then the more I got into the dogs, the more I wanted to do more of it. Um, so I went to Idaho and guided bear hunts, again for free, because I could run my dogs that way on bears in Idaho as long as I held a guide's license and was with an outfitter, and then started transitioning where we would then go in August. All we had around here were raccoons. So I would go to Wisconsin and run bears in Wisconsin just for the fun of it, just go chase some bears, and then, oh I don't know, I guess in probably about five years ago I started working for FWP I guess six years ago as an independent contractor doing the Montana Mountain Lion Monitoring Program, yep, and we can get into that a little later if you want.
Speaker 2:But so now what I do is I just I lion hunt until April 15th and then we coon hunt and bear hunt. Now we can run bears in Montana. So we do a little bit of bear hunting here with dogs and then, uh, coon hunt aside from that, and then in August, when it's too hot, we have nothing to hunt here. We can't hunt other than raccoons. We go to Wisconsin and hunt a little bit over there and the dogs sit idle. Unfortunately, september, october, november we don't really get to hunt them. There's about three months of the year that they get exercised and coon hunted, but we don't really get to catch any cats or anything cool.
Speaker 1:Right and I imagine that kind of works out, because I'm guessing that's probably around your guys' deer and elk season, correct, yeah so they're happy there. Yeah, I'm sure those hunters are happy that there's not hounds out, I guess.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yep, so that's when we're tied into our deer and elk operation and I'm gone in our hunting. Camp location anyway, okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you got into this, I mean, how did you after you went with that guy and you realized that the problem was not experienced or good enough hounds, and then you got your own? Where did you source your hounds from? And then were you looking for any particular breeds, or were you bloodlines or anything?
Speaker 2:So this guy, he just recently passed away, but he liked to drink his beer a little bit at the bar and so of course I did what any 22 year old guy would do is I went to the bar with him and, uh, he said, hey, that guy there's got some dogs. He could give you one. So I went up and talked to the guy and he, he had these, um, very, very, very paper dogs. They were House of Lippard dogs that he had flown in from back east, and Walker dogs. And the guy said, oh, I'll give you one. He said I kept one for myself, you can have it. So this guy gives me this dog. He just liked me and knew I'd hunt the dog, I guess, and so I continued to hunt with. Are we allowed to say names on here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the guy that I really hunted with a lot, his name was Bob Herman, and so I continued to hunt with Bob and Bob is like 70 at this time, you know, 65 to 70. And so I took my pup and hunted with his. He had a leopard cur dog and he would only use one dog, um, and I had my walker dog now, so the two of us would hunt together, and now we had two dogs to hunt with, um, and so I kept going with him. But I wasn't at that time I wasn't looking for paper dogs, I was just looking for any dog that would hunt. Yeah, and this, this dog. I ended up winning I think I won the state championship field trials two or three years in a row with this dog, like he was the real deal. Yeah, um, I didn't know until later. The dog was growly, like it started taking time. Two or three years down the road I started noticing this dog was getting more aggressive and we'd start running with more dogs at the tree and he'd nip at the dog. It started dawning on me that this dog was an extremely good dog, but as he got older he got more aggressive, so he made it till a lion finally got him, uh, got him the ribs. And well, multiple things happened to this dog. One he ran a stick inside of his chest and the vet sewed him up and sent him home. They thought they'd fixed it but the x-ray showed it as a rib. They, unbeknownst to them, they sewed the dog up with stick inside of his rib cage and that created a blood infection and took him back in. They opened him up, found it, removed it. He never really came out of that. But I mean, I had the dog. He made it eight years of hard hunting and then finally I had to put him down.
Speaker 2:So now I'm at this conundrum of what do I do? I had bought a dog in the middle Meantime from Arizona, a dry ground blue tick dog, because I was always more fascinated with hunting on dirt than snow, and so I bought this other dog and it it really was nothing like like my, this lipper dog, as far as performance, and so I was kind of put back. Well, um, Bob had another friend that we hunted with quite a bit, and he he was diagnosed with cancer. His name was Robin, and so Robin, I mean he's gonna die. And he gives me his dogs. He says, hey, man, I'm not going to be here in four months, take my dogs, hunt them. So I already have a couple different dogs coming up. And now I had acquired Robin's dog and about this time Bob decides he's going to move back to Wisconsin and he wants me to keep his dog. So I went from having one really good dog and one medium dog to having like four or five dogs that were all good, strong, pack leader, like turnkey dogs that most guys would dream to have. Yeah, so all of a sudden I have this pack of like teared up dogs, pack of like teared up dogs.
Speaker 2:About that time the uh Forest Service permit District Ranger permit administrator for our outfitting permit starts getting concerned and he says uh, I'm a little worried here. He's like you caught enough dog power that you, single handedly are closing the quarters by yourself. You know, and I'm like and I was, you know, because I would go out with my friend and my friend's friend and you know there weren't clients but I have these dogs that were just getting the job done and uh, so they, they, they said well, you need to look at your permit, cause if you start guiding to this extent, you're you're going to kill every cat on the quota and the public's going to hate you. And I thought, well, that's probably true. I don't want to be an outfitter that kills every cat and then everybody hates me because of it.
Speaker 2:And I think all young guys you hear this all the time the new young guy that got five dogs takes his buddy and he kills everything you know. And I think that's a learning curve for a hound guy and I did it for a year. I was that guy and then you start to mature and grow up and say, shoot, I don't have to kill all these cats, I can, I can let some of them walk. And so over time those dogs pass away and I still don't know what, what kind of dog I should have. I mean, I got a leopard cur, I got a paw, I got a walker, I got this my, my dog pack looks like quite the ordeal of dogs.
Speaker 2:Um yeah, and I never could find a dog that was as good as that walker dog. So I I tried. I got same dogs from that guy and they weren't the same. And then I got a blue tick and this blue tick was was really really good dog. So I got all blue ticks. Well, none of them were as good as him. So I went back to walkers and and I'm still doing this. 22 years later, I am still have never found two dogs that I felt were good enough to breed.
