"I Never Wanted to Hunt Mountain Lions... Now I Want to Do It Again." - Donnie Vincent

What begins as reluctance becomes revelation as Donnie recounts an epic mountain lion hunt in the snow-laden wilds of British Columbia. With vivid detail and powerful emotion, Donnie takes us step-by-step through the pursuit of a legendary cougar "Blood Paw Tom" a cat so notorious its removal was requested by local biologists to protect the fragile population of California bighorn sheep.

This isn't just a hunting story... it's a journey into the soul of the wilderness, featuring thigh-deep snow, ancient forests, dog-driven chases, and a deep reckoning with the ethics of the hunt. It’s about listening to the land, respecting its balance, and standing face-to-face with a predator that commands awe.

From ice-covered cliffs and breathtaking landscapes to the final moment when Donnie hoists the 185-lb cat over his shoulders in tribute to hunters past, this story is gritty, honest, and unexpectedly moving. And yes... they ate the lion. All of it.

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• Confront Your Assumptions: Donnie’s reluctance to hunt a lion was overcome by a willingness to understand, experience, and learn. A reminder to challenge the way we think.
• Conservation Is Complex: This hunt wasn’t about ego it was a targeted, informed act supported by wildlife biologists to protect endangered bighorn sheep from an apex predator.
• Hunting Is Physical and Mental Warfare: 20 kilometers of snow-covered tracking, sliding on cliffs, and high-altitude ascents made this not just a hunt, but a test of will and endurance.
• The Power of Reverence: Donnie describes the lion not with bravado, but with admiration and humility a powerful reminder that hunting and respect can coexist.
• Use the Whole Animal: From backstraps to hindquarters, nothing was wasted. The mountain lion was honored, shared, and celebrated as food... so good, it beat out bighorn sheep at dinner table.

Bonus Highlight:
That iconic image of Donnie with the lion draped over his shoulders? It wasn’t just for show—it was a nod to tradition, a spontaneous tribute to the old timers, and a symbol of the respect he developed for the animal and the experience.

Transcript

Ryan Uffens (00:00)
You're listening to the Hunt Stealth Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Uffens. Enjoy the show.

Ryan Uffens (00:07)
My boy, when he saw your Instagram post with that mountain lion over your shoulders, he's like, I want to recreate that one day. So if you don't mind, would you mind sharing a little bit about that mountain lion hunt that you had gone on?

Donnie Vincent (00:11)
Mm -hmm.

Yes, it was really cool experience. Not something I was ever going to do. I never wanted to hunt lions. I had zero interest in running animals with dogs. It's just not my style. I just didn't think it was something that I even really wanted to be a part of or witness. And then a very good friend of mine, Ben Storak, he bought a new territory in British Columbia called Arcadia Outfitters and he guides for cougars.

black bears and then he does He does some mule deer and then he does some California bighorn sheep. And so he said hey Would you like to come up and do a cougar hunt? And I said, I really don't want to been I said I'm a lot of interest in it. And he said well listen He said you're always the one kind of talking about on podcast or in film or whatever He's like you're always kind of talking about living your life and experiencing life and like don't judge a book by its cover and just because you have some

⁓ decorative thoughts about hunting or hunters, like make sure you give them a chance and have a conversation with hunters or go hunting and try to understand like what it is like before you judge a book by its cover. So he's like, why don't you come line hunting? And then if it's not for you, ⁓ then you'll know it, but why don't you come in and meet the hounds and see the country? And I said, you know what? That's a good point. I said, I'll come out. And so he called me and he said, Hey, we have a huge cat here right now.

We call him the blood paw Tom because he tore one of his pads on his back Left foot I think right right or left foot, but he tore a pad and every time he takes a step There's about a dime sized blood spot in his track. So He said at the time unless I'm misremembering he said like hey the ranchers kind of want him gone and the biologist kind of want him gone because he is praying heavily on

Ryan Uffens (02:05)
Hmm.

Donnie Vincent (02:16)
the California bighorn sheep of which the biologists are trying to really manage and trying to save their populations that are there because they're very fragile. Sheep are very fragile creatures. If they get horrible winters that wipes them out, if they get livestock diseases from domestic sheep that wipes them out, if they get too many lions, too many wolves that wipes them out, too much hunting pressure from man that wipes them out. And so I said, yeah, I'll come up. So he got a beautiful snowstorm. I traveled to British Columbia.

He picked me up in town and we up into his camp. And we went and looked for that cat. And we had a houndsman in camp named Robin and we had all his dogs. And we went and looked for that cat. Ben and I walked along the Fraser River and talked about another hunt, really steep cliffs. We were walking in really safe stuff. were walking in cow pastures and stuff up above the cliffs. But we had to cross some of these cliffs and there was one, I'll never forget this.

