Lions, Hounds, And Culverts: A Lion Hunter`s Journey

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A mountain lion's paw print in fresh snow means something different to Scott of Montana Mountain Lion Adventures—it's the beginning of a primal pursuit that represents one of hunting's most specialized traditions. Through decades of experience training "long, sophisticated tracking machines" (his hounds), Scott has developed a deep understanding of both the cats he pursues and the dogs that help him do it.

From his childhood fascination with a life-sized mountain lion mount in his family's kitchen to becoming president of the Montana State Hounding Association, Scott's journey reveals the extraordinary patience and perseverance required to master this craft. He shares the pivotal moment when an ornery but skilled local hunter took him under his wing, leading to his first successful mountain lion hunt and the realization that his previous failures weren't due to a lack of tracking ability but working with dogs unsuited to Montana's challenging conditions.

Scott provides fascinating insights into his selective breeding approach—by 18 months, his dogs must independently trail and tree lions, and by 30 months, they must perform on dry ground without snow to assist tracking. His commitment to quality over quantity is evident in his guiding philosophy, typically using only three dogs when most would run six or seven, ensuring every hound genuinely contributes to the hunt.

Beyond the hunt itself, Scott's participation in Montana's Mountain Lion Monitoring Program reveals surprising scientific discoveries about these predators. GPS-collared cats have shown that while some lions kill deer weekly, others might survive 20 days between major kills, relying on smaller prey. Perhaps most striking is the evidence that mortality rates in non-hunted lion populations closely match those in areas with well-managed hunting quotas, challenging common assumptions about conservation approaches.

Call Scott directly to discuss booking a hunt—with only a limited number of clients accepted each year and typically booked 1-2 years in advance, these specialized experiences require advance planning but deliver an authentic connection to one of hunting's most challenging pursuits.

Check us out on Facebook and instagram Hunts On Outfitting, and also our YouTube page Hunts On Outfitting Podcast. Tell your hunting buddies about the podcast if you like it, Thanks!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
this is hunts on outfitting podcast.
I'm your host and rookie guide,ken meyer.
I love everything hunting, theoutdoors and all things
associated with it, fromstories-tos, you'll find it here
.
Welcome to the podcast, Allright.

(00:34):
Yes, Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks for tuning in.
We appreciate it.
We'd also appreciate it if youhad the time to leave us a
rating or review on Apple orSpotify, All right.
So this week, what are wetalking about on the podcast?
Well, we're talking with Scottwith Montana Mountain Lion
Adventures.
This week on the podcast, Scottis going to talk to us all
about himself, how he got intoit and what it's like using

(00:54):
man's best friend to track downand tree these magnificent,
unique, tough and huge beasts.
I mean these cats.
You think about how tough andstrong you know some barn cat is
.
These are mountain lions.
So, uh, it takes a special kindof person and hounds to get it
done and that's what we're goingto learn about.

(01:15):
Stay tuned.
Yeah, Scott, I mean, uh, thanksfor coming on and you know
before, I'm excited to talkabout mountain lions, hunting
them, all about them, andeverything, the use of the
hounds.
But before we get into that,who's Scott?
How'd you get into where you'reat today?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, my dad has been an outfitter since the 70s, so
I kind of grew up with allaspects as a youth hunter.
And then on the side, my daddid taxidermy.
And when I was a little kid, wealways had this life-size
mountain lion in our kitchenbecause it didn't fit anywhere
else in our house, and I wasalways fascinated with this

(02:00):
mountain lion.
I didn't give it much thoughtuntil I was about 11.
And my dad wanted me to get abear in Montana with this
mountain lion.
Um, I didn't give it muchthought until I was about 11.
And, uh, my dad wanted me toget a bear in the Montana.
He had to be 12 times.
And so we got some dogs fromUtah, some hounds, and hauled
them up to an outfitter inBritish Columbia.
And on that trip I was moreexcited to to be around these

(02:27):
dogs, um, the longersophisticated tracking machines
I call them Then.
Then I was to go on a bear hunt.
I didn't really care about thebear.
I want to play with the dogs.
Um, so that that's kind of whattriggered it, and from that
time on I always wanted a lion.
Um, so that that's kind of whattriggered it, and from that
time on I always wanted a lion.

(02:48):
Um it it first.
I want it.
I want a hound, but my parentswouldn't let me get one.
Um, so life went on.
I went through high school.
Um, I started running with someguys when I could in high
school and we could never catchcats.
Um, so I went to college, um,and would come home on the

(03:13):
weekends and hunt.
And as soon as I got out ofcollege, I I started hitting it
pretty hard, like a lot of guyswould do.
I'd look for a lion and thencall somebody to come run it.
Well, I did that for two yearsand nobody ever caught a cat.
I'd call them off the track,they wouldn't show up whatever.
And the one individual we justwe never caught the cats.

(03:35):
And I'm thinking, man, catchingthese mountain lions is tough
work, um, and then there wasthis gentleman that he felt
sorry for me and he was kind ofthe elite lion hunter of the
area and an older guy and kindof ornery.
And one day he just told me hesaid you know, you've put your

(03:58):
time in, you can go with metomorrow.
So I went hunting with him thenext day and we treated this cat
and I was so excited to finallyget to see him out in the land.
And the cat jumped out of thetree right when we got there and
I said now what he said well,that's it.
He said my dog knows how tocount and that's the third time

(04:18):
it's jumped.
I'm going to go back to mytruck.
He said go get my dog and bringit back to my truck.
And I mean, this guy didn't usetracking cars or nothing, he
didn't believe in any technology.
And so I'm like, oh my gosh, Idon't, I don't know what to do.
So I'm like, just what?
Get your dog?
He said just follow dog tracks.
Eventually you'll find my dog.

(04:39):
If it catches the cat, you canshoot it.
I'm going to go to the truck.
And he just left and I didn'tknow what to do.
My buddy goes what do we do?
I said I guess we follow thedog man.
This guy will kill us if wedon't get his dog.
So we're following dog tracksin the snow.
We didn't know any better.
And the dog had treated the lionright over the hill.
Again, we didn't have a leash,so we took our belts off and

(05:07):
tied around the dog's neck anduh, I, I shot the lion.
Yeah and uh, anyway, we, wewent back down to the truck and
he was sitting in the trucksmoking a cigarette, drinking
some whiskey, and he said ohyeah, you got a lion, and so
that that kind of kicked it off.
And that night I knew that thelast four or five years I've
been doing it wrong.
It wasn't wasn't that I wasn'tfinding lion tracks, it was that
I was hunting with guys thatdidn't have qualified dogs for

(05:31):
the environment.
We were hunting in in theconditions.
So the next day I went and got adog and then from then on I
just never looked back and, youknow, I went to get my degree.
You know, at this time I've nowgraduated college and I had a
very good paying job at the time, um, but I knew right then that

(05:52):
this is it I'm.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna hunt thesedogs, I'm gonna be a hound guy.
And this, this job at this,mine wouldn't, wouldn't
guarantee me the 10 days off offwork that I needed.
So I quit and I decided that Iwas just going to make my
passion my profession.

