Hunting Experiences - Lion Hunts

I’m starting my hunting experiences with the times I spend on horseback chasing after mountain lion.  Other volumes will cover coyote, deer, bear, and other adventures I had throughout my life.

Mountain Lion Hunting.  I’ve already described about the first mountain lion I shot when I was with dad at the age of 12.  From there I went hunting lion with dad whenever the opportunity arose.  Whenever dad went hunting lion Dan and my responsibilities were to get up in the early morning hours and saddle the horse(s) and load the and dogs, even if we would not be going.  Dad had built a rack for the back of his pickup that would carry two horses.  He had a dog box built under the manger where up to 10 dogs could ride.  The horses were trained (persuaded) to jump into the back of the truck from ground level.  Many people marveled at how they would do this.  Dad hunted between five to eight dogs at once and always had two of three older dogs that were seasoned and well trained.  The other dogs were normally young dogs about a year old and were learning.  Dad’s dogs were exceptionally and he had a renowned reputation for having some of the best lion dogs in the country.  He would occasionally sell one here and there and would generally get between $1,000 to $5,000 out of them depending on their skills and abilities. His dogs could track and catch mountain lion in the heat of the summer months where most other hunter’s dogs required snow.  Dad always had sufficient dogs for two packs so when he was hunting every day, he could trade off so they could rest and not get worn out.  Dad’s mode of hunting was to ride in country frequented by mountain lion.  The older dogs grew to know the areas and would follow along with the horse, but would be off checking spots where lion like to pass through, such as ledge overhangs, big ponderosa trees in saddles or at the bottom of ravines.  When the older seasoned dog came upon a lion track he would open up with a long drawn out bawl, alerting the riders and the other dogs he had found something.  We would sit on the horses and listen as the dog tried to pick up more sent.  Based on the intensity of the bawls, one could tell from a distance if the track was hot and trail-able or if it was several days old and very faint.  If it was made the night before, the dogs would work the track which would generally start at a rather slow pace.  As they tracked the lion through the area, the scent grows fresher to where the dogs can usually move it through the country with very little difficulty.   The hunter usually stays with the dogs at a distance to listen.  The fresher the scent gets the shorter and more frequent the bawls get from the hounds.  Once they “jump” the lion, the dogs move faster than a horse can keep up with them through the steep canyons and brush.  Staying with the dogs on horseback requires considerable skill riding where there are no trails in very rough country.  Once the dogs tree the lion, they sound out a short choppy bark, meaning they have something either bayed up or treed.  Most of the time lions tree in a large pine, on the edge of a ledge or sometime in a cave or overhang. 

Dad advertised in sportsmen magazines for lion hunts and normally had weekends during winter months booked with hunts.  Occasionally, he had hunters come during the summer months, but his summer work didn’t allow much time for sport hunting.  I believe the going rate for a five day hunt in the late 1960’s was $1,500, and if they didn’t bag a lion, they could come back for $500.  The hunter could also trophy hunt (only take a large male lion) for 10 days and would cost him $2,000.  This class of clientele was normally on-call so when Dad found a trophy size lion track, he could call and they’d fly out the next day.  As I grew older (teenage years) I’d help dad with duds on occasion when my school didn’t conflict.  Here are a few experiences I had helping with duds.

Superstition Mountains – Arizona.  As mentioned above, dad had a respectable reputation for having some of the best dogs in the country and hunters around the west paid top dollar for his dogs.  One such individual, Bill Workman, from Phoenix bought a couple of dad’s dogs and offered to take dad on a lion hunt in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix.  When I was about 14, dad decided to take him up on the offer.  It was during Christmas vacation when we went.  It was dark when we finally arrived at his ranch and I couldn’t see any of the country.  The next morning when we saddled up the mules (first one I had ever ridden) and started out.  I was totally amazed at the country.  Every bush had thorns that would jump out and grab you.  We wore chaps for good reason.  There were no pine trees that we were accustomed to in southern Utah, just mesquite, joshua trees, polo verde trees and lots of cactus of all sorts.  I was wondering what the lion ate until we saw a fresh javalina kill.  We hunted three days and caught a small female.  It was rough country to say the least, but I’d still take the beautiful mountains of southern Utah over them.  Years later when I spent three months in Arizona filling in for the State Director for the Wildlife Service program, I was able to accompany a rancher back to the area we had hunted.  It hadn’t changed a bit.

