Montana Mountain Lion- The Rookie Hunt

[Gerald Martin]

Today was the first day of mountain lion season (with hounds) in Montana. I was excited to draw a limited tag for the first time in the four years that I've applied. Our unit went to a special draw about 6 years ago and its really helped the quality of the lion hunting here both in terms of the hunt and helping to insure hunters are killing adult lions instead of the first cat the hounds put up a tree.
It's also ensured that someone like myself who doesn't own hounds can find a houndsman who is willing to run a cat for him.

Last year was the first year I had run for a cat when my friend and neighbor Rick had drawn a tag. A tough combination of lack of snow, old tracks, small tracks, hound troubles and the fact he didn't want to shoot a small cat meant that he ate his tag instead of killing a cat. Rick had run lions for years but had downsized to one hound in the past several years. His hound Bailey is still fairly young but has the nose, the drive, and the intelligence it takes to make a great hound. She's only been on a couple of lion trees but she's seen lots of feral cats that strayed onto the property go up a tree. She knows the routine.

Our plan for the day consisted of Rick and I running a couple of local drainages before daylight and then checking in with Charlie and Jimmy who were running in the district that bordered ours. Charlie is a RABID lion hunter who does it just for the love of hearing the dogs and seeing the lion in the tree. He doesn't even have a tag this year and is still using several of his vacation days just to run cats for the fun of it. We agreed that if Rick and I found a cat Charlie and Jimmy would come run with us and if they found a cat we'd go run with them.

Long story short.... After hitting the road at 3 a.m. and running until seven, all Rick and I could come up with was one old bobcat track and one small lion track both at least a day old. That, and at least four fresh wolf tracks that had spent the night on a local ranch that had given me permission to chase lions on. But, when we called Charlie, he informed us that they had a fresh track. It was a fairly small cat and out of my district but since I'd never seen a cat in the tree before, I was gungho to join the chase.




The leading lady of this saga. Bailey

 

[Spitz]

Very cool. Something I would love to do someday. Best of luck to you.

 

[Gerald Martin]

After a hairy and rather foolish attempt at pulling our snowmobiles and trailers up the mountain ("Oh yeah, there's plenty of room for you to turn around up there") and spinning out on a very slick hill, we made it to the track.

Once you find a fresh track its pretty basic. Put the GPS collars on the dogs and turn them out. The dogs were off and running and were out of earshot within a couple minutes. Bailey was right with them at the beginning but when she didn't see Rick was coming she came back to check up on us. Not really what we had hoped for, but when we put her back on the track and she saw we were coming along she was off and running.



The track. Charlie was guessing a 90-100lb cat.






Jimmy, Charlie, and Rick, following the hound and cat tracks.

 

[Gerald Martin]

The lion hadn't gone far from where it had crossed the road. In fact it must have made a kill fairly recenty because we found two places where it had bedded down.

We had only followed the hound tracks for about 300 yards before we could hear the hounds and Charlie said. "They've got it treed."

 

[Gerald Martin]

Just because you can hear the dogs barking treed, doesn't mean its easy getting to where they are. The GPS collors showed the dogs about 500 yards up the mountain, but it still took us about twenty minutes to get to the tree.
I know it was only 10:30 on opening morning but I did have some appreciation for the work it takes to get a lion treed. Rick and I had run at least five days last year without treeing a cat and he had run several other days himself and didn't get a cat in the tree.
It was pretty exciting to walk up to the first lion that I'd ever seen treed. Here's the sight that greeted us when we got there.

 

[shoots-straight]

That cat is in great shape, at the tree. What kind of shape was she in when you left?

 

[Gerald Martin]

The cat was a female, around 90-100lbs. It was not in my district so I couldn't shoot it and I wouldn't have shot it if it had been. But it sure was cool to see a cat in the tree!

In the end, we collared the dogs and left the cat perched on her limbs. Not a bad day!