I'm six feet tall, Ben's about six two, six three. So we came to this river that was frozen solid and Ben just merely stepped across. He just took a big step and he just went whoop and he stepped across and he kept going. And I tried to step across but I couldn't get it and it was like a nightmare. It was like my worst nightmare. Because when I stepped onto the ice, this little falls, this little stream only went about

a hundred yards and then poured off like a thousand foot straight down cliff. And so was glare ice. And so I just thought to myself, what if I start crossing this and I start sliding? You know, it's one of those controlled slides where like, can't, I have nothing to stop me. Just, and so like, what if I sit here and slowly slide down this thing and right off this edge? And so it was kind of.

gnarly but I ended up going up the stream until it was narrow enough for me to jump across and I got across but I was mad at Ben because he just stepped across and anyway so we got on that catch track and Ben and I followed him for I think it was about 20 kilometers on foot and we were just slowly meandering in his track and we could see it was him the whole time and it was so cool because he led us to all of his kills that he had made in days or weeks prior he led us to

He hadn't killed any California bighorn rams, but he killed several ewes I don't think he killed any lambs and he killed several mule deer doe and so we were tracking them and we were finding all these kills and then we came over this hill we'd been we've been walking all day we started in the dark and it was now getting late in the day we came over this hill and William Altman is one of our director of photography here at Sigmanta and William goes he was filming the hunt he goes there he is

And we looked down and he was on top of a mule deer doe. And he was on top of her and he was feeding on her. She was already dead. He had just killed her probably the night before and he was feeding on her. And we came over, he's like, there he is. And I had a bow, but it was probably about 80 yards. And that cat looked back at us and he just bristled up black and his muscles just got really big and he slowly stepped off of that doe. And he just slowly walked away from us and he kept.

like every three or four steps he'd look back at us and he'd just remember I remember thinking he looked jet black and his muscles he just looked massive and his belly was kind of hanging down and I remember how thick his tail was and he just walked up over that hill and we kept going after him and we weren't running we were just picking him apart but I remember thinking how cool it was that we could have killed that cat with a rifle with no dogs like we could have just killed it straight up by walking it down

And then he kind of turned and he started going up into where the snow was getting really deep. The snow that we were in all day was like four or five inches deep. But he started going up into the hills and he eventually got up to where the snow was like mid thigh deep. And you could see where he was. He went up a frozen river. It so cool, Ryan. You could see where his tail was just swathing through the fresh snow. Yeah. It was so pretty and like these towering pines and the snow was falling down. You could just see.

Ryan Uffens (06:27)
Next one.

Donnie Vincent (06:34)
because the snow was so fresh you could just paint the whole picture of how he was getting away and then ⁓ and then we called the houndsman because the houndsman he wouldn't use his dogs at all along those cliffs because he's like they'll all fall to their death or some of them will fall to their death and just just we're not going to do that and so ⁓ we released the hounds up into the mountains and they're banging and they're making all their noise and they're going up in the hills and it was it was way more cool than i thought and so i was just hustling it was

an extremely physical experience. I'm going as hard as I can. I remember I was wearing a Fjallraven Singy Expedition jacket. That's a big green jacket with the furred hood that you see in that photo. I was wearing that jacket. It's a down jacket with a canvas outer layer. And I remember my sweat had soaked all the way through the jacket. It was basically like kind of running down the backside of the jacket. Yeah.

Ryan Uffens (07:26)
Wow.

Donnie Vincent (07:28)
It was intense and then some of the guys were like they were so taxed and so I end up getting out there and I was the first one to the cat and I get up there and he's just standing in the tree and I'll never forget it. He's standing on a limb. The dogs were right below him barking their heads off and here I thought he was going to be snarling and like swiping his paws because like that's what I'd seen in movies and stuff. I got out there and he's just standing on a limb. He's just literally looking down at the dogs and he just he'd look out.

Ryan Uffens (07:49)
Yeah.

Donnie Vincent (07:57)
He's just looking around, he looked down at the dogs like... It was as though he didn't have a care in the world. He didn't look stressed out, he didn't look scared, he was just like, yeah I came up to this tree to get rid of these stupid dogs. He was just sitting up there and then when I walked up, a couple of the other guys started coming up and then they were kind of talking and I don't think he liked that. So he bound out and ran down the hill. The dogs all took off after him, I took off after him and then...

He got into another tree where he had a lot more cover. I think we as humans bugged him way more than the hounds. And so I snuck up to this tree and he had a lot of branches around him. And I remember I could see his front shoulder. I could see a little bit of his vitals and I could see another big branch right here and I couldn't see anything else of the cat. And Ben came up next to me and I said, so what do I do now? And he's like, well, if you want to shoot them, shoot them. If you don't want to shoot them.