Onions:  Dad had a hunter come a couple of times from Ohio.  He ate raw onions, hence the nick name.  The first time he came, dad caught him a small female lion, but he wanted a bigger male lion too.  So, a few years later he returned.  This was around 1968.  It was in the summer time and dad had found where a large lion had been staying in Summit Canyon, east of the town of Summit.  We started up the canyon at daylight on horseback. riding along the creek then climbing up towards the Hole-in-the-Rock (a prominent landmark visible from I-15).  The dogs struck a track just under the Hole and trailed it south, down into the bottom of Summit Creek.  When we got to a place where we could see the lion track, the size told us that it was the lion we were looking for.  The country is steep with ledges, and the bottoms of the draws were thick masses of scrub oak and ponderosa pine trees.   It was in the middle of July and very hot when the dogs finally jump the lion. They trailed it to  the bottom where there were several smaller ravines shooting off from the main canyon.  The dogs could smell the lion and were barking treed, but had not located the tree it was in due to the dense brush.  We rode around several of these small side canyons trying to locate the tree where the lion was to no avail.  We finally climbed upon a ledge and could see him high up a big yellow pine a couple of hundred yards away.  When we got to the tree, the old tom cat had a short tail, his ears were just about completely chewed off, and he had scars all over his head.  Onions didn’t know if he wanted to shoot this lion or not, but dad told him of all the lions he had ever taken, this was a top trophy in his book because of the scars of battle with other male lions.  He finally agreed and shot the lion.

The Ohioans:  This one was one of the tougher hunts.  A man and his son from Ohio wanted to take a lion with a bow and arrow.  George Proctor, the trapper in Garfield County had call dad and told him there was a large male lion killing sheep on Mt. Dutton, east of Panguitch.  We set up camp in Prospect Creek and would hunt the country west towards Adams Head – the square topped mountain one can see on the skyline east of Panguitch.  One after noon we came around the trail on Adams Head.  There was a burned down structure on the very top.  Dad said it was an old fire lookout and that the lightning burned it down several times until the Forest Service finally abandoned it.  At the moment we could see a big thunderhead cloud moving towards us.  We hurried trying to get off the top as the storm was approaching.  We just got to the south side where the trail starts dropping off towards Prospect when the lightning started to pop all around us.  We tied the horses under some trees and went about a hundred yards away from them and found some shelter where we waited out the storm.  Dad told me horses tend to draw the lightning and we were better off away from them.  A lesson I have used many times.  We hunted the area for several days and found the lion’s tracks, but we were always a couple of days behind him.  The horse I was riding had high withers and on about day five the saddle had worn a sore on top of them.  I had a choice to either stay in the camp or ride bareback.  I choose bareback.  The next two days were the most miserable two days of riding a horse I will ever experience.  Riding up hill wasn’t too bad, I just had to grab onto the main and hang on so I wouldn’t slide of the back.  But, going down hill was not fun at all.  The high withers made it difficult on my manhood.  I got to where I jump off and lead him down hill.  My butt was sore by the end of the day.  Finally, we found the lion’s fresh track in the head of Prospect Creek.  The dogs tracked him for about a mile and treed him in a big ponderosa.  He was perched on a limb that jetted out from the tree away from the other limbs, giving the archer a perfect shot.  We tied the dogs up because we didn’t know the skill of the hunter with a bow, and even a well placed arrow sometimes takes a while to kill an animal.  Dad didn't want to get his dogs chewed up by a wounded lion.  The hunters had a video camera and I was the designated cameraman.  I stood behind the shooter and filmed him shooting the lion.  It was a perfect shot in the heart.  The lion jumped and slid off the limb, hanging with one paw before it fell to the ground dead.  While skinning this lion I stabbed myself in the leg and dad had to take me to Panguitch to get it stitched up and a tetanus shot.