Speaker 2:Um, I just you know I'm picky and um, I was getting dogs from Canada, um Idaho light for English dogs and paying about 10 times more for a puppy than a guy should ever pay. But I thought, because they were so expensive that they would be the next best thing. They're going to do a backflip off the dog box and treat the lion and its feet are going to turn to gold, but currently I have gone back to black and tans and I'm transitioning back that way. I've always had really consistent luck on them. Um, sometimes on a bear, the bear might make it five hundred yards further um than it would with with a plot or a walker or a quicker dog. You know, before they treat they're. They're definitely a tad slower at that, but aside from that, my priority and it really I like to catch these lions on dirt, um, or a slushed out track. I, I would rather watch these dogs trail all day and bark and and never catch a lion like I. I love that. Like hey, they trailed 10 miles on in slush and melting snow and wind. We didn't catch a cat, but my God, they did a good job trailing. I'm really happy just watching dogs work. What I'm guiding is a different story. We've got to get the cat caught. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don't.
Speaker 2:Then you have the tragedy of lion hunting. You know the, the, the things, the unforeseen things that guides fall into. You know, um, whatever it is, you know, wrecking your truck uh, kind of lion wrecking your truck uh, kind of lion. I was working for an outfitter one time and he we had, I had this lion track and I didn't like it because it wasn't very big. But I always told the clients and I still do that hey, man, let's try to catch the cat. And because I don't really care if you kill a lion or not, to be honest with you, I want you to, but I care that we catch a lion. And when we catch a lion you can look at it, you can take your pictures, we can pull the dogs off and now we'll go look for a big cat. But you're going to go home just as happy seeing a lion in a tree, a lot happier than if you rode around for five days and never saw a dog turned out of the truck. Yeah, just get that opportunity. So let's catch a cat, take some photos. Yeah, and we know we're not going to kill this cat, but let's just go catch it.
Speaker 2:And this was a real easy line to catch. It was in super deep snow, really high altitude, warm day. The cat was literally swimming through the snow. One day the cat was literally swimming through the snow and so we snowmobiled down the truck or grabbed the dog's snowmobile up there, kicked the dogs out. They run One's sitting there. I'm like they're going to run the sucker literally right down the road to us and we're sitting there watching and here comes a cat and it jumps off the bank and dogs go off the bank and they don't tree and they don't tree and they don't tree and they don't tree. And I'm fuming. I'm like what's wrong? This cow's in a tree right here and they're not located. So I was pretty frustrated and I'm like well, we're going to snowmobile up there. I mean, we literally had a snowmobile 60 yards. We probably should have just walked Snowmobile up there and I can't see dogs. I can't see dogs.
Speaker 2:I can't hear dogs and this stinking lion had gone in a culvert underneath the road. Okay, and what is going on here? So I I step off the side of the road and hear muffled sounds. Well, we had five dogs inside of a culvert with a pissed off mountain lion, holy, and the other end was snowed shut. So you talk about chaos getting them dogs out of there.
Speaker 2:And we finally got the the dogs pulled back and leashed up to the snowmobile. And I still don't know what kind of cat we got, other than it doesn't have a very big track, you know. So we tried cutting down a tree to push it out. That didn't work. I tried starting a fire and blowing smoke in there. That didn't work. I finally went back to my truck, got a chainsaw with the intent of cutting down a tree that I could push in the culvert to make the cap come out. And I fired up the chainsaw and I set it on the culvert and, lo and behold, that lion came out of there like you shot it. And I mean I'm like, well, that's interesting. And we turned the dogs loose again and, lesson learned, it just runs a big circle and goes in the next culvert.
Speaker 2:So this lion knew about the purpose and yeah, so that time I'm like, well, we're done. You know we just gave up on it. But I learned something really valuable there, because the same area that I was guiding in northwest Montana the next year, we caught a lion in a slash pile. You know where they had logged and this cat had ran inside this slash pile and we can't see it and dogs are barking in there. There's good snow. The cat's clearly in there, and so I told the I had a client with me that time. I said this I'm going to try something.
Speaker 2:Like the last cat hated vibration. So I ran my snowmobile up on the side of the slash pile and I have a chainsaw in on the snowmobile, fired it up, set it on there, pulled the dogs back, boom, lion, ran right out of there. That's interesting, yeah, so they don't like vibration. Um, again, that lion went in the next slash pile. So I kind of like, well, here's something I've learned about cats if they're in a culvert and there's another culvert there, they're going to go in another culvert. And if they're in a slash pile and there's another slash pile, they're going to go in it. And when you get them in a cave, they're going to run out of that cave and run in another one. So save yourself the vet bills and pull them off at the beginning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's just how they've learned to get away different lines, I guess. Yeah, that's interesting. The vibration thing, I mean, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:The old, guy that you were going with, Bob. You said he only had one dog. Yeah, yeah, he only ever hunted one dog.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, that's not common, is it for most Milt Line hunters just to run one hound.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know, I know in the. You know that would have been in the 2000s. A lot of the guys that I hunted with they'd run one or two. Yeah, you know, keep in, in the 2000s a lot of the guys that I hunted with they'd run one or two. Keep in mind we didn't have wolves. Then the guy was on to something. The dog he had was a silent. It would trail pretty silent. It was a leprechaun. It wouldn't bark until a cat was jumped. These cats hadn't been hunted or chased before. It didn't take much to train them. They'd hear a dog jumped it and started barking Boy, they'd climb a tree and they'd stay there.
Speaker 2:The dogs I have now we're running much more of them, we'll run because we want to. When I'm guiding I never run more than three dogs. If I need to catch a cat, any more than three dogs to me is a waste because two of those dogs let's say you got five dogs running a lion In snow two of them dogs are just following dogs, you know most of the time, and that's why I like to walk behind the dogs and count dog tracks, because inevitably I'll find one dog track and this is a habit from before GPS is, but there's always one dog in your group that's 15 feet off the track and he's not actually. He's not drift in the track, he's just following dogs, you know. And? And that kind of goes back to the way I I do my personal dogs.
Speaker 2:Is it a year and a half? They have to be able to trail and treat their own lion by themselves, or they don't make the cut, and by two and a half they better do it on dry ground, and if they don't do that, I don't keep them High standards. That's good though, well yeah, but the bottom line is I only have five dogs right now, period, and you know, when I'm guiding I use three and leave two in the truck for when the cat runs across the road or, you know, you just run them so hard that day. You ought to put fresh dogs on, but it sure seems to me like by doing this route, at least I know every dog in my pack is contributing. Yeah, there, I don't have any two-year-old dogs, or me too.
Speaker 2:Dogs, yeah exactly, yep yep, I don't have any dogs that are three years old, um, that don't absolutely know what they're doing, and so for the most part I think it helps. You know, last year I guess it'd be two years ago now, two seasons ago I had a husband wife team and we had had a really, really tough go. We had we had wolves kill our dogs go. We had, uh, we had wolves kill our dogs, um, and so we we get through that whole thing and being out there you don't have a choice. You got to keep going. So the next day you got to hunt anyway.