(06:12):
Like that's it.
I'm going to make a living withmy dogs one way or the other.
And so I went back to theoutfitting world with my dad and
would guide deer and elkhunters and fishing trips and
everything and trail rides allsummer and then come wintertime

(06:33):
I would lion hunt and my dad hadto go through a two-year
process in order to obtain thelegal permitting to add mountain
lions under our permit.
So he did that and then Istarted guiding a couple of lion
hunters a year and then just tomake enough money to survive,

(06:55):
and then I would go work forother outfitters for free around
the state just so I could getmore lions under my dogs, you
know, trying to build good dogs.
And then, kind of after that, Ijust I did that for I don't
know years and then in 2015, I'dspent probably 10, 12 years

(07:21):
running hunts for my dad andthen in 2015, I got my own
outfair's license and we startedMontana Mountain Lion
Adventures.
So all I did was lion hunt andthen, when I wasn't lion hunting
, I guided for my dad for IronRoad Guest Ranch that we ended
up buying in 2019.
So a typical year for me iswe'd run dogs, you know,

(07:47):
December 1st to April 14th, andthen coon hunt in the summer and
start doing fishing trips andand bear hunts and trail rides
and archery elk and rifle elkand just be around.
That's kind of what I've donemy whole life now for elk and
just be around.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
That's kind of what I've done my whole life now.
Wow, so you're living the dream, but it sounds like you paid
your dues to try to get to thatposition to live your dream.
Yeah, no, I thought that wasinteresting.
On your website it said thatyou're a second-generation
houndsman, or not houndsman,sorry, second-generation
outfitter.
So I assume, though, just howyou've made your passion and

(08:27):
your profession a lot of workfocusing on the lion hunting,
that you grew up around houndsand all that.
But that's interesting to seeyour family you guys never had
any growing up.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, kind of, my grandfather had dogs but I never
really knew him.
My grandfather had dogs but Inever really knew him.
And my dad had hounds but hegot rid of the hounds when I was
born.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
He didn't really have time to hunt them, but he had
some guys from Oregon that wereguided for him and they had plot
dogs and so when they wouldcome down they would bring their
dogs.
So I always grew up with houndsin the yard or around them one
way or the other, but I nevergot to really experience them

(09:15):
hunting-wise until I was older,you know, until I got into high
school, before I really got toactually go with somebody with
hounds and actually catchraccoons or whatever.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's that's uh, that's neat.
So you, the one that you gotwith that old guy there, that
was your first one.
So you went through part ofhigh school and then a few years
out of it chasing cat, but justthat was the first one that you
actually had gotten treed.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, but just that was the first one that you
actually had gotten treed.
Yeah, I spent three years, uh,chasing cats on weekends and, uh
, you know, winter break andwhatnot, with other helmsmen um,
that had dogs, experiencedhelmsmen, but we just couldn't
catch cats, you know, and thatwould have been in 2003 and in
2003,.
Let's see I could tell youright now.

(10:04):
Uh, the lion population, thelicense sales, were an all-time
high.
There was a almost 7 000licenses sold in 2003.
So that's when montana came offof that that kick from the 90s,
this big spike in lion hunting,and basically all our cats died
.
So it's pretty tough huntingfor a while.

(10:24):
And then it went back down and,you know, 2015 started coming
back up, um, you know, and gotto where we're at now with kind
of going the other way again.
But, yeah, so I, I guess I didthat, and then the more I got
into the dogs, the more I wantedto do more of it.
Um, so I went to Idaho andguided bear hunts, again for

(10:50):
free, because I could run mydogs that way on bears in Idaho
as long as I held a guide'slicense and was with an
outfitter, and then startedtransitioning where we would
then go in August.
All we had around here wereraccoons.
So I would go to Wisconsin andrun bears in Wisconsin just for

(11:13):
the fun of it, just go chasesome bears, and then, oh I don't
know, I guess in probably aboutfive years ago I started
working for FWP I guess sixyears ago as an independent
contractor doing the MontanaMountain Lion Monitoring Program

(11:39):
, yep, and we can get into thata little later if you want.
But so now what I do is I just Ilion hunt until April 15th and
then we coon hunt and bear hunt.
Now we can run bears in Montana.
So we do a little bit of bearhunting here with dogs and then,
uh, coon hunt aside from that,and then in August, when it's

(12:04):
too hot, we have nothing to hunthere.
We can't hunt other thanraccoons.
We go to Wisconsin and hunt alittle bit over there and the
dogs sit idle.
Unfortunately, september,october, november we don't
really get to hunt them.
There's about three months ofthe year that they get exercised
and coon hunted, but we don'treally get to catch any cats or

(12:25):
anything cool.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Right and I imagine that kind of works out, because
I'm guessing that's probablyaround your guys' deer and elk
season, correct, yeah so they'rehappy there.
Yeah, I'm sure those huntersare happy that there's not
hounds out, I guess.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Yep, so that's when we're tiedinto our deer and elk operation
and I'm gone in our hunting.
Camp location anyway, okay,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
So when you got into this, I mean, how did you after
you went with that guy and yourealized that the problem was
not experienced or good enoughhounds, and then you got your
own?
Where did you source yourhounds from?
And then were you looking forany particular breeds, or were
you bloodlines or anything?

Speaker 2 (13:16):
So this guy, he just recently passed away, but he
liked to drink his beer a littlebit at the bar and so of course
I did what any 22 year old guywould do is I went to the bar
with him and, uh, he said, hey,that guy there's got some dogs.
He could give you one.

(13:37):
So I went up and talked to theguy and he, he had these, um,
very, very, very paper dogs.
They were House of Lippard dogsthat he had flown in from back
east, and Walker dogs.
And the guy said, oh, I'll giveyou one.
He said I kept one for myself,you can have it.
So this guy gives me this dog.

(14:00):
He just liked me and knew I'dhunt the dog, I guess, and so I
continued to hunt with.
Are we allowed to say names onhere?

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
So the guy that I really hunted with a lot, his
name was Bob Herman, and so Icontinued to hunt with Bob and
Bob is like 70 at this time, youknow, 65 to 70.
And so I took my pup and huntedwith his.
He had a leopard cur dog and hewould only use one dog, um, and

(14:32):
I had my walker dog now, so thetwo of us would hunt together,
and now we had two dogs to huntwith, um, and so I kept going
with him.
But I wasn't at that time Iwasn't looking for paper dogs, I
was just looking for any dogthat would hunt.
Yeah, and this, this dog.
I ended up winning I think Iwon the state championship field

(14:56):
trials two or three years in arow with this dog, like he was
the real deal.
Yeah, um, I didn't know untillater.
The dog was growly, like itstarted taking time.
Two or three years down theroad I started noticing this dog
was getting more aggressive andwe'd start running with more
dogs at the tree and he'd nip atthe dog.

(15:16):
It started dawning on me thatthis dog was an extremely good
dog, but as he got older he gotmore aggressive, so he made it
till a lion finally got him, uh,got him the ribs.
And well, multiple thingshappened to this dog.
One he ran a stick inside ofhis chest and the vet sewed him

(15:37):
up and sent him home.
They thought they'd fixed itbut the x-ray showed it as a rib
.
They, unbeknownst to them, theysewed the dog up with stick
inside of his rib cage and thatcreated a blood infection and
took him back in.
They opened him up, found it,removed it.

(15:57):
He never really came out ofthat.
But I mean, I had the dog.
He made it eight years of hardhunting and then finally I had
to put him down.
So now I'm at this conundrum ofwhat do I do?
I had bought a dog in themiddle Meantime from Arizona, a
dry ground blue tick dog,because I was always more

(16:19):
fascinated with hunting on dirtthan snow, and so I bought this
other dog and it it really wasnothing like like my, this
lipper dog, as far asperformance, and so I was kind
of put back.
Well, um, Bob had anotherfriend that we hunted with quite
a bit, and he he was diagnosedwith cancer.
His name was Robin, and soRobin, I mean he's gonna die.

(16:43):
And he gives me his dogs.
He says, hey, man, I'm notgoing to be here in four months,
take my dogs, hunt them.
So I already have a coupledifferent dogs coming up.
And now I had acquired Robin'sdog and about this time Bob
decides he's going to move backto Wisconsin and he wants me to

(17:04):
keep his dog.
So I went from having onereally good dog and one medium
dog to having like four or fivedogs that were all good, strong,
pack leader, like turnkey dogsthat most guys would dream to
have.
Yeah, so all of a sudden I havethis pack of like teared up
dogs, pack of like teared updogs.
About that time the uh ForestService permit District Ranger

(17:30):
permit administrator for ouroutfitting permit starts getting
concerned and he says uh, I'm alittle worried here.
He's like you caught enough dogpower that you, single handedly
are closing the quarters byyourself.
You know, and I'm like and Iwas, you know, because I would
go out with my friend and myfriend's friend and you know

(17:53):
there weren't clients but I havethese dogs that were just
getting the job done and uh, sothey, they, they said well, you
need to look at your permit,cause if you start guiding to
this extent, you're you're goingto kill every cat on the quota
and the public's going to hateyou.
And I thought, well, that'sprobably true.