On the Muddy:  When I was 18, Garn Blackburn, the trapper in Kane County, called and asked if I wanted a job for a couple of days helping him with a hunter.  He was hunting on Muddy Creek, west of Orderville.  I was trying to save money for a mission, and the money would come in handy.  I had just gotten out of my first year of college and had a few days before a job with the Forest Service started up.  I met Garn at his house and we drove up Muddy Creek where it tops out.  We unloaded the horses and hadn’t gotten a quarter mile when the dogs hit a lion track that was pretty fresh.  The country is surrounded by sandstone rims that drop off several hundred feet.  Garn was trying to keep up with the dogs so I was left to get the hunter to the tree, who was having a hard time riding a horse.  The dogs finally treed the lion on one of these ledges that dropped off about a hundred feet to another ledge that had a space about 20 feet then dropped off another hundred feet.  The lion was in an old dead tree that over hung the ledge, not a good place.  If the hunter shot the lion there, it was sure to drop off the ledge, with no way to get down to it.  One of Garn’s hounds was bleeding which indicated they had caught it on the ground before it climbed the three.   One of his best dogs, Ugly, was also missing.  The lion’s tail drooped down below the branch were it was perched, and Garn could reach out and touch it.  So, he decided to let the hunter shoot the lion and he’d hold onto the tree and reach and grab the tail before it went over the ledge, hoping to pull it back upon the ledge.  I tied a rope around Garn’s chest and onto the saddle horn of one of the horses.  The hunter shot the lion (luckily it was a smaller male), and Garn grabbed it’s tail when it fell.  He was able to drag it back on the ledge.  We rode up and down the top of the ledge call for old Ugly to no avail.  Garn said about a week later he found a lion turd that had Ugly’s hair in it.  He figured the lion had knocked Ugly off the ledge and the fall had probably killed him.  A lion must have found him and eaten him.

Deep Creek.  After I graduated from high school I worked at Zion Park busing dishes for the summer.  It was very enjoyable and I met some good people that started me thinking about the more spiritual aspects of my life.  Anyway, after my job at Zion was finished, I had about two weeks before college started, so I took the horse and dogs up on Cedar Mountain to what they call the Plains, an area between Zion Park and Navajo Lake.  I stayed at MacRay and Kern Bulloch’s cabin and hunted lion for two weeks.  It gave me time to think and put some reason to my life and ponder what I wanted to do with my future.  It was probably the most defining moment of my life.  Back to hunting.  One morning at daylight I rode out to the Point where Rattlesnake canyon drops off into Deep Creek.  Dad and I had built a trail off the north side of the canyon to cut out about a mile of ride around the rim.  I was about half way down the trail when the dogs hit a track.  When I got down to where I could see what they were trailing, they were taking the track backwards.  So I finally got them turned around and within an hour we jumped it.  It went off the point down Rattlesnake, across Burnt Flat to Deep Creek.  The dogs treed it right in the fork of where Crystal Creek runs into Deep Creek.  It was a very large male.  I skinned this one for myself.   

George Proctor.  My first year in college was unique.  The government trapping program had offered to put dad through college to get his degree and Cheri and Dan were also attending.   George Proctor, the trapper in Garfield County, called dad and asked him to bring his dogs over east of Bryce Canyon.  A lion had killed some sheep and George didn’t have lion hounds.  It was during finals and dad had three finals the next day, so he asked me if I could go.  I only had one final, a forest management class, so I talked to the professor, explaining the situation, and he kind of rolled his eyes, then said I could take the test after I got back if I brought him the lion hide.  I met George at the turn off on the East Fork and we drove just under the pinks.  I was pretty sandy and we were in separate vehicles due to the horses.  We were driving slowly down the road looking for a track crossing in the area where the sheep had been killed.  I spotted a track, but George had missed it.  I finally got his attention about a half mile down the road, turned around and started the dogs on it.  It went up within 20 yards of a house, dropped down in a canyon where the dogs jumped it and treed it.  It was a small female.  I skinned it and gave it to the professor the next day.  Boy was he surprised.  I think he thought I was just trying to get out of taking the test.  I also got an A in the class.