Speaker 2:A little later on in the hunt we ended up turning out on this line and it crossed the road twice and we didn't know which track was the fresh track. There was snow in the roads but the mountains were bare. You know that. They were dirt and we didn't know which track to turn out on. So I did all my homework, ran every road around there trying to shorten it up, didn't cut it, turned dogs on this track. They trail like eight miles and end up crossing the road. We turn loose on the wrong track. We're like well, we gotta let them go. This is like 11 o'clock In my world. That's getting late, noon's approaching, a guy calls me up and he says hey, didn't you go up this canyon? I said yeah, he goes. Well, I got some bad news. He said there's a big lion track in your tire tracks. And I knew at that point that I was still six miles behind this cat. And it's noon and I'm like oh no, and our dogs are already starting to slow down because they've already gone six or seven miles.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm just like, oh boy, you know kind of think about what to do. And then, right about that time, a guy, a lady, calls me and she says I swear I just saw a mountain lion fighting with a coyote in my yard. And I'm like what? And she's like, she's like, at 11 o'clock I looked off my porch and I saw a mountain lion and a coyote and they were fighting. So I'm like are you sure? And she's like, I'm positive, and I'm thinking well, I know how this normally goes and it usually is two coyotes, you know. So I'm like what the heck? We'll try it, we'll pull off this track, we can pick it up tomorrow, cause this cat was going into a better location. So we got the dogs rounded up, feet feet, for basically my house turned dogs at two o'clock in the afternoon and we trailed that sucker until dark. We caught it like 15 minutes before dark and it was a lion. She was right, she saw a mountain lion and a coyote fighting. Yep, there was a dead deer there.
Speaker 1:And the coyotes. They'll take one on.
Speaker 2:Yep, the coyotes had taken the kill from the lion and pushed the cat off.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean I could see a wolf doing it. I'm surprised the coyotes got the balls to do it, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was like, well, this is interesting. And then they trailed and trailed, and trailed and that cat got a long ways before we got it treed. But I think the reason is I had the same dogs and they were tired. Yeah, you know they. I mean they had these dogs. At the end of the day they'd gone 19 miles.
Speaker 2:Before we treat that line of of dead out hunting, you know running. So that's a situation where if you had six dogs from start to finish, you probably would have caught it a lot quicker. And then we get in this lodgepole, this down lodgepole sometimes, and we'll trail a cat all day and not catch it. You know it's walking on logs and it drives the clients nuts. In that situation, the guys that are running six, seven dogs at a time, they would definitely catch that cat a lot quicker. You know cause they're going to have that whole pack of dogs skirting and picking it up here, picking it up there. You know a guy that bear hunts a lot and has a real fine tuned in pack of bear dogs. I mean they honor each other and they jump ahead and jump ahead. Boom, boom, boom. They can make short work of some of these tracks head boom, boom, boom. They can make short work of some of these tracks.
Speaker 2:Um, I purposely have dogs that are a little more of a track straddler mentality and breed, you know, and and that's just my personal preference, that's. That's definitely probably not the I'm not the most efficient bear hunter, because of that, you know. And same with even, sometimes, bobcats they'll. Some guys will catch these bobcats in a quicker time frame than I will.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, the dogs still catch them a lot of times, but they they catch them quicker and I don't, because my dogs don't make these big circles and pick the track up and pick their head up and drift it and cut it off. You know, but that's just personal preference, that's just what I like, you know. Does it make a bit of difference? I think when you're when 60 degrees out and you're walking on a hunting solid dirt, walking after a lion, I do think that those tracks straddler dogs, at the end of the day sometimes they go shorter distance cause they're not running circles and circles and circles picking up losses. They're not running circles and circles and circles picking up losses, they're just cold, trailing track for track until they get a jump yeah most of the time.
Speaker 2:Last year I watched three mountain lions walk right underneath me and my dog should go in the other direction and it was pretty disheartening. It was back to a gal had had a kill in her yard and there was no snow and we put a camera on the kill and went back the next day to look at it and sure enough, they were lions. There actually was a female, a juvenile and two kittens, so basically what we consider a family group of lions. And yeah, there was just so many tracks coming and going left and right. My dogs are running around. They're like idiots. I'm sitting up on this rock cliff just watch them and watch the lions walk underneath me. I never caught one. Never caught a lion, never got one in a tree. Just so many tracks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's frustrating, but I I don't know. It's just how the world goes, I guess sometimes. Back to the coyote running the lion off the deer carcass. Yesterday I went in to check on a collared cat. It wasn't quite moving as much as we were hoping. You know, we're talking 15 days plus this lion had not left an area and I mean we're probably knocking on 20 days and something's just doesn't seem right. So I went with the biologist to see if maybe we had an injured lion or what. In the process, walking in there, we found three wolf tracks, uh, one coyote and one black bear and lion. And we're talking in in a in a 300 yard circle and we don't know there's a kill there. You know, we just know that the gps caller is is stating that this lion is has a cash here. That's longer than normal.
Speaker 2:My thoughts were. My personal thought was I bet this lion has a trap on its foot and it can't go anywhere. So it's killed a deer and it's eating every single bit of this deer that it can. So we go in there. We don't have updated coordinates or anything, just know where this, this gps location, is. So the biologist I walk in there, um, find a dead elk. The lion had clearly killed a full-grown cow elk. So I'm like perfect, it's a healthy cat. It just ate the, ate the elk. And for some reason it's been on this elk for a long time, you know, um 20 days so. But then then I'm like crap, did the bear beat up the lion? It's got a broken shoulder. Um, there's, there was snow in this draw. That's how we could sell these tracks and I could tell the lion clearly is not dragging the trap on its foot like it 100 does not have an injured foot. Whether or not it got in a fight with the wolves, I don't know Whether or not it got in a fight with the bear, I don't know. I don't think it got in a fight with anything, to be honest with you. And then, following the tracks, I could see where this lion was jumping up rocks and jumping down rocks. So I don't think it has an injury. Yeah, so we won't know. Like this is something that is really cool. We'll probably know in about a week. Like, hey, there's undefiable evidence that a mountain lion could lay on an elk for up to 20 days, you know which? This will all be new information. That's the cool thing about this program.