This is an ongoing hunt. The season runs until April 15, but I've only got until the end of Feb due to other obligations. Hopefully we get to add a bunch more pictures of cats and one with a 150 tom, Bailey, and myself all in the same picture.

You guys feel free to add any lion pics and stories of your own to this thread.

 

[belly-deep]

I'd be curious to know how often those dogs get torn up by wolves? The way a few articles make it sound, I wouldn't want to invest all of that time and money into dogs just to have them killed. On the other hand, guys are still running dogs so it must not be too often.

 

[wingman1]

Good luck GM I hope you get a nice tom. If you have a bitteroot tag PM me, I have ran cats in the root for 16 years and would love to help in anyway.

 

[Gerald Martin]

It all just a matter of playing the odds I guess. It happens every year, not in every area and I wouldn't say its common but it does happen. There's no way we would have turned Bailey loose in the area where we saw all the wolf tracks even if we had found a big cat track. It would just be asking for trouble.

 

[BuzzH]

I'm totally against the new cat regulations in Montana, its had a huge and negative impact on our deer herds in many areas.

The quotas and tags need to be increased dramatically...its tough for me to listen to a houndsmen whine about wolves while they lobby for "trophy" cat areas and reduce the cat harvest by 90% in all of regions 1 and 2.

Even more amazing is that the big-game hunters allowed it to happen...tragic. Whine about wolves and never a peep about the huge increase in cats...

If the wolf haters are going to gut shoot wolves...they should do the same with cats, every one they see.

 

[wingman1]

On a side note thats a nice looking english dog. where did your buddy get her. That blue tick reminds of my old luke dog. He is 15 years old and still going. After he passes that will be it for me and hounds.

 

[belly-deep]

I'm totally against the new cat regulations in Montana, its had a huge and negative impact on our deer herds in many areas.

The quotas and tags need to be increased dramatically...its tough for me to listen to a houndsmen whine about wolves while they lobby for "trophy" cat areas and reduce the cat harvest by 90% in all of regions 1 and 2.

Even more amazing is that the big-game hunters allowed it to happen...tragic. Whine about wolves and never a peep about the huge increase in cats...

If the wolf haters are going to gut shoot wolves...they should do the same with cats, every one they see.

I'll agree with you on that Buzz. I've never figured out how such a small group of hunters, in relation to elk and deer hunters, gets to have trophy units all over the western part of the state, with the result of decreasing deer and elk numbers.

 

[Gerald Martin]

BuzzH on one hand I hear where you're coming from. On the other hand.... Lions and wolves don't necessarily have the same predation habits and at least we can hunt lions.... Also, I could be wrong about it because I don't know why the changes have come about but in our region the quota has actually been raised by a couple of lions since they changed from a quota to tags. I think the across the board concensous by everyone I've talked with is they like the tag system. It lets the houndsmen run their dogs and it keeps the competion down for finding and running tracks. In previous years the quota could be filled within 3 weeks of ideal weather and guys were shooting any cat they treed. Now, the pressure is spread out over 4 months and if you have a tag and put your time, you have a good chance at a really nice tom.

I know its nice for a guy like me who doesn't own dogs to be able to ask around to guys that do and hear, "You bet! I'll be happy to bring my dogs if you find a track."

 

[----]

I know its nice for a guy like me who doesn't own dogs to be able to ask around to guys that do and hear, "You bet! I'll be happy to bring my dogs if you find a track."

Pass some of those guys down to me. I haven't been looking real hard, but so far I've struck out on getting help with my tag.

The lion tag system sucks, but fortunately I think FWP is realizing it. Like Gerald said, they've raised the quotas, and have also gone to general tags being good in deer and elk season.

Good luck with that tag though Gerald, if you stay determined you should kill a toad.

 

[BuzzH]

Gerald,

I'm in receipt of over 25 years worth of data in the major drainage I hunt in Montana in regard to cat harvests...historically 100 cats per year were taken, give or take a few. That stayed consistent for well over 20 years prior to the "trophy" cat designation. Ever since the new regulations...10 cats a year have been killed.

