WyoDoug
Well-known member
I am starting this thread more along the line with sharing hints that I picked up over the years on hunting lions without the use of dogs. I started hunting lions in the 80s when a rancher offered me permissions to hunt on his land near Eagle, Colorado in exchange to helping get a lion that was preying on his cattle. He loaned me some horses and all the tack I needed. He offered me a reward of $500 if I got the one killing his cattle. This would be my first lion hunt, cold turkey sorta. I had been deer hunting and saw several by chance but this was the first one I hunted down. And there was tons of beef bones strewn around those caves.
I was between jobs at the time and had cashed out my 104K at the time so I used that money to fund a hunting trip for a cat. Keep in mind that at this period of time, there was no such thing as Internet where you could seek out extensive information on hunting cats like you can today. The strategy I started with was to find a kill site and track from there. It didn't take long before I found a calf that had been killed and lion tracks all around it.
A key thing is at this point the lion likely knew I was in the area. In addition to excellent vision, a mountain Lion has extremely sensitive hearing. This is also an important tool for hunting in low light. Lions can detect high frequency sounds that allow them to detect hidden prey. By comparison, Mountain Lions have a weak sense of smell.
The partially eaten calf carcass was covered with a branch and I circled that until I found tracks leaving and entering the kill site and followed them. I located the lion under some outcrop rocks that had small caves under them and he was eyeball to eyeball to me at 100 yards or so. He didn't think he was seen I don't think because he just laid still under the rock behind shrubbery and pulled my 30-06 out of the scabbard and dismounted. I don't know why but the lion still did not budge from where he was hiding. Normally, this would put them in a defensive mode. I shot freehand and hit it on first shot in the head right above the eyes.
I got my hunting permissions, but I never took that rancher up on other requests to hunt lions. He offered me a grand to kill another lion, but it cost way more than that for a week or so tracking a lion and eventually setting up on it to kill it unless you run into it pure by chance. It is also a fairly dangerous hunt as a hungry cat sometimes also views horses and sometimes people as prey.
Since then, I have shot about a half dozen lions but never with dogs. I have always use the strategy of finding a kill site and setting up on it or tracking from there. Setting up on a kill site takes a ton of partience and some chance that the lion ignores you ordoes not detect your presense. I would calculate my success rate on hunting lions without dogs to be around 50%. I recently had a lively discussion with a guy on Facebook that asked me how many lions I treed. My answer was none, because I never used dogs. Not sure what his point was LOL. But I like my strategy and going to stick with it.
Now here is my question for others that hunted lions without dogs. What was your strategy and what hints would you offer tenderfoots wanting to hunt them?
I was between jobs at the time and had cashed out my 104K at the time so I used that money to fund a hunting trip for a cat. Keep in mind that at this period of time, there was no such thing as Internet where you could seek out extensive information on hunting cats like you can today. The strategy I started with was to find a kill site and track from there. It didn't take long before I found a calf that had been killed and lion tracks all around it.
A key thing is at this point the lion likely knew I was in the area. In addition to excellent vision, a mountain Lion has extremely sensitive hearing. This is also an important tool for hunting in low light. Lions can detect high frequency sounds that allow them to detect hidden prey. By comparison, Mountain Lions have a weak sense of smell.
The partially eaten calf carcass was covered with a branch and I circled that until I found tracks leaving and entering the kill site and followed them. I located the lion under some outcrop rocks that had small caves under them and he was eyeball to eyeball to me at 100 yards or so. He didn't think he was seen I don't think because he just laid still under the rock behind shrubbery and pulled my 30-06 out of the scabbard and dismounted. I don't know why but the lion still did not budge from where he was hiding. Normally, this would put them in a defensive mode. I shot freehand and hit it on first shot in the head right above the eyes.
I got my hunting permissions, but I never took that rancher up on other requests to hunt lions. He offered me a grand to kill another lion, but it cost way more than that for a week or so tracking a lion and eventually setting up on it to kill it unless you run into it pure by chance. It is also a fairly dangerous hunt as a hungry cat sometimes also views horses and sometimes people as prey.
Since then, I have shot about a half dozen lions but never with dogs. I have always use the strategy of finding a kill site and setting up on it or tracking from there. Setting up on a kill site takes a ton of partience and some chance that the lion ignores you ordoes not detect your presense. I would calculate my success rate on hunting lions without dogs to be around 50%. I recently had a lively discussion with a guy on Facebook that asked me how many lions I treed. My answer was none, because I never used dogs. Not sure what his point was LOL. But I like my strategy and going to stick with it.
Now here is my question for others that hunted lions without dogs. What was your strategy and what hints would you offer tenderfoots wanting to hunt them?