Speaker 2:So part of this mountain lion monitoring program really is to get an idea on lion densities. So, to keep it simple, the, the state, created eco regions, all right. So they cut it up in like five different areas where the, where the terrain is similar, the habitat is similar, and they said, okay, this band of cats and this band of cats and this band of cats all are living in the same type of terrain, the same type of environment. And then they go in there and they create a study area which has a grid cell, a bunch of grid cells, and these grid cells are, oh, they're like five kilometers by five kilometers square. Okay, and the, the houndsman contractors, their job there's myself, plus other guys who have been doing it a lot longer than myself.
Speaker 2:Our job is to go in there and cover every bit of that cell that we're assigned randomly, to the best of our ability, and look for lion tracks and try to find the lion and then catch the lion. And then, once we catch the lion, we shoot it with a biopsy dart that dna is, then goes to a lab and then we go somewhere different the next day, then later on through the course of this season, we go back and we repeat the process and we see how often we recapture the cats. So there might be a mountain lion that gets started twice, there might be one that gets started three times and there might be some that never get darted. But at the end of, at the end of this study, you know, um, when the numbers come back, we can go. Okay, we took 68 samples and people go. Oh my gosh, you caught 68 mountain lions. No, we caught the same lion 10 times, or we picked up scat, or we picked up hair, and guess what? We actually only have 12 lions in this eco region, where we thought we had 30, you know. So it's, we're really learning a lot. The numbers aren't back yet from like this year, so we don't.
Speaker 2:I don't really know, I don't have the numbers and I have to give you the the accurate facts of what's out there right now. But I do know that they collared some lions with GPS collars and that's how and that's what's really just showing some amazing information out there. As far as the range of these cats, I mean it's I don't have the access to that, like I can't just pull it up and look at it. That's strictly on the biologist part. And the mountain lion monitoring technicians basically my boss, those are the individuals that can pull that up and look at it.
Speaker 2:But it's really cool to see how often certain lions will make a kill and how often certain cats don't make a kill. You know, everybody thinks so. A deer lion kills a deer once a week. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, there are specific lions that might kill a deer every 20 days if they're lucky, and the rest of the time they're eating turkeys and rabbits, and so it's. It's really cool just to see that like and rabbits, and so it's. It's really cool just to see that like wow, this is cool, like these. You learn a lot and every lion is so different, you know and, and every area is different. So you know what? Where I live, um in Southwest Montana versus Northwest Montana, cat numbers are different, cat predation is different, wolf numbers everything's different. It's just a completely different realm. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's great that you guys are getting this information. I mean, could this work be done without houndsmen, do you think?
Speaker 2:Without them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely not. A lot of people that aren't into, say, hunting or you know hound stuff at all, they probably think that you know all that's, can't be doing that or whatever. But I mean this, the, the work that you guys are doing, this, this, uh, conservation and everything and studying the numbers. Like you're saying, the hounds and you guys are crucial to this. Like you know, it can't be done without you.
Speaker 2:Right. So Montana probably has currently one of the most long-term in-depth lion monitoring programs going on Like it's. The science that they've put into the lion management is unreal. You know, lions have been a big game species for 45 years but nobody ever really followed up anything about them. Just we're going to make them a big game species. We can hunt them. Crap, we're killing too many, let's put a quota on them. Put a quota on them and part of the state got overrun by non-guided non-residents. We're killing 38 percent of the quota.
Speaker 2:So then everybody got mad at the outfitters. The outfitters are killing all the cats. Look at all these non-residents. So finally they looked a little deeper and said my gosh, it's not the outfitted non-residents, it's the non-guided non-residents bringing their own dogs in that were killing 38% of our quarter. And when you come from Minnesota you don't care if it's a 60-pound female or 90-pound tom. You came from Minnesota, you want to kill a cat, 90 pound farm. You came from minnesota, you want to kill a cat, you know. And so there was a really high harvest rate.
Speaker 2:So then in region one and two uh, northwest montana, they, they went to a permit system that regulated everybody and you had to apply a permit for permit, everything else. So that worked for a while. But then they weren't getting any harvest. So then they created this hybrid season, which was in February. Let's just say the quota was 50 cats in these two areas, which it was. Well, they'd only killed five cats. So now in February they said you know what, now it's open for 45 lions. How about it? The intent was never to kill 45 lions, it was to kill like 25. But they left it that way for too long. And guess what? They killed 50 cats and some outfitters were running 15, 20 plus hunters a year, and just that's a lot. Yeah, in my opinion, abusing given outfitter is a bad name. Now all our cats went the other direction.
Speaker 2:Then they finally made some major changes and regulated the non-guided, non-residents. You can still come hunt. It's like Idaho. You have to draw a hound handler permit Even every year. Even right right now or a week ago, there were still tags left like a non-resident could buy a tag over the counter to bring their own dogs and hunt in montana. The problem is it costs them so much money they don't want to do it. You know they don't want to spend $500 to buy this tag, um, and then be regulated where they can and can't hunt. And so the opportunity is still there, um, for everybody.
Speaker 2:Um, the commission, um, oh, I I don't remember the actual year, I'll say four or five years ago roughly, um, say four or five years ago roughly chose to take like a 40% increase in overall lion harvest to decrease the lion population Because our lion population was getting pretty high and they wanted to hire harvest. You know, nobody's killing females. Unfortunately, it's now showing because we have all the data from 1971, but the harvest data from 1988, and we're seeing our age class declining, size of lions declining and we're seeing this downward trend of lion population overall pretty severely. And it's just, we go through cycles. It's just like deer and elk and everything else. You go up and down, up and down. But the beautiful thing with the quota system is you can, you can. If you got the right biologist, they can look ahead and go. Okay, well, we're trending up, we're trending down, we need to flatline.
Speaker 2:And the deer and elk hunters I mean, I'm a deer and elk outfitter, so the last thing I want is an overabundance of lions eating all my profit, all my deer. Yeah, so I don't want a bunch of cats running around on my hunting areas. But it's really neat to where these callers can show you that, hey, this one lion crossed, you know, 11 public roads in three days. 11 public roads in three days. And if you were deer hunting in November and had snow, you would say, my gosh, there's a lion trap on every single road.
Speaker 2:I went up. Well, there is, and it's one cat, and it's really obvious when you kill that one cat and your quarters never close. I mean, where I live, my quarters, four cats where I live and only two have been harvested out of here and I harvested both of them. So, like you can't even kill four cows out of here, and it's a big area unless you get lucky, we just don't have that number of lions that we did a while ago, but it'll come back. It's just cows, you know it's up and down, so that's interesting, but it'll come back.