(18:14):
I don't want to be an outfitterthat kills every cat and then
everybody hates me because of it.
And I think all young guys youhear this all the time the new
young guy that got five dogstakes his buddy and he kills
everything you know.
And I think that's a learningcurve for a hound guy and I did
it for a year.
I was that guy and then youstart to mature and grow up and

(18:36):
say, shoot, I don't have to killall these cats, I can, I can
let some of them walk.
And so over time those dogspass away and I still don't know
what, what kind of dog I shouldhave.
I mean, I got a leopard cur, Igot a paw, I got a walker, I got
this my, my dog pack looks likequite the ordeal of dogs.

(18:59):
Um yeah, and I never could finda dog that was as good as that
walker dog.
So I I tried.
I got same dogs from that guyand they weren't the same.
And then I got a blue tick andthis blue tick was was really
really good dog.
So I got all blue ticks.
Well, none of them were as goodas him.

(19:20):
So I went back to walkers andand I'm still doing this.
22 years later, I am still havenever found two dogs that I
felt were good enough to breed.
Um, I just you know I'm pickyand um, I was getting dogs from
Canada, um Idaho light forEnglish dogs and paying about 10

(19:42):
times more for a puppy than aguy should ever pay.
But I thought, because theywere so expensive that they
would be the next best thing.
They're going to do a backflipoff the dog box and treat the
lion and its feet are going toturn to gold, but currently I
have gone back to black and tansand I'm transitioning back that

(20:05):
way.
I've always had reallyconsistent luck on them.
Um, sometimes on a bear, thebear might make it five hundred
yards further um than it wouldwith with a plot or a walker or
a quicker dog.
You know, before they treatthey're.
They're definitely a tad slowerat that, but aside from that,

(20:27):
my priority and it really I liketo catch these lions on dirt,
um, or a slushed out track.
I, I would rather watch thesedogs trail all day and bark and
and never catch a lion like I.
I love that.
Like hey, they trailed 10 mileson in slush and melting snow
and wind.
We didn't catch a cat, but myGod, they did a good job

(20:49):
trailing.
I'm really happy just watchingdogs work.
What I'm guiding is a differentstory.
We've got to get the cat caught.
Sometimes we do and sometimeswe don't.
Then you have the tragedy oflion hunting.

(21:09):
You know the, the, the things,the unforeseen things that
guides fall into.
You know, um, whatever it is,you know, wrecking your truck uh
, kind of lion wrecking yourtruck uh, kind of lion.
I was working for an outfitterone time and he we had, I had
this lion track and I didn'tlike it because it wasn't very

(21:32):
big.
But I always told the clientsand I still do that hey, man,
let's try to catch the cat.
And because I don't really careif you kill a lion or not, to
be honest with you, I want youto, but I care that we catch a
lion.
And when we catch a lion youcan look at it, you can take
your pictures, we can pull thedogs off and now we'll go look

(21:54):
for a big cat.
But you're going to go homejust as happy seeing a lion in a
tree, a lot happier than if yourode around for five days and
never saw a dog turned out ofthe truck.
Yeah, just get that opportunity.
So let's catch a cat, take somephotos.
Yeah, and we know we're notgoing to kill this cat, but
let's just go catch it.
And this was a real easy line tocatch.

(22:16):
It was in super deep snow,really high altitude, warm day.
The cat was literally swimmingthrough the snow.
One day the cat was literallyswimming through the snow and so
we snowmobiled down the truckor grabbed the dog's snowmobile
up there, kicked the dogs out.
They run One's sitting there.
I'm like they're going to runthe sucker literally right down
the road to us and we're sittingthere watching and here comes a

(22:37):
cat and it jumps off the bankand dogs go off the bank and
they don't tree and they don'ttree and they don't tree and
they don't tree.
And I'm fuming.
I'm like what's wrong?
This cow's in a tree right hereand they're not located.
So I was pretty frustrated andI'm like well, we're going to
snowmobile up there.
I mean, we literally had asnowmobile 60 yards.
We probably should have justwalked Snowmobile up there and I

(22:59):
can't see dogs.
I can't see dogs.
I can't hear dogs and thisstinking lion had gone in a
culvert underneath the road.
Okay, and what is going on here?
So I I step off the side of theroad and hear muffled sounds.
Well, we had five dogs insideof a culvert with a pissed off
mountain lion, holy, and theother end was snowed shut.

(23:20):
So you talk about chaos gettingthem dogs out of there.
And we finally got the the dogspulled back and leashed up to
the snowmobile.
And I still don't know whatkind of cat we got, other than
it doesn't have a very big track, you know.
So we tried cutting down a treeto push it out.
That didn't work.

(23:41):
I tried starting a fire andblowing smoke in there.
That didn't work.
I finally went back to my truck, got a chainsaw with the intent
of cutting down a tree that Icould push in the culvert to
make the cap come out.
And I fired up the chainsaw andI set it on the culvert and, lo

(24:02):
and behold, that lion came outof there like you shot it.
And I mean I'm like, well,that's interesting.
And we turned the dogs looseagain and, lesson learned, it
just runs a big circle and goesin the next culvert.
So this lion knew about thepurpose and yeah, so that time
I'm like, well, we're done.

(24:22):
You know we just gave up on it.
But I learned something reallyvaluable there, because the same
area that I was guiding innorthwest Montana the next year,
we caught a lion in a slashpile.
You know where they had loggedand this cat had ran inside this
slash pile and we can't see itand dogs are barking in there.

(24:42):
There's good snow.
The cat's clearly in there, andso I told the I had a client
with me that time.
I said this I'm going to trysomething.
Like the last cat hatedvibration.
So I ran my snowmobile up onthe side of the slash pile and I
have a chainsaw in on thesnowmobile, fired it up, set it
on there, pulled the dogs back,boom, lion, ran right out of
there.
That's interesting, yeah, sothey don't like vibration.

(25:06):
Um, again, that lion went inthe next slash pile.
So I kind of like, well, here'ssomething I've learned about
cats if they're in a culvert andthere's another culvert there,
they're going to go in anotherculvert.
And if they're in a slash pileand there's another slash pile,
they're going to go in it.
And when you get them in a cave, they're going to run out of
that cave and run in another one.
So save yourself the vet billsand pull them off at the

(25:30):
beginning.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's just how they've learned to get
away different lines, I guess.
Yeah, that's interesting.
The vibration thing, I mean, itmakes sense.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
The old, guy that you were going with, Bob.
You said he only had one dog.
Yeah, yeah, he only ever huntedone dog.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yes, sir, that's not common, is it for most Milt Line
hunters just to run one hound.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know, I don't know, I know in the.
You know that would have beenin the 2000s.
A lot of the guys that I huntedwith they'd run one or two.
Yeah, you know, keep in, in the2000s a lot of the guys that I
hunted with they'd run one ortwo.
Keep in mind we didn't havewolves.
Then the guy was on tosomething.
The dog he had was a silent.
It would trail pretty silent.

(26:16):
It was a leprechaun.
It wouldn't bark until a catwas jumped.
These cats hadn't been huntedor chased before.
It didn't take much to trainthem.
They'd hear a dog jumped it andstarted barking Boy, they'd
climb a tree and they'd staythere.
The dogs I have now we'rerunning much more of them, we'll
run because we want to.

(26:37):
When I'm guiding I never runmore than three dogs.
If I need to catch a cat, anymore than three dogs to me is a
waste because two of those dogslet's say you got five dogs
running a lion In snow two ofthem dogs are just following
dogs, you know most of the time,and that's why I like to walk

(26:58):
behind the dogs and count dogtracks, because inevitably I'll
find one dog track and this is ahabit from before GPS is, but
there's always one dog in yourgroup that's 15 feet off the
track and he's not actually.
He's not drift in the track,he's just following dogs, you
know.
And?
And that kind of goes back tothe way I I do my personal dogs.

(27:23):
Is it a year and a half?
They have to be able to trailand treat their own lion by
themselves, or they don't makethe cut, and by two and a half
they better do it on dry ground,and if they don't do that, I
don't keep them High standards.
That's good though, well yeah,but the bottom line is I only

(27:48):
have five dogs right now, period, and you know, when I'm guiding
I use three and leave two inthe truck for when the cat runs
across the road or, you know,you just run them so hard that
day.
You ought to put fresh dogs on,but it sure seems to me like by
doing this route, at least Iknow every dog in my pack is

(28:11):
contributing.
Yeah, there, I don't have anytwo-year-old dogs, or me too.
Dogs, yeah exactly, yep yep, Idon't have any dogs that are
three years old, um, that don'tabsolutely know what they're
doing, and so for the most partI think it helps.