I'm gonna shoot him because he's like the biologists want me to get rid of some cats, right? So and that was one thing that I did that I did I failed to mention to you is that I said Ben let me come and talk to some of your ministry biologists about the cat numbers because I don't want to come and kill a cat if like you guys don't have a ton of cats so I went met with the biologists and they were like we would prefer if you took two if you you know because you can legally take two there I think or at least you could then

Like we would prefer if you could took two because we're trying to get the cat numbers down. They're very successful after the sheep. So anyway, I was shooting a Hoyt at the time and I just came to full draw and I just settled my pin on his vitals and I shoot a hinge. I just slowly walked into my hinge and the arrow hit him. He dove out of the tree and he ran down and he died down at the bottom. And I remember getting down there and they got the hounds and everything. And I remember getting down there.

And looked so huge in the tree. That's one thing I'll never forget. He looked like he was 300 pounds in the tree. His big belly was hanging down. His paws were like this big and everything. He just looked so massive in the tree. was like, God, this gotta be a 300 pound cat, even though I know that doesn't exist. And we got down there to the deep snow and it looked like a house cat. I was like, it looks so small. Yeah. Cause the snow had all kind of caved in on it. It looked so small. And I was like, this is so weird.

Ryan Uffens (10:15)
Really?

Donnie Vincent (10:21)
in the Houndsman Robin told me he's like Donnie that's a massive cat and I was like why does it look so small? He's like it's just the way the snow went and we're sitting there quiet and I was like you know because I'm a filmmaker so we want this to look pretty we don't necessarily want to sensationalize anything but we want this to look pretty and respectable and honest so I sit there looking at this cat and I go well now what do we do? And I'm like the sun's going down like

Do I just drag him out by his paw? And we're sitting there and Sam Soholt, do you know who Sam is? He'd be a great guest on your podcast. He's a photographer. He's out of South Dakota. He's really cool guy. Really wholesome, honest conservationist guy. He was there filming the hunt. And I said, well now what are we gonna do? And he goes, you know, the old timers carried him out. And I said, what'd you say? And he said, the old timers carried him out. And I what do mean? He goes,

Ryan Uffens (10:56)
I don't.

Donnie Vincent (11:18)
There's old pictures and paintings and stuff of these old cowboys like shooting these cats with like lever actions and they they kick him out either draped over their horse or they take him out draped over their shoulders and he's like there's some really cool photos of even I think there was an older woman in California that used to kill cats and she there's pictures of her like carrying these cats out on her shoulders and so we picked that cat up and he ended up being 185 pounds but we picked that cat up and put him on the shoulders and

and hiked him out and the snow was falling off the trees and it was just like, it was... It was surreal dude, it was surreal. And then we ate that cat, Ryan, and...

Ryan Uffens (11:49)
It's an epic photo,

I remember reading something about that you had eaten that and you had some other folks that were like, ⁓ I'm not gonna eat it.

Donnie Vincent (12:03)
Yeah, like the guides, like one, the houndsman told me that he had eaten cats before and I call total bullshit. Like I could see it in his face. I'm like, have you ever eaten one Ryan? He's like, I've eaten them. I've eaten them. And I go, not Ryan. His name was, ⁓ I just kind of, was his name? I just said that minute. The Robin name was Robin. go, I go Robin, I've eaten it. goes, yeah, I've eaten it. It's that, know, it's all right. And I looked at the head guide, Ben, I go, have you ever eaten them? He's like, no.

He's like, it's probably, it's not good. And then there's another guy named Dawson and he's like, I've never eaten them. I'm like, well, we're eating this one. And they're like, well, we can try it, but we're not eating like the whole thing. And it's like, we're eating the whole thing or I'm eating the whole thing. Like we're eating some. So I butcher the whole thing. I skin it and I don't even really skin it. It's actually sitting right over there. You can't see it, but it's hanging on the wall over there. I just have it as a, as a regular skin, but I skin it out and then I break it all down. And, and we took.

the inner loins and both back straps and we made medallions out of them and we cooked them on the grill at the cabin and then we took the hind quarter one hind quarter and we made a huge roast seasoned it all up seared it put in carrots and potatoes and gravies and all that stuff or rather beef broth put it in the oven and We were celebrating because we had killed a big cat and so we had a couple of cold beers

And the back straps and the inner loins never made it to the kitchen table. They were gone. Everyone just kept grabbing them like this cat, this huge cat, like the size of a deer. Both back straps and inner loins were gone before we sat down to have dinner. And then the roast was destroyed. Destroyed. Like the people ate the roast so fast. If this tells you anything, we had bighorn sheep and we mountain lion.

Ryan Uffens (13:50)
Really?

Donnie Vincent (14:01)
and there was big horn sheep left at the end of the dinner and nothing left of them outlying. And then at the end, Dawson, who's a good friend of mine, he's a really amazing logger up there in BC and guide. asked me, he lives in BC, he lives off the grid with his family. And he's like, may I take the rest of the cat home to my sons and my wife? And I said, absolutely. And so he took the rest. We packaged it all up beautifully. We vacuum packed it and he took it home for his family to have for, cause they.

They literally need the meat from some of the hunts that we do to get his family through the winter. And so it was a phenomenal experience. I want to go cat hunting again. That's something I never, ever wanted to go and now I want to go again.