Speaker 1:It's just cats, you know. It's up and down, so that's interesting and yeah, I mean, I think it's great the work that they're doing into that. And the radio callers and you know, just like you said, before they were just a big game species that you hunted, put quota up and down if it was needed, but now they're actually, you know, studying them, learning more about their habits and everything their range. It's valuable information. They're actually, you know, studying them, learning more about their habits and everything their range.
Speaker 2:It's valuable information. Yeah, and one thing I find super valuable information the mortality rate of lions in a non-hunted environment is equal or higher than where they're hunted by humans. If you don't hunt a cat and you take an area and you say we're not hunting this area, period, end of story, and you call her 10 of those lions, you're going to find that three of them are killed by other cats, two of them are going to die from infection or bird flu or something and two of them are going to get hit by cars. So the mortality rate, if your quarter is managed right, is about the same. So California could have a hunting season and they would probably find out that if they got their quarter right they would have the same mortality rate as if they don't hunt them at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and a whole lot more pleasant. You know, I mean, when you harvest a lion you get to you can make it so quick and ethical versus. I mean, I've seen some cats and pulled up some lions. We've pulled up some lions that died from natural causes, and I'll tell you what some of them have. You just know they had a really, really bad month before they died.
Speaker 1:You know it's like oh, it's awful, yeah, you just know they had a really, really bad month before they died. You know it's like, oh, it's awful, yeah, we can manage a lot more humanely than Mother Nature will manage, but it's cruel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, you know. And the outfitting side of things has gotten. It's not more competitive because where I'm at we have our areas, so they're not gonna allow more outfitters. But there's more hound guys now than I've ever seen, you know, in the last 10 years especially.
Speaker 1:And. I wonder, why that is because you see a lot of I mean in my area like I'm a coon hound hunter and I run beagles and stuff too and you've seen that decline massively. There's hardly anyone that does it anymore. I just find that a lot of people don't seem to hound hunt anymore. I think a lot of it's. I don't know, I guess I'll say laziness a little. No one wants to run dogs after work, but so what do you think it's? It's increased in your area.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say I'm trying to think how to say this professionally. Social media is a lot of it and I mean, I know for certain, like I've done four or five different TV shows, mostly for elk hunting, archery, elk hunting and stuff, and I've been around the film industry to know that maybe what you see on the History Channel is not as accurate as you would think. Oh yeah, you know, when you watch some of these Gold Rush or Mountain man and some of these things aren't exactly as you think, but every year I probably get five or six phone calls a year from people going you ever watch Mountain man? Yep, I'm gonna go hunt right by you because that's where you live, and I will book a hunter because it's out on TV or I used to. Yeah, I believe that, yeah, and it's just kind of like well, and I just have fun. Like listen up, guys, you, entertainment is is fine and cool, but you have to know in your brain the difference between reality and not reality and um, and we deal with that with everybody, our elk hunters. You know I want to shoot a three 80 bull. I'm like perfect, you will come up with me probably for 10 years before you throw a three 80 bull. So dig out your checkbook, you know, and we have a really really good elk operation. I mean we, yeah, we are very fortunate it's all private land, um, and we do kill that quality of bulls but not everybody's going to get one, you know, like, yeah, exactly 20 of the guys are not going to get a bull at 350, you know. So realistic expectations are important for every, everything and every, every type of hunt.
Speaker 2:I think the hound community has grown a little bit as well, because I mean I hate to say it, but back to bog he wouldn't use a tracking system and the first tracking system I was I was still in college when I bought that wildlife materials, trx 10s. Oh yeah, beatbox, you know, yeah, yes, and uh, he's like I don't want that stupid thing on my dog. It's bad on his neck, you know, and and whatever, and I'm like we're putting it on him and it was just kind of funny because the way he would hunt was, um, he would put bread sacks over his socks I don't know if your grandmother ever did that and then slide your shoe inside your boot, you know, put your foot inside your boot with the bread sack on there, put a piece of tape around it no gaiters, no nothing, and he just walked behind his dog until he caught the cat and that's how he hunted every time, like just started walking. And then, when the garments came out, is when I started to see a big difference in hound hunters around here when they got more affordable. And I remember, you know, at some point in time I was one of the only people that had a track machine. You know, I had track machines. So we all tired machines, four wheelers and most hound guys didn't have. So I could get into country, they couldn't. And and now we're seeing more like everybody's got a four wheeler, or side by side, or you know, um, so access is is definitely gotten better and lion harvest has been more efficient because of that.
Speaker 2:Um, I mean, my, the guys I idol the most are, you know, the guys that are hunting arizona, utah, nevada, new mexico, the dry ground guys on horses and mules, like to me, that's just, that's just awesome. You know, that is really those guys are. They're earning it. You ride a horse for 10 days and don't hear a bark. Um, that's, that's pretty cool, you know. And then when you get one, it's that much more exciting, um, and I've just always had such a respect for for people that rather than wait for two inches of fresh snow and then drive up and down the road, you know, and that's that's it like we got a lot of hunters here, but I don't see them, unless there's fresh snow. Two inches of fresh snow, you're going to see a dog box, but if you go out when there's not good conditions, you don't see that many guys. So it's not really an issue. It's just something I've noticed Like, oh, there's another dog box, another dog box.
Speaker 1:I mean it's good though.
Speaker 2:It's more voices you'd hope when it comes to voting and things like president for the Montana State Housing Association, and when you get those two groups together, it's amazing what they can do. I'll give you an example. There was a bill this year to allow two tags per person for lions in certain areas and the bill was really messy. It didn't clarify anything and it was just ugly, like it could be interpreted so many different ways. And the hound association and the outfairs and guide association normally don't go together very well because a lot of the outfitters are like kill every cat you can along, gone, and I've heard, yeah. Then then you got the hound guys that are the opposite, and then you got guys like me. They're like well, I actually make money off the lions, so I want them on the landscape. You know, um, good balance, but anyhow, yeah. So they, they got together and it took them about 48 hours and they killed that bill just because, like you said, you have enough houndsmen voices and enough um outfitters and everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 2:And the hound guy showed up at the hearing and the legislator's like, oh my gosh, these guys are pissed and, okay, tabled. You know, yeah, so, and the other cool thing is montana. You know we got a bear season introduced, you know, three or four years ago. That never happens like it's been. It hasn't been legal run bears in montana since the 50s or something and to create a season is like really cool to be like. Oh wow, now we can hunt bears with. With dogs like you don't see this very often.