(28:35):
You know, last year I guessit'd be two years ago now, two
seasons ago I had a husband wifeteam and we had had a really,
really tough go.
We had we had wolves kill ourdogs go.
We had, uh, we had wolves killour dogs, um, and so we we get
through that whole thing andbeing out there you don't have a
choice.
You got to keep going.
So the next day you got to huntanyway.

(28:55):
A little later on in the hunt weended up turning out on this
line and it crossed the roadtwice and we didn't know which
track was the fresh track.
There was snow in the roads butthe mountains were bare.
You know that.
They were dirt and we didn'tknow which track to turn out on.
So I did all my homework, ranevery road around there trying

(29:17):
to shorten it up, didn't cut it,turned dogs on this track.
They trail like eight miles andend up crossing the road.
We turn loose on the wrongtrack.
We're like well, we gotta letthem go.
This is like 11 o'clock In myworld.
That's getting late, noon'sapproaching, a guy calls me up

(29:38):
and he says hey, didn't you goup this canyon?
I said yeah, he goes.
Well, I got some bad news.
He said there's a big liontrack in your tire tracks.
And I knew at that point that Iwas still six miles behind this
cat.
And it's noon and I'm like ohno, and our dogs are already
starting to slow down becausethey've already gone six or
seven miles.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
And I'm just like, oh boy, you know kind of think
about what to do.
And then, right about that time, a guy, a lady, calls me and
she says I swear I just saw amountain lion fighting with a
coyote in my yard.
And I'm like what?
And she's like, she's like, at11 o'clock I looked off my porch
and I saw a mountain lion and acoyote and they were fighting.

(30:18):
So I'm like are you sure?
And she's like, I'm positive,and I'm thinking well, I know
how this normally goes and itusually is two coyotes, you know
.
So I'm like what the heck?
We'll try it, we'll pull offthis track, we can pick it up
tomorrow, cause this cat wasgoing into a better location.
So we got the dogs rounded up,feet feet, for basically my

(30:42):
house turned dogs at two o'clockin the afternoon and we trailed
that sucker until dark.
We caught it like 15 minutesbefore dark and it was a lion.
She was right, she saw amountain lion and a coyote
fighting.
Yep, there was a dead deerthere.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
And the coyotes.
They'll take one on.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yep, the coyotes had taken the kill from the lion and
pushed the cat off.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Wow, I mean I could see a wolf doing it.
I'm surprised the coyotes gotthe balls to do it, though.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah.
So I was like, well, this isinteresting.
And then they trailed andtrailed, and trailed and that
cat got a long ways before wegot it treed.
But I think the reason is I hadthe same dogs and they were
tired.
Yeah, you know they.
I mean they had these dogs.
At the end of the day they'dgone 19 miles.
Before we treat that line of ofdead out hunting, you know

(31:37):
running.
So that's a situation where ifyou had six dogs from start to
finish, you probably would havecaught it a lot quicker.
And then we get in thislodgepole, this down lodgepole
sometimes, and we'll trail a catall day and not catch it.
You know it's walking on logsand it drives the clients nuts.
In that situation, the guysthat are running six, seven dogs

(32:02):
at a time, they woulddefinitely catch that cat a lot
quicker.
You know cause they're going tohave that whole pack of dogs
skirting and picking it up here,picking it up there.
You know a guy that bear huntsa lot and has a real fine tuned
in pack of bear dogs.
I mean they honor each otherand they jump ahead and jump
ahead.
Boom, boom, boom.
They can make short work ofsome of these tracks head boom,

(32:27):
boom, boom.
They can make short work ofsome of these tracks.
Um, I purposely have dogs thatare a little more of a track
straddler mentality and breed,you know, and and that's just my
personal preference, that's.
That's definitely probably notthe I'm not the most efficient
bear hunter, because of that,you know.
And same with even, sometimes,bobcats they'll.
Some guys will catch thesebobcats in a quicker time frame

(32:49):
than I will.
At the end of the day, the dogsstill catch them a lot of times,
but they they catch themquicker and I don't, because my
dogs don't make these bigcircles and pick the track up
and pick their head up and driftit and cut it off.
You know, but that's justpersonal preference, that's just
what I like, you know.
Does it make a bit ofdifference?

(33:09):
I think when you're when 60degrees out and you're walking
on a hunting solid dirt, walkingafter a lion, I do think that
those tracks straddler dogs, atthe end of the day sometimes
they go shorter distance causethey're not running circles and
circles and circles picking uplosses.
They're not running circles andcircles and circles picking up
losses, they're just cold,trailing track for track until

(33:30):
they get a jump yeah most of thetime.
Last year I watched threemountain lions walk right
underneath me and my dog shouldgo in the other direction and it
was pretty disheartening.
It was back to a gal had had akill in her yard and there was
no snow and we put a camera onthe kill and went back the next

(33:52):
day to look at it and sureenough, they were lions.
There actually was a female, ajuvenile and two kittens, so
basically what we consider afamily group of lions.
And yeah, there was just somany tracks coming and going
left and right.
My dogs are running around.
They're like idiots.
I'm sitting up on this rockcliff just watch them and watch

(34:15):
the lions walk underneath me.
I never caught one.
Never caught a lion, never gotone in a tree.
Just so many tracks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'sfrustrating, but I I don't know.
It's just how the world goes, Iguess sometimes.
Back to the coyote running thelion off the deer carcass.

(34:35):
Yesterday I went in to check ona collared cat.
It wasn't quite moving as muchas we were hoping.
You know, we're talking 15 daysplus this lion had not left an
area and I mean we're probablyknocking on 20 days and

(34:56):
something's just doesn't seemright.
So I went with the biologist tosee if maybe we had an injured
lion or what.
In the process, walking inthere, we found three wolf
tracks, uh, one coyote and oneblack bear and lion.
And we're talking in in a in a300 yard circle and we don't
know there's a kill there.
You know, we just know that thegps caller is is stating that

(35:19):
this lion is has a cash here.
That's longer than normal.
My thoughts were.
My personal thought was I betthis lion has a trap on its foot
and it can't go anywhere.
So it's killed a deer and it'seating every single bit of this

(35:42):
deer that it can.
So we go in there.
We don't have updatedcoordinates or anything, just
know where this, this gpslocation, is.
So the biologist I walk inthere, um, find a dead elk.
The lion had clearly killed afull-grown cow elk.
So I'm like perfect, it's ahealthy cat.
It just ate the, ate the elk.

(36:03):
And for some reason it's beenon this elk for a long time, you
know, um 20 days so.
But then then I'm like crap,did the bear beat up the lion?
It's got a broken shoulder.
Um, there's, there was snow inthis draw.
That's how we could sell thesetracks and I could tell the lion
clearly is not dragging thetrap on its foot like it 100

(36:24):
does not have an injured foot.
Whether or not it got in afight with the wolves, I don't
know Whether or not it got in afight with the bear, I don't
know.
I don't think it got in a fightwith anything, to be honest
with you.
And then, following the tracks,I could see where this lion was
jumping up rocks and jumpingdown rocks.
So I don't think it has aninjury.

(36:46):
Yeah, so we won't know.
Like this is something that isreally cool.
We'll probably know in about aweek.
Like, hey, there's undefiableevidence that a mountain lion
could lay on an elk for up to 20days, you know which?

(37:06):
This will all be newinformation.
That's the cool thing aboutthis program.
So part of this mountain lionmonitoring program really is to
get an idea on lion densities.
So, to keep it simple, the, thestate, created eco regions, all

(37:30):
right.
So they cut it up in like fivedifferent areas where the, where
the terrain is similar, thehabitat is similar, and they
said, okay, this band of catsand this band of cats and this
band of cats all are living inthe same type of terrain, the
same type of environment.
And then they go in there andthey create a study area which

(37:50):
has a grid cell, a bunch of gridcells, and these grid cells are
, oh, they're like fivekilometers by five kilometers
square.
Okay, and the, the houndsmancontractors, their job there's
myself, plus other guys who havebeen doing it a lot longer than
myself.