It seems to me that dropping the cat harvest by 90% is taking things a bit too far. Its too little to say, "well they increased the tags by a couple permits"...big deal.

I've kept detailed hunting journals for a long time, also kept track logs and trapping journals for the MTFWP when I used to trap. From 1980-2005 I saw a total of 3 mountain lions while hunting elk and deer. From 2005-2009 I've seen 9 cats.

Coincidence? I dont believe so, as the number of tracks I see has also increased dramatically...so much that in the last 5 years I rarely make note of lion tracks in my journals.

Also fair to note is that whitetail deer populations in my area have crashed big-time. In 2005 I shot the 21st 4 point or better whitetail buck that I'd seen THAT DAY. Last year, my brother and I didnt see 21 whitetail bucks in an entire season.

I've yet to see a wolf track in our area, and only 2 things changed...one being OTC whitetail doe tags and the decrease of cat harvests by 90%.

It would make more sense to me to keep the unlimited tags and go back to the old style quota until 90% of the annual harvest was filled. Issue a handful of permits that are good for the entire season to fill the remaining 10% of the harvest.

There is NO question that cats kill wayyy more big-game annually than wolves. The data proves that each wolf kills 11-13 big-game animals a year...each cat...52.

A pack of 10 wolves will kill 110-130 animals a year...10 lions in your area will kill 520.

Yeah, its all the wolves...

Oh, and just because you can hunt lions doesnt mean they are being properly managed...and just because you cant hunt wolves doesnt mean they arent being managed...

 

[belly-deep]

Lions and wolves don't necessarily have the same predation habits

They both eat meat...???

More predators in an area is more mouths to feed, period. The lions may eat more deer and the wolves more elk, but I don't think you can say that their impacts are felt in completely different ways.

I have heard houndsmen complaining that the wolves are eating their lions...is there any truth to that?

 

[elk_hunter]

Curious about something - how can you tell the gender of a cat? I'm game for decreasing the cat population so if anyone would show me the ropes, I'd be interested in shooting one. What does a MT tag cost for a NR?

 

[BuzzH]

The absolute worse thing to do is kill a mature tom if you want to decrease the cat population...they kill lots of other cats.

Kill the females and sub-adult males...leave the mature toms alone to thin the cat population even more.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Belly Deep and BuzzH, I don't want to get into a whizzing match here with you because there's a pretty good chance you both know more about this than me. Like my title says "Rookie Lion Hunt"

I don't have harvest data going back 25 years. I've only lived here since 2002. If my memory serves me correctly the quota during those years was 21. I think they issue either 25 or 26 tags plus the subquota of two or three lions that can be killed in deer season. How long has it been since lions have been given "trophy status"?

A pack of 10 wolves will kill 110-130 animals a year...10 lions in your area will kill 520

I don't dispute those numbers at all. However, in the area I'm hunting between the two groups of us looking in four decent size drainages we found a minimum of 8 wolf tracks in two seperate packs and one fresh lion track and one old lion track. The wolf tracks were all fresh, we didn't count any old ones. Ten lions in that size of an area? There's probably only 3. Ten wolves? It wouldn't surprise me if there were more.

Hey I'm on the same page as you guys are about there being too many predators on the woods for the game animals. I've only been here 8 years and I've seen our deer populations plummet in the mountains. The three major factors and changes I've observed is more people hunting in our area, two winters with significant winterkill and wolves. I don't think the lion pop. has grown proportionally to the decrease of deer. In fact, I'm seriously in favor of limiting the numbers of the biggest predator of all. Hunters. (I'm talking mainly for elk here.)

At any rate don't be jumping all over me. I'm not one of the ones who lobbied for "trophy status" and low quotas. I'm just somebody who happened to get lucky and draw a tag. Wish me luck, I'm going to do my best to eliminate one of those "murderous, evil, lions" . I'm hoping its the biggest one around because they've got the biggest appetites.