Speaker 1:No, it's usually the opposite.
Speaker 2:That's huge yeah, loser hunting rights. So you got to and I'm a huge advocate man, I'm not a trapper myself, but I 100% support trappers and hound guys. Whether I like you or don't, man, I'm still your friend at the end of the day, because you gotta, you gotta get along with everybody and mingle and if you, you know you gotta stay united, yeah, well, exactly and I'll get oh go ahead.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's just gonna say that's good and it's it's um, it's a shame some hunters, you know like oh, I only hunt deer, so I don't care about the hound stuff or this or that. It's like well, I mean, at the end of the day, we're all in this together and we need to kind of look at it that way, because you know, if some of these groups and bills come for one, they're not going to stop at that, they're going to come for more.
Speaker 2:Right, yep, yeah, and we had our wolf issue, for example. Um, this was kind of a bummer deal, you know we were. We were just, we had a lion track going one direction and I had um, a guide, working for me, and I had the two clients and and he's more than a guy, he's a close friend. And then my other close friend, um was I had had a child and he couldn't hunt his dog, and so I'm like, well, I'll take your dog for you today. Well, he asked me. He said, well, can you take my dog? And I said, yeah, I'll hunt her for you. So we go up there, we find this lion track, we turn out on it. I mean, I got two clients and my one guide's there and I got my guide's other dog and I'm like, well, I'll let this dog go and anyhow. So the, the dogs go up the mountain and I don't know exactly what time it was at this point, but they go up and we're like, well, they're crossing that road, let's just drive up there. So we took side by sides, got up to that road where they cross that switchback, and I still do this to this day. I'm like, why is this one dog 20 feet off the track like this here's a dog that's just following dogs. You know what dog is this? So I go over there and I zoom in my GPS and I told my buddy. I said, hey, man, I'm like two of my dogs or one of my dogs ran back to the truck. He's like what? I'm like, yeah, two of my dogs or one of my dogs ran back to the truck. He's like what? I'm like? Yeah, one of my dogs is literally at the pickup and this is like one of my old, broke dogs. And he's like oh, I don't know why. And I'm like I don't know. And then he's like shit, one of my dogs is is going that direction and I'm like well, two dogs are down there. Why is there five dog tracks crossing this road, on this line, when there's actually only three dogs up here and two below us? And then we're like shoot, these are wolves.
Speaker 2:So at that point I checked my watch and it would say it was 10 o'clock and I'm like we got to get up there because they're about to cross the next switchback, this road switchbacks. They were going up there, so we buzzed up there. It took nine minutes to get there and as we're driving like I'm, like we're flying, I'm watching the GPS and all of a sudden it says this dog's treed, this dog's treed, and one of the dogs is back at the truck. And I knew was like, oh boy. And we got there and in nine minutes from the dogs being alive, they were dead. And when I got there, the one dog was only, I don't know, uh, 60 yards off the road. And so I went running in there, kind of screaming, hollering, and sure enough, she was dead.
Speaker 2:And then, um, the other guy's dog was dead. Um, by the time he got to her too, but in nine minutes, and the only thing that saved the other dogs was our side by sides, like when we come around that corner, we were right on top of them and you know we were hollering and started shooting and stuff because we knew what was going on. And by then they are, they killed them dogs, that quick, you know, and that's why the mother dogs, that's why those old dogs ran back to the truck. We didn't know it at the time. We're just like, why'd they run to the truck, you know? So, um, but after that, um, the the one, the individual whose dog I was hunting for him that day he was able to tie into some trappers, some people he knew that were pretty heavy trappers, and they ended up eliminating eight wolves out of there.
Speaker 1:And we didn't know at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two wolves had come from the bottom and six more came off the top of the mountain. You know, we didn't know this at the time, nobody ever would have. Well, they went in and between him and some other guys. They got very aggressive and did it right and to my knowledge they killed eight of them, complete legally trapped them, and this year today there's not been a wolf back in there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so wow, yes, yeah yeah, they're awful, aren't they?
Speaker 2:I'm sure they'll be there, they're just vicious.
Speaker 1:So they just seek out and kill the hounds, just territorial like yeah wow, that's awful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty amazing ordeal. And unfortunately, you know, you got clients and that goes back to the when you got a client with you, what do you do, you know, and unfortunately in this situation they're pretty shook up. Um, but I'm like sorry, guys. And then the next day you got to go. So the next day is when we trailed the one cat and that lady, just she did end up getting a really nice calm and her husband ended up getting a cat the next day too. So at the end of their hunt they were successful. But it was quite the just awful, you know, and you got the rocks that are always a danger.
Speaker 2:And, um, guy, guy always told me whenever you turn your dog loose it might be the last time you see him, you know, and you got to be prepared for that. Yeah, you know, every time you turn loose might be the last time, but yeah, it's interesting. But you know, the line management in the state is good. The line numbers are, in my opinion, a little low, but outfitting for the cats is just such a such a different competitive gig, you know, than our deer and elk and stuff, you know, it's just a very involved and very expensive when you start figuring your. You know you have two trucks built just for hound hunting and you know everything else and that builds.
Speaker 2:And here I was saying earlier how I've never had two dogs that I felt were worthy of breeding. I typically neuter all my males and spay my females once I know I'm going to keep them so that I can just keep hunting them. And I've made some mistakes in the past by fixing dogs that I should have left unaltered. And so this time I'm like you know what this dog is really shining. He caught his first lion on dry ground at seven months old by himself, and I'm like that dog's special. And then the female was not quite as good but she was built, phenomenal and she's starting to show that. So I ended up collecting semen off this male and then, having neutered after I collected semen, so I might have a lure box. It's in the works, but the female's got to prove herself a little bit more yet. We'll see how they do on bear season and then that'll determine whether or not they're ready to breed.