(38:10):
Our job is to go in there andcover every bit of that cell
that we're assigned randomly, tothe best of our ability, and
look for lion tracks and try tofind the lion and then catch the
lion.
And then, once we catch thelion, we shoot it with a biopsy
dart that dna is, then goes to alab and then we go somewhere

(38:39):
different the next day, thenlater on through the course of
this season, we go back and werepeat the process and we see
how often we recapture the cats.
So there might be a mountainlion that gets started twice,
there might be one that getsstarted three times and there

(38:59):
might be some that never getdarted.
But at the end of, at the endof this study, you know, um,
when the numbers come back, wecan go.
Okay, we took 68 samples andpeople go.
Oh my gosh, you caught 68mountain lions.
No, we caught the same lion 10times, or we picked up scat, or

(39:21):
we picked up hair, and guesswhat?
We actually only have 12 lionsin this eco region, where we
thought we had 30, you know.
So it's, we're really learninga lot.
The numbers aren't back yetfrom like this year, so we don't
.
I don't really know, I don'thave the numbers and I have to
give you the the accurate factsof what's out there right now.

(39:43):
But I do know that theycollared some lions with GPS
collars and that's how andthat's what's really just
showing some amazing informationout there.
As far as the range of thesecats, I mean it's I don't have
the access to that, like I can'tjust pull it up and look at it.

(40:05):
That's strictly on thebiologist part.
And the mountain lionmonitoring technicians basically
my boss, those are theindividuals that can pull that
up and look at it.
But it's really cool to see howoften certain lions will make a
kill and how often certain catsdon't make a kill.

(40:26):
You know, everybody thinks so.
A deer lion kills a deer once aweek.
You know, blah, blah, blah,blah.
Well, there are specific lionsthat might kill a deer every 20
days if they're lucky, and therest of the time they're eating
turkeys and rabbits, and so it's.
It's really cool just to seethat like and rabbits, and so
it's.
It's really cool just to seethat like wow, this is cool,

(40:46):
like these.
You learn a lot and every lionis so different, you know and,
and every area is different.
So you know what?
Where I live, um in SouthwestMontana versus Northwest Montana
, cat numbers are different, catpredation is different, wolf
numbers everything's different.

(41:07):
It's just a completelydifferent realm.
So it's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, well, it's great that you guys are getting
this information.
I mean, could this work be donewithout houndsmen, do you think
?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Without them.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, no, absolutely not.
A lot of people that aren'tinto, say, hunting or you know
hound stuff at all, theyprobably think that you know all
that's, can't be doing that orwhatever.
But I mean this, the, the workthat you guys are doing, this,
this, uh, conservation andeverything and studying the
numbers.
Like you're saying, the houndsand you guys are crucial to this

(41:43):
.
Like you know, it can't be donewithout you.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Right.
So Montana probably hascurrently one of the most
long-term in-depth lionmonitoring programs going on
Like it's.
The science that they've putinto the lion management is

(42:08):
unreal.
You know, lions have been a biggame species for 45 years but
nobody ever really followed upanything about them.
Just we're going to make them abig game species.
We can hunt them.
Crap, we're killing too many,let's put a quota on them.
Put a quota on them and part ofthe state got overrun by
non-guided non-residents.
We're killing 38 percent of thequota.

(42:32):
So then everybody got mad at theoutfitters.
The outfitters are killing allthe cats.
Look at all these non-residents.
So finally they looked a littledeeper and said my gosh, it's
not the outfitted non-residents,it's the non-guided
non-residents bringing their owndogs in that were killing 38%

(42:53):
of our quarter.
And when you come fromMinnesota you don't care if it's
a 60-pound female or 90-poundtom.
You came from Minnesota, youwant to kill a cat, 90 pound
farm.
You came from minnesota, youwant to kill a cat, you know.
And so there was a really highharvest rate.
So then in region one and two uh, northwest montana, they, they

(43:16):
went to a permit system thatregulated everybody and you had
to apply a permit for permit,everything else.
So that worked for a while.
But then they weren't gettingany harvest.
So then they created thishybrid season, which was in
February.
Let's just say the quota was 50cats in these two areas, which

(43:37):
it was.
Well, they'd only killed fivecats.
So now in February they saidyou know what, now it's open for
45 lions.
How about it?
The intent was never to kill 45lions, it was to kill like 25.
But they left it that way fortoo long.
And guess what?
They killed 50 cats and someoutfitters were running 15, 20

(44:01):
plus hunters a year, and justthat's a lot.
Yeah, in my opinion, abusinggiven outfitter is a bad name.
Now all our cats went the otherdirection.
Then they finally made somemajor changes and regulated the
non-guided, non-residents.
You can still come hunt.
It's like Idaho.

(44:22):
You have to draw a houndhandler permit Even every year.
Even right right now or a weekago, there were still tags left
like a non-resident could buy atag over the counter to bring
their own dogs and hunt inmontana.
The problem is it costs them somuch money they don't want to
do it.
You know they don't want tospend $500 to buy this tag, um,

(44:45):
and then be regulated where theycan and can't hunt.
And so the opportunity is stillthere, um, for everybody.
Um, the commission, um, oh, I Idon't remember the actual year,
I'll say four or five years agoroughly, um, say four or five
years ago roughly chose to takelike a 40% increase in overall

(45:10):
lion harvest to decrease thelion population Because our lion
population was getting prettyhigh and they wanted to hire
harvest.
You know, nobody's killingfemales.
Unfortunately, it's now showingbecause we have all the data
from 1971, but the harvest datafrom 1988, and we're seeing our

(45:32):
age class declining, size oflions declining and we're seeing
this downward trend of lionpopulation overall pretty
severely.
And it's just, we go throughcycles.
It's just like deer and elk andeverything else.
You go up and down, up and down.
But the beautiful thing withthe quota system is you can, you

(45:52):
can.
If you got the right biologist,they can look ahead and go.
Okay, well, we're trending up,we're trending down, we need to
flatline.
And the deer and elk hunters Imean, I'm a deer and elk
outfitter, so the last thing Iwant is an overabundance of
lions eating all my profit, allmy deer.
Yeah, so I don't want a bunchof cats running around on my

(46:13):
hunting areas.
But it's really neat to wherethese callers can show you that,
hey, this one lion crossed, youknow, 11 public roads in three
days.
11 public roads in three days.
And if you were deer hunting inNovember and had snow, you
would say, my gosh, there's alion trap on every single road.
I went up.
Well, there is, and it's onecat, and it's really obvious

(46:36):
when you kill that one cat andyour quarters never close.
I mean, where I live, myquarters, four cats where I live
and only two have beenharvested out of here and I
harvested both of them.
So, like you can't even killfour cows out of here, and it's
a big area unless you get lucky,we just don't have that number

(46:59):
of lions that we did a while ago, but it'll come back.
It's just cows, you know it'sup and down, so that's
interesting, but it'll come back.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
It's just cats, you know.
It's up and down, so that'sinteresting and yeah, I mean, I
think it's great the work thatthey're doing into that.
And the radio callers and youknow, just like you said, before
they were just a big gamespecies that you hunted, put
quota up and down if it wasneeded, but now they're actually
, you know, studying them,learning more about their habits
and everything their range.
It's valuable information.

(47:26):
They're actually, you know,studying them, learning more
about their habits andeverything their range.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
It's valuable information.
Yeah, and one thing I findsuper valuable information the
mortality rate of lions in anon-hunted environment is equal

(47:54):
or higher than where they'rehunted by humans.
If you don't hunt a cat and youtake an area and you say we're
not hunting this area, period,end of story, and you call her
10 of those lions, you're goingto find that three of them are
killed by other cats, two ofthem are going to die from
infection or bird flu orsomething and two of them are
going to get hit by cars.
So the mortality rate, if yourquarter is managed right, is

(48:21):
about the same.
So California could have ahunting season and they would
probably find out that if theygot their quarter right they
would have the same mortalityrate as if they don't hunt them
at all.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
You know, and a whole lot more pleasant.
You know, I mean, when youharvest a lion you get to you
can make it so quick and ethicalversus.
I mean, I've seen some cats andpulled up some lions.
We've pulled up some lions thatdied from natural causes, and
I'll tell you what some of themhave.
You just know they had a really, really bad month before they

(48:57):
died.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
You know it's like oh , it's awful, yeah, you just
know they had a really, reallybad month before they died.
You know it's like, oh, it'sawful, yeah, we can manage a lot
more humanely than MotherNature will manage, but it's
cruel.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, absolutely so, you know.
And the outfitting side ofthings has gotten.
It's not more competitivebecause where I'm at we have our
areas, so they're not gonnaallow more outfitters.
But there's more hound guys nowthan I've ever seen, you know,
in the last 10 years especially.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
And.
I wonder, why that is becauseyou see a lot of I mean in my
area like I'm a coon houndhunter and I run beagles and
stuff too and you've seen thatdecline massively.
There's hardly anyone that doesit anymore.
I just find that a lot ofpeople don't seem to hound hunt
anymore.
I think a lot of it's.
I don't know, I guess I'll saylaziness a little.

