Sorry about dropping this for a few days. Well, no lion on this trip. Wasn't for the lack of efforts. I had 3 great guides and a dozen excellent dogs and conditions just didn't work out. On Monday, the dogs split into two groups, 4 went one direction and 2 another. Both were on a track of a different cat. The 4 ulimately lost the track between the wind and snow loss. If we would have had good snow or good dirt, would have got this one. When we found the other 2 dogs, they were played out and done for the day. They had been tracking a great cat and just ran out of steam. This was a 7AM to dark day.
On Tuesday, started another cat at 7:30AM and ran it until 5PM. Chased it into a hell-hole canyon where it and another cat played with the dogs until we got them on a track out of the canyon. I am sure that I saw one in the brush on the other side once and think I heard one about 25 yards behind us once (as verified by the tracks). I'm guessing the dogs put on about 15 miles on Tuesday. Frankly, just didn't have enough go left in them at the end to push the cat up a tree. I feel bad for the dogs as they deserved a better result for the effort they put in. Either needed better snow or better dirt as the conditions just didn't work well.
Going back to get it done, hopefully in January. This was as intimidating as I was expecting and as much or more fun. This could be addictive. Talking to Ryan at Rokslide earlier today and he tells me that they have cats in Idaho also. Humm.... and elk to.....