Speaker 1:It's good to have standards where you have them, so that way you're not just the dogs are earning their feed in the kennel at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:My dogs are really all house broke. I'm a firm believer that there's two ways to run a dog. One is I'm the alpha male and you do what I expect you to do um, or it hurts. And two is like I love you and I'll treat you good and I want you to work hard for me and you'll get rewards. And I think if you balance those two things where you know no means no and I will get after you, but on the flip side, um, I'm still your buddy and when you come I give you a treat I don't necessarily just shock you because you're not quick enough when you get those two balances right and that dog just wants to please its master, whether it's um, for affection purposes or alpha purposes, you know, I really think that at the end of the day, they just want to please their master and as long as they know who their master is, they'll listen to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, absolutely, unless there's a moose involved, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so with your hunts, I mean, what does a typical hunt look like? If someone's looking, okay, I want to come to Montana Mountain, mountain lion ventures. Uh, what's the hunt look like? And I really like that. On your guys's website you have a gear list. You don't see that a lot and it shows, you know, says what to bring.
Speaker 2:That's, that's it. And I know that out of them four or five we're probably going to be at like 75% harvest rate. Not everybody gets a lion. I mean, every year somebody goes home empty. I used to be 100% when I just did it by myself, but back then I never saw another hunter. And now we do, and that makes a difference and we have quotas.
Speaker 2:So they come, I typically have them use. I give them the option. I say hey guys, these are the dates I have available Rain, snow or shine, we're hunting every day. Of course everybody wants to hunt when there's snow. They all want to book a hunt in snow and I don't blame them. If I was paying money I would too. I'd want to go when there's good snow.
Speaker 2:And then I tell them right off the get-go that, like if we find a female and we don't find a tom, and it's noon, we're running the female, because a third of the time I will catch a tom when I turn out on a female, because up on top of the mountain somewhere they're playing with each other. So that's a very efficient way for me to find a tom. Because I can't find a tom, I can't find cats in my life and we're not going to bother this old female. I'm like well, if you followed that female, you'd find that Tom Cause, he's up on the mountain with a cordon with her. Um, so we, we, I tell him that and then kind of tell him what to expect. You know, um, our, our accommodations are top of the line. Um, there's only hunter in camp, you know, and, and I mean it's, it's pretty, pretty, pretty nice. Um, when you got a 6,000 square foot lodge to yourself, you know, and then we just are, we do.
Speaker 2:My wife gets up with me at that time of year, um, so we'll get up at like two o'clock in the morning, um, and she'll make breakfast burritos, whatever. We'll put them in the truck. I go load the dogs up, pick the guy up, then we go drive around in the dark for a long time and hope to find a lion track. Lunch is just cooler style. On average it's going to take I keep very close track. It's about 800 miles to find a lion. A killable lion is what we average. 800 miles of driving, 500 miles is what it takes us to catch a lion, just a lion, whether it's a female, juvenile, whatever. And on average we do 150 miles per night per track of lion habitat hunting. So we're really really hunting hard. So we're really really hunting hard. So we start early and we end early.
Speaker 2:I will not turn a dog loose In December. I won't turn a dog loose after probably 2.30. I know guys do it. But in my experience hunting in like northwestern Montana where there's wolves, the wolves become much more aggressive in the evening as darkness is approaching. Um, that's when I things just seem to go south every time, or maybe I can get to the tree by dark, but that doesn't mean my client can yeah you know, like maybe I can run up there and get them dogs and and see what got, but that doesn't.
Speaker 2:Some of my guys aren't going to get there. So we end by I always say 2 o'clock. We usually still run to like 4, scouting, and then we go home, have an early dinner 5 o'clock, we eat dinner 6 o'clock, I'm in bed and when we find that lion track, you know that's the excitement. You drive, drive, drive, boom, there's a lion track. You know, then for me, then my adrenaline gets going and I usually have another guide come guide or guides and help secure the track. Basically, one of us will sit on it and one of us will try to start freshening it up, because the area we hunt these cats go a long ways. Try to start freshening it up because the area we hunt these cats go a long ways. Um, so, so we'll just try to get it as short as we can, to increase our odds so that we can kick the dogs out, and then then you turn the dogs loose and that's for me the exciting part and and the the real moment, because I can tell in 10 minutes away. They trail whether whether that cat's had or we're going to earn it. Then they tree, and then there's excitement. Is the cat in a tree? Is it the cat you turn loose on? Is it a bobcat? Is it as big as you hope? Is it a cat we're going to harvest? Is it going to stay there? Then you're getting there and you're always like, okay, where's the cat? You see his tail. Okay, cat's in the tree, awesome. Okay, let's get a little closer. And you get a little closer. How big is he? The next question. And then are we going to harvest it? And so that's all the excitement. And for me it's just as exciting probably going to shoot the cow. You know, like they, they don't get all the logistics that are going into this.
Speaker 2:And, um, and every client has a different attitude. I've got one guy. He's hung with me at least seven years in a row and he killed a lion the first time, you know. The second time he came and then his son came back with him the third time his son killed a lion. No, the second time he came and then his son came back with him the third time and his son killed a lion. This, this individual, can't get around very well. Yeah, um, and he knows that if he comes with me. Enough, we will treat a lion within a hundred yards of the truck where he can walk that far. And fortunately, this year we got, finally got him 156 pound lion, you know, within a hundred yards of the truck, you know so. But it took him seven years to get that cat. So, um, but then when we're you know, and if we don't find anything, we go home with our head down low and go back. And then if we don't have snow I had this, this scenario happened to me this year um, hunter shows up, there's there is no snow, there is not a drop of snow, and we got a tip from a guy and he said man, I was checking my coyote trap and I think there's a lion track in the sand and the guy down the road is missing a sheep.
Speaker 2:So he went against all, all my morals. We go in and I'm like, well, where's the sheep? Oh, the guy moved it. He's like, well, that's 10 this month. I'm like what? I'm like they're in a fricking sheep pen. He's like, well, I think the coyotes are getting them. I'm like, how's the coyote getting inside with it? I don't think the coyotes getting in here, guys, I think you got a lion jumping mouth, so he eats what it wants, jumps out, goes and lays on the mountain for two days, comes back, kills another sheep.
Speaker 2:So we hiked up. I said, screw it, let's just turn some dogs, you. You feel like going for a hike. And he's like, yeah, I'm like we're walking till dark. And we just walked up this canyon. It kind of made geographical sense that if there's a cat in this area he's gonna have to come to this canyon. And so we just hiked up there and it was like 420. The dog they were trailing. As we started going up there they started trailing, but not real good, and pretty soon I'm like, well, they're definitely trailing the cat, but their clock is ticking. And we kept going and going and going and all of a sudden they that one young dog I was talking about. He comes firing off the rock cliff, just blowing past his bark and every step. I'm like, well, that cat's right in front of him. And the guy's like do you think? So? I'm like, yeah, I'm like you just just sit down, wait. And we just sat there and they ran a big horseshoe and treat the line about 40 yards in front of us and and I remember it was 4 45, because it's dark at like four, six, six, like five o'clock it is dark, it was like four.