(49:50):
No one wants to run dogs afterwork, but so what do you think
it's?
It's increased in your area.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I'm going to say I'm trying to think how to say this
professionally.
Social media is a lot of it andI mean, I know for certain,
like I've done four or fivedifferent TV shows, mostly for
elk hunting, archery, elkhunting and stuff, and I've been
around the film industry toknow that maybe what you see on

(50:23):
the History Channel is not asaccurate as you would think.
Oh yeah, you know, when youwatch some of these Gold Rush or
Mountain man and some of thesethings aren't exactly as you
think, but every year I probablyget five or six phone calls a
year from people going you everwatch Mountain man?

(50:43):
Yep, I'm gonna go hunt right byyou because that's where you
live, and I will book a hunterbecause it's out on TV or I used
to.
Yeah, I believe that, yeah, andit's just kind of like well,
and I just have fun.
Like listen up, guys, you,entertainment is is fine and
cool, but you have to know inyour brain the difference
between reality and not realityand um, and we deal with that

(51:07):
with everybody, our elk hunters.
You know I want to shoot athree 80 bull.
I'm like perfect, you will comeup with me probably for 10
years before you throw a three80 bull.
So dig out your checkbook, youknow, and we have a really
really good elk operation.
I mean we, yeah, we are veryfortunate it's all private land,
um, and we do kill that qualityof bulls but not everybody's

(51:30):
going to get one, you know, like, yeah, exactly 20 of the guys
are not going to get a bull at350, you know.
So realistic expectations areimportant for every, everything
and every, every type of hunt.
I think the hound community hasgrown a little bit as well,
because I mean I hate to say it,but back to bog he wouldn't use

(51:52):
a tracking system and the firsttracking system I was I was
still in college when I boughtthat wildlife materials, trx 10s
.
Oh yeah, beatbox, you know,yeah, yes, and uh, he's like I
don't want that stupid thing onmy dog.
It's bad on his neck, you know,and and whatever, and I'm like
we're putting it on him and itwas just kind of funny because

(52:14):
the way he would hunt was, um,he would put bread sacks over
his socks I don't know if yourgrandmother ever did that and
then slide your shoe inside yourboot, you know, put your foot
inside your boot with the breadsack on there, put a piece of
tape around it no gaiters, nonothing, and he just walked

(52:34):
behind his dog until he caughtthe cat and that's how he hunted
every time, like just startedwalking.
And then, when the garmentscame out, is when I started to
see a big difference in houndhunters around here when they
got more affordable.
And I remember, you know, atsome point in time I was one of
the only people that had a trackmachine.
You know, I had track machines.

(52:55):
So we all tired machines, fourwheelers and most hound guys
didn't have.
So I could get into country,they couldn't.
And and now we're seeing morelike everybody's got a four
wheeler, or side by side, or youknow, um, so access is is
definitely gotten better andlion harvest has been more
efficient because of that.

(53:16):
Um, I mean, my, the guys I idolthe most are, you know, the guys
that are hunting arizona, utah,nevada, new mexico, the dry
ground guys on horses and mules,like to me, that's just, that's
just awesome.
You know, that is really thoseguys are.
They're earning it.
You ride a horse for 10 daysand don't hear a bark.

(53:36):
Um, that's, that's pretty cool,you know.
And then when you get one, it'sthat much more exciting, um,
and I've just always had such arespect for for people that
rather than wait for two inchesof fresh snow and then drive up
and down the road, you know, andthat's that's it like we got a
lot of hunters here, but I don'tsee them, unless there's fresh

(54:00):
snow.
Two inches of fresh snow,you're going to see a dog box,
but if you go out when there'snot good conditions, you don't
see that many guys.
So it's not really an issue.
It's just something I'venoticed Like, oh, there's
another dog box, another dog box.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I mean it's good though.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
It's more voices you'd hope when it comes to
voting and things like presidentfor the Montana State Housing
Association, and when you getthose two groups together, it's
amazing what they can do.
I'll give you an example.
There was a bill this year toallow two tags per person for

(54:55):
lions in certain areas and thebill was really messy.
It didn't clarify anything andit was just ugly, like it could
be interpreted so many differentways.
And the hound association andthe outfairs and guide
association normally don't gotogether very well because a lot
of the outfitters are like killevery cat you can along, gone,

(55:18):
and I've heard, yeah.
Then then you got the houndguys that are the opposite, and
then you got guys like me.
They're like well, I actuallymake money off the lions, so I
want them on the landscape.
You know, um, good balance, butanyhow, yeah.
So they, they got together andit took them about 48 hours and
they killed that bill justbecause, like you said, you have

(55:40):
enough houndsmen voices andenough um outfitters and
everybody's on the same page.
And the hound guy showed up atthe hearing and the legislator's
like, oh my gosh, these guysare pissed and, okay, tabled.
You know, yeah, so, and theother cool thing is montana.
You know we got a bear seasonintroduced, you know, three or

(56:02):
four years ago.
That never happens like it'sbeen.
It hasn't been legal run bearsin montana since the 50s or
something and to create a seasonis like really cool to be like.
Oh wow, now we can hunt bearswith.
With dogs like you don't seethis very often.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
No, it's usually the opposite.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
That's huge yeah, loser hunting rights.
So you got to and I'm a hugeadvocate man, I'm not a trapper
myself, but I 100% supporttrappers and hound guys.
Whether I like you or don't,man, I'm still your friend at

(56:41):
the end of the day, because yougotta, you gotta get along with
everybody and mingle and if you,you know you gotta stay united,
yeah, well, exactly and I'llget oh go ahead.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
Oh no, it's just gonna say that's good and it's
it's um, it's a shame somehunters, you know like oh, I
only hunt deer, so I don't careabout the hound stuff or this or
that.
It's like well, I mean, at theend of the day, we're all in
this together and we need tokind of look at it that way,
because you know, if some ofthese groups and bills come for
one, they're not going to stopat that, they're going to come

(57:12):
for more.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Right, yep, yeah, and we had our wolf issue, for
example.
Um, this was kind of a bummerdeal, you know we were.
We were just, we had a liontrack going one direction and I
had um, a guide, working for me,and I had the two clients and
and he's more than a guy, he's aclose friend.
And then my other close friend,um was I had had a child and he

(57:39):
couldn't hunt his dog, and soI'm like, well, I'll take your
dog for you today.
Well, he asked me.
He said, well, can you take mydog?
And I said, yeah, I'll hunt herfor you.
So we go up there, we find thislion track, we turn out on it.
I mean, I got two clients andmy one guide's there and I got
my guide's other dog and I'mlike, well, I'll let this dog go

(57:59):
and anyhow.
So the, the dogs go up themountain and I don't know
exactly what time it was at thispoint, but they go up and we're
like, well, they're crossingthat road, let's just drive up
there.
So we took side by sides, gotup to that road where they cross
that switchback, and I still dothis to this day.

(58:20):
I'm like, why is this one dog20 feet off the track like this
here's a dog that's justfollowing dogs.
You know what dog is this?
So I go over there and I zoomin my GPS and I told my buddy.
I said, hey, man, I'm like twoof my dogs or one of my dogs ran
back to the truck.
He's like what?
I'm like, yeah, two of my dogsor one of my dogs ran back to
the truck.
He's like what?

