My Fist Lion

Clancy Sayer

One day towards the end of January, my dad woke me up earlier than usual and informed me that his friend Mike was looking for lion tracks and wanted me to go hunt with him. I immediately replied “YES!” I hurried and changed into my long johns and wool pants, then headed out to the truck. My brother and sister thought it was unfair that I got to hunting while they had to go to school so my dad let them go with us too

It seemed like it took forever to get to our destination, especially because it was my first lion hunt and if I was lucky my first big game animal. We finally found mike who had cut a female with a large tom following. We decided to let the hounds go (Trapper, Jess, Exploder, Clyde and Tobey.) It was very exciting, Mike showed Jess the track and she let out a big bawl and took off after the lion. We traveled from place to place around the mountain in the trucks trying to figure out where the dogs were heading. We came to a canyon where we thought the dogs headed to. My brother, sister and I stayed with my dad while Mike and his friend Brandon went up to look for the dogs. I swear we sat there for three hours. Finally they reported back to my dad on the radio that the dogs went over the ridge and headed for the top of the mountain.

We drove to another spot on the mountain and got a good signal on the dogs; they had been in the same spot for awhile and Mike thought they might be treed. We drove as far as we could up the canyon. Mike and Brandon took our four- wheeler up the road and the rest of us started to walk. We walked a little ways and then Brandon came to save us on the four- wheeler. He told me and my dad to take it and drive up to a spot where he left his stuff then follow the tracks up the mountain while he helped my brother and sister catch up. So my dad and I did just that. The hill was steep; when we finally got to the tree the mountain lion was in, he got nervous and decided to jump. It wasn’t that hard for him considering the tree he was in was quite short. The dogs were tied up so we had to hurry and let them go. Read the rest of the story in the kids section of the Premier Issue….

See the original article at Ultimate Predator Magazine