Speaker 2:I looked at my phone. I'm like took a picture of the cat. I'm like let's go. We got over there and I said I don't think you want to shoot it. I said this is like an 80 pound Tom, or maybe a hundred pounds, I don't know, but small. I'm like, well, it's not very big. And then he brought it to my attention. He said you think that farmer's going to let it live? He said they're going to call somebody and have that cat killed. Anyway, it's killing the sheep. Good point. Yeah, I'm like, well, that is a valid point. I'm like, yeah, you're right. He's like this cat's dead. If I kill her or I don't kill it, this cat's dead. Yeah, I'm like, well, you're right. So so he shot it and that guy to him that was 180 pound lion. You know he was just as happy without his if it was some number two record book lion.
Speaker 1:Yep and that's the main thing.
Speaker 2:Right is, I guess, is you want a snow fitter as long as that person leaves you know, feeling that way, that the animal they got is their trophy, whether it really is or not sure, yep, yep, that first lion I killed, yep, was a little female, or not little, but it was an adult female and I was so proud of that thing, you know cause I life sized it, you know. But there again, you know, but we have a taxidermy shop, so it's not that's, it's not that big, yeah, yeah yep, so, but I mean that first one, that you got, even though you said it's a bit smaller of a female to you at the time.
Speaker 1:It could have been, you know, 180 pound tom. Really, the way you're looking at it, cause you're just so happy to get that, and it's just so memorable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter to me. So, um, but yeah, and then just kind of just rinse and repeat, you know, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt. And I'm honestly there's times where I'm like man, I was flying and I'm tired, you know, um, and there's times where I'm like man, I wish I had shoes and I'm tired, you know. And there's times I've studied it really frustrating, because we'll go somewhere where you know there's not a lion. Like it's just as important to prove that there's not cats in a certain habitat as that there is cats. So sometimes we'll go in an area and you know you're not going to see a cat You're going to.
Speaker 2:I remember one year I was, we were working up in a different region and literally I was snowboarding six, seven feet of snow, like on top of the ski hills, and I'm like there's no cats up here, like there's not a living animal up here, maybe, maybe a squirrel that's eaten nuts that fall out of the skier's pocket, so um, but, but that's just as important.
Speaker 2:And so you never know, like, um, cats are where you find them. And I always, when I go somewhere to look for lion, I just look at the nastiest, rockiest crap hole and you know the biggest, deepest, darkest canyon with cover in it, and then I'm like, well, that's probably where the cat is, you know, yeah, and, and that's where I start hunting. Unless it's springtime, which is kind of my favorite time to hunt is usually like late february, march, because it seems like those lions seem to be congregated on the south facing slopes or where the deer and elk are wintering at. You know, it seems like, well, you find where all the game is. You're going to find your cats, you know, early on in December those cats are spread out everywhere. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So the hunting is actually easier later on, when the snow gets deeper and the game congregates, and so does the wildlife, you know, and then the cats follow it.
Speaker 2:So it's in the same area, so you're going to probably a good time to scout for other animals too, I suppose when you're out hunting lions like oh, this looks like a good elk spot for next year yep, what I'm going to right now is somewhat patrolling the area that we elk hunt for trespassers, for shedhorns okay, yep because elk shedhorns are such a big thing right now and, um, it's kind of cool. I'll go out there and be looking for trespassers and picking up horns and watching elk and watching deer, and lo and behold, there's a lion track. You know, I'm like darn it, sure Bob dog today. Oh, you know, you just never know, yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, it's a well. I mean, scott, I can't thank you enough for coming on and giving us, you know, an inside look at what you do and the lion hunting and all that. What's going on with you guys in Montana.
Speaker 2:What's the best way for people to contact you? The reality is, you know, I've got our website, you know, and the company the lion portion, is Montana Mountain Lion Adventures and we're currently getting our websites even more updated. But I own both Ironwheel. Ironwheel Gas Ranch is where all our lodging is our deer, our elk operations, our summer fishing trips Everything is out of Ironwheel. So it's just ironwheelcom, which links to Montana Mountain Lion Adventures, and on there is phone numbers, and the best way to contact me is by far phone.
Speaker 2:I don't check email very often. I don't even have Facebook. My wife has it and I kind of borrow it sometimes, but I spend so much more time in the woods I'm going gonna be gone for 20 some days here running bears and I won't be in in around a computer. So the best way by far is to call me um, and our lion hunts are five days long, um, and we only take a limited amount of people. So typically I'm booked out a year to two years in advance.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, just because I don't want to take a bunch of people. I could, but I just don't think that's fair to the client, it's not fair to the public, just just the the better experience is focused on my one individual. Don't worry about the next guy that's in line. Take that guy, give him a true best opportunity. I can and um and then go forward. You know I'm not into pushing people out the door to to take more hunters because I, I just I'm not that guy. I'm as much of a hound I'm probably more of a hound guy than I am an outfitter like I. My passion for the dogs is so strong that I became an outfitter to support, to have enough money to pay for my dogs. I'm not doing that lion hunting to make money to buy dogs. I'm buying the dogs and then going shit. How am I going to afford the sole deal? You know, and so absolutely.
Speaker 1:No, that's good to hear. You know, when people listen to this, if they're looking at booking with you, yeah, just hearing that, knowing that you know they're in good hands, and the fact that you're not trying to, you know, just put clients in and out, in and out, just get them going, you know how you take just a select few and just have a. I think you know a much better hunt that way.
Speaker 2:Sure, and it's the same with, like, the tax for me. You know, we I only do I'll melt up to five mountain lions a year and that's it, um, and that's all I'll do is mountain lions. So, okay, and I do normal. Normally it's the people that um have hunted with me. Um, I, I won't take on much outside work. Um, I just I can't. If I take 10 lion, if I do 10 mountain lion taxidermies, they're not, they're not going to be the same quality. You know, I can only do what I can do and and we're very everything about Montana, mountain lion adventures and Iron Wheel is quality based. You know, um definitely not getting the numbers.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, no. Thanks again, Scott, and I hope to talk to you again and happy hunting.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I appreciate your time and thank you for everything and good luck to everybody out there and if anything comes up in the future, you got my number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, great Thanks. So much All right, thank you.