(58:40):
I'm like?
Yeah, one of my dogs isliterally at the pickup and this
is like one of my old, brokedogs.
And he's like oh, I don't knowwhy.
And I'm like I don't know.
And then he's like shit, one ofmy dogs is is going that
direction and I'm like well, twodogs are down there.
Why is there five dog trackscrossing this road, on this line

(59:01):
, when there's actually onlythree dogs up here and two below
us?
And then we're like shoot,these are wolves.
So at that point I checked mywatch and it would say it was 10
o'clock and I'm like we got toget up there because they're
about to cross the nextswitchback, this road
switchbacks.
They were going up there, so webuzzed up there.

(59:22):
It took nine minutes to getthere and as we're driving like
I'm, like we're flying, I'mwatching the GPS and all of a
sudden it says this dog's treed,this dog's treed, and one of
the dogs is back at the truck.
And I knew was like, oh boy.
And we got there and in nineminutes from the dogs being

(59:42):
alive, they were dead.
And when I got there, the onedog was only, I don't know, uh,
60 yards off the road.
And so I went running in there,kind of screaming, hollering,
and sure enough, she was dead.
And then, um, the other guy'sdog was dead.
Um, by the time he got to hertoo, but in nine minutes, and
the only thing that saved theother dogs was our side by sides

(01:00:05):
, like when we come around thatcorner, we were right on top of
them and you know we werehollering and started shooting
and stuff because we knew whatwas going on.
And by then they are, theykilled them dogs, that quick,
you know, and that's why themother dogs, that's why those
old dogs ran back to the truck.
We didn't know it at the time.
We're just like, why'd they runto the truck, you know?
So, um, but after that, um, thethe one, the individual whose

(01:00:32):
dog I was hunting for him thatday he was able to tie into some
trappers, some people he knewthat were pretty heavy trappers,
and they ended up eliminatingeight wolves out of there.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
And we didn't know at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Yeah, two wolves had come from the bottom and six
more came off the top of themountain.
You know, we didn't know thisat the time, nobody ever would
have.
Well, they went in and betweenhim and some other guys.
They got very aggressive anddid it right and to my knowledge
they killed eight of them,complete legally trapped them,

(01:01:11):
and this year today there's notbeen a wolf back in there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Oh yeah, so wow, yes, yeah yeah, they're awful,
aren't they?

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I'm sure they'll be there, they're just vicious.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
So they just seek out and kill the hounds, just
territorial like yeah wow,that's awful.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yeah, pretty amazing ordeal.
And unfortunately, you know,you got clients and that goes
back to the when you got aclient with you, what do you do,
you know, and unfortunately inthis situation they're pretty
shook up.
Um, but I'm like sorry, guys.
And then the next day you gotto go.
So the next day is when wetrailed the one cat and that
lady, just she did end upgetting a really nice calm and

(01:01:54):
her husband ended up getting acat the next day too.
So at the end of their huntthey were successful.
But it was quite the just awful, you know, and you got the
rocks that are always a danger.
And, um, guy, guy always told mewhenever you turn your dog
loose it might be the last timeyou see him, you know, and you
got to be prepared for that.

(01:02:14):
Yeah, you know, every time youturn loose might be the last
time, but yeah, it's interesting.
But you know, the linemanagement in the state is good.
The line numbers are, in myopinion, a little low, but
outfitting for the cats is justsuch a such a different

(01:02:36):
competitive gig, you know, thanour deer and elk and stuff, you
know, it's just a very involvedand very expensive when you
start figuring your.
You know you have two trucksbuilt just for hound hunting and
you know everything else andthat builds.
And here I was saying earlierhow I've never had two dogs that

(01:02:59):
I felt were worthy of breeding.
I typically neuter all my malesand spay my females once I know
I'm going to keep them so thatI can just keep hunting them.
And I've made some mistakes inthe past by fixing dogs that I
should have left unaltered.

(01:03:20):
And so this time I'm like youknow what this dog is really
shining.
He caught his first lion on dryground at seven months old by
himself, and I'm like that dog'sspecial.
And then the female was notquite as good but she was built,
phenomenal and she's startingto show that.

(01:03:41):
So I ended up collecting semenoff this male and then, having
neutered after I collected semen, so I might have a lure box.
It's in the works, but thefemale's got to prove herself a
little bit more yet.
We'll see how they do on bearseason and then that'll
determine whether or not they'reready to breed.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
It's good to have standards where you have them,
so that way you're not just thedogs are earning their feed in
the kennel at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
My dogs are really all house broke.
I'm a firm believer thatthere's two ways to run a dog.
One is I'm the alpha male andyou do what I expect you to do
um, or it hurts.
And two is like I love you andI'll treat you good and I want
you to work hard for me andyou'll get rewards.

(01:04:33):
And I think if you balancethose two things where you know
no means no and I will get afteryou, but on the flip side, um,
I'm still your buddy and whenyou come I give you a treat I
don't necessarily just shock youbecause you're not quick enough
when you get those two balancesright and that dog just wants
to please its master, whetherit's um, for affection purposes

(01:04:57):
or alpha purposes, you know, Ireally think that at the end of
the day, they just want toplease their master and as long
as they know who their master is, they'll listen to you.
Yeah yeah, absolutely, unlessthere's a moose involved, you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Yeah, but so with your hunts, I mean, what does a
typical hunt look like?
If someone's looking, okay, Iwant to come to Montana Mountain
, mountain lion ventures.
Uh, what's the hunt look like?
And I really like that.
On your guys's website you havea gear list.
You don't see that a lot and itshows, you know, says what to

(01:05:44):
bring.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
That's, that's it.
And I know that out of themfour or five we're probably
going to be at like 75% harvestrate.
Not everybody gets a lion.
I mean, every year somebodygoes home empty.
I used to be 100% when I justdid it by myself, but back then
I never saw another hunter.
And now we do, and that makes adifference and we have quotas.

(01:06:09):
So they come, I typically havethem use.
I give them the option.
I say hey guys, these are thedates I have available Rain,
snow or shine, we're huntingevery day.
Of course everybody wants tohunt when there's snow.
They all want to book a hunt insnow and I don't blame them.
If I was paying money I wouldtoo.
I'd want to go when there'sgood snow.

(01:06:31):
And then I tell them right offthe get-go that, like if we find
a female and we don't find atom, and it's noon, we're
running the female, because athird of the time I will catch a
tom when I turn out on a female, because up on top of the
mountain somewhere they'replaying with each other.
So that's a very efficient wayfor me to find a tom.

(01:06:53):
Because I can't find a tom, Ican't find cats in my life and
we're not going to bother thisold female.
I'm like well, if you followedthat female, you'd find that Tom
Cause, he's up on the mountainwith a cordon with her.
Um, so we, we, I tell him thatand then kind of tell him what
to expect.
You know, um, our, ouraccommodations are top of the
line.
Um, there's only hunter in camp, you know, and, and I mean it's

(01:07:17):
, it's pretty, pretty, prettynice.
Um, when you got a 6,000 squarefoot lodge to yourself, you
know, and then we just are, wedo.
My wife gets up with me at thattime of year, um, so we'll get
up at like two o'clock in themorning, um, and she'll make
breakfast burritos, whatever.
We'll put them in the truck.

(01:07:37):
I go load the dogs up, pick theguy up, then we go drive around
in the dark for a long time andhope to find a lion track.
Lunch is just cooler style.
On average it's going to take Ikeep very close track.
It's about 800 miles to find alion.

(01:07:57):
A killable lion is what weaverage.
800 miles of driving, 500 milesis what it takes us to catch a
lion, just a lion, whether it'sa female, juvenile, whatever.
And on average we do 150 milesper night per track of lion
habitat hunting.
So we're really really huntinghard.

(01:08:19):
So we're really really huntinghard.
So we start early and we endearly.
I will not turn a dog loose InDecember.
I won't turn a dog loose afterprobably 2.30.
I know guys do it.
But in my experience hunting inlike northwestern Montana where
there's wolves, the wolvesbecome much more aggressive in

(01:08:41):
the evening as darkness isapproaching.
Um, that's when I things justseem to go south every time, or
maybe I can get to the tree bydark, but that doesn't mean my
client can yeah you know, likemaybe I can run up there and get
them dogs and and see what got,but that doesn't.
Some of my guys aren't going toget there.
So we end by I always say 2o'clock.

(01:09:05):
We usually still run to like 4,scouting, and then we go home,
have an early dinner 5 o'clock,we eat dinner 6 o'clock, I'm in
bed and when we find that liontrack, you know that's the
excitement.
You drive, drive, drive, boom,there's a lion track.
You know, then for me, then myadrenaline gets going and I

(01:09:25):
usually have another guide comeguide or guides and help secure
the track.
Basically, one of us will siton it and one of us will try to
start freshening it up, becausethe area we hunt these cats go a
long ways.
Try to start freshening it upbecause the area we hunt these
cats go a long ways.
Um, so, so we'll just try toget it as short as we can, to

(01:09:46):
increase our odds so that we cankick the dogs out, and then
then you turn the dogs loose andthat's for me the exciting part
and and the the real moment,because I can tell in 10 minutes
away.
They trail whether whether thatcat's had or we're going to
earn it.
Then they tree, and thenthere's excitement.

(01:10:08):
Is the cat in a tree?
Is it the cat you turn loose on?
Is it a bobcat?
Is it as big as you hope?
Is it a cat we're going toharvest?
Is it going to stay there?
Then you're getting there andyou're always like, okay,
where's the cat?
You see his tail.
Okay, cat's in the tree,awesome.
Okay, let's get a little closer.
And you get a little closer.
How big is he?
The next question.
And then are we going toharvest it?

(01:10:30):
And so that's all theexcitement.
And for me it's just asexciting probably going to shoot
the cow.
You know, like they, they don'tget all the logistics that are
going into this.
And, um, and every client has adifferent attitude.
I've got one guy.
He's hung with me at leastseven years in a row and he

(01:10:54):
killed a lion the first time,you know.
The second time he came andthen his son came back with him
the third time his son killed alion.
No, the second time he came andthen his son came back with him
the third time and his sonkilled a lion.
This, this individual, can'tget around very well.
Yeah, um, and he knows that ifhe comes with me.
Enough, we will treat a lionwithin a hundred yards of the
truck where he can walk that far.
And fortunately, this year wegot, finally got him 156 pound

(01:11:15):
lion, you know, within a hundredyards of the truck, you know so
.
But it took him seven years toget that cat.
So, um, but then when we're youknow, and if we don't find
anything, we go home with ourhead down low and go back.
And then if we don't have snowI had this, this scenario
happened to me this year um,hunter shows up, there's there

(01:11:36):
is no snow, there is not a dropof snow, and we got a tip from a
guy and he said man, I waschecking my coyote trap and I
think there's a lion track inthe sand and the guy down the
road is missing a sheep.
So he went against all, all mymorals.
We go in and I'm like, well,where's the sheep?

(01:11:57):
Oh, the guy moved it.
He's like, well, that's 10 thismonth.
I'm like what?
I'm like they're in a frickingsheep pen.
He's like, well, I think thecoyotes are getting them.
I'm like, how's the coyotegetting inside with it?
I don't think the coyotesgetting in here, guys, I think
you got a lion jumping mouth, sohe eats what it wants, jumps

(01:12:19):
out, goes and lays on themountain for two days, comes
back, kills another sheep.
So we hiked up.
I said, screw it, let's justturn some dogs, you.
You feel like going for a hike.
And he's like, yeah, I'm likewe're walking till dark.
And we just walked up thiscanyon.
It kind of made geographicalsense that if there's a cat in
this area he's gonna have tocome to this canyon.
And so we just hiked up thereand it was like 420.

(01:12:42):
The dog they were trailing.
As we started going up therethey started trailing, but not
real good, and pretty soon I'mlike, well, they're definitely
trailing the cat, but theirclock is ticking.
And we kept going and going andgoing and all of a sudden they
that one young dog I was talkingabout.
He comes firing off the rockcliff, just blowing past his

(01:13:03):
bark and every step.
I'm like, well, that cat'sright in front of him.
And the guy's like do you think?
So?
I'm like, yeah, I'm like youjust just sit down, wait.
And we just sat there and theyran a big horseshoe and treat
the line about 40 yards in frontof us and and I remember it was
4 45, because it's dark at likefour, six, six, like five
o'clock it is dark, it was likefour.
I looked at my phone.
I'm like took a picture of thecat.
I'm like let's go.
We got over there and I said Idon't think you want to shoot it

(01:13:25):
.
I said this is like an 80 poundTom, or maybe a hundred pounds,
I don't know, but small.
I'm like, well, it's not verybig.
And then he brought it to myattention.
He said you think that farmer'sgoing to let it live?

(01:13:47):
He said they're going to callsomebody and have that cat
killed.
Anyway, it's killing the sheep.
Good point.
Yeah, I'm like, well, that is avalid point.
I'm like, yeah, you're right.
He's like this cat's dead.

(01:14:07):
If I kill her or I don't killit, this cat's dead.
Yeah, I'm like, well, you'reright.
So so he shot it and that guyto him that was 180 pound lion.
You know he was just as happywithout his if it was some
number two record book lion.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Yep and that's the main thing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Right is, I guess, is you want a snow fitter as long
as that person leaves you know,feeling that way, that the
animal they got is their trophy,whether it really is or not
sure, yep, yep, that first lionI killed, yep, was a little
female, or not little, but itwas an adult female and I was so

(01:14:35):
proud of that thing, you knowcause I life sized it, you know.
But there again, you know, butwe have a taxidermy shop, so
it's not that's, it's not thatbig, yeah, yeah yep, so, but I
mean that first one, that yougot, even though you said it's a
bit smaller of a female to youat the time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
It could have been, you know, 180 pound tom.
Really, the way you're lookingat it, cause you're just so
happy to get that, and it's justso memorable.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter to me.
So, um, but yeah, and then justkind of just rinse and repeat,
you know, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt.
And I'm honestly there's timeswhere I'm like man, I was flying
and I'm tired, you know, um,and there's times where I'm like
man, I wish I had shoes and I'mtired, you know.
And there's times I've studiedit really frustrating, because

(01:15:24):
we'll go somewhere where youknow there's not a lion.
Like it's just as important toprove that there's not cats in a
certain habitat as that thereis cats.
So sometimes we'll go in anarea and you know you're not
going to see a cat You're goingto.
I remember one year I was, wewere working up in a different
region and literally I wassnowboarding six, seven feet of

(01:15:46):
snow, like on top of the skihills, and I'm like there's no
cats up here, like there's not aliving animal up here, maybe,
maybe a squirrel that's eatennuts that fall out of the
skier's pocket, so um, but, butthat's just as important.
And so you never know, like, um,cats are where you find them.

(01:16:08):
And I always, when I gosomewhere to look for lion, I
just look at the nastiest,rockiest crap hole and you know
the biggest, deepest, darkestcanyon with cover in it, and
then I'm like, well, that'sprobably where the cat is, you
know, yeah, and, and that'swhere I start hunting.
Unless it's springtime, whichis kind of my favorite time to

(01:16:29):
hunt is usually like latefebruary, march, because it
seems like those lions seem tobe congregated on the south
facing slopes or where the deerand elk are wintering at.
You know, it seems like, well,you find where all the game is.
You're going to find your cats,you know, early on in December
those cats are spread outeverywhere.

(01:16:49):
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
So the hunting is actuallyeasier later on, when the snow
gets deeper and the gamecongregates, and so does the
wildlife, you know, and then thecats follow it.
So it's in the same area, soyou're going to probably a good
time to scout for other animalstoo, I suppose when you're out

(01:17:11):
hunting lions like oh, thislooks like a good elk spot for
next year yep, what I'm going toright now is somewhat
patrolling the area that we elkhunt for trespassers, for
shedhorns okay, yep because elkshedhorns are such a big thing

(01:17:31):
right now and, um, it's kind ofcool.
I'll go out there and belooking for trespassers and
picking up horns and watchingelk and watching deer, and lo
and behold, there's a lion track.
You know, I'm like darn it,sure Bob dog today.
Oh, you know, you just neverknow, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
But yeah, no, it's a well.
I mean, scott, I can't thankyou enough for coming on and
giving us, you know, an insidelook at what you do and the lion
hunting and all that.
What's going on with you guysin Montana.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
What's the best way for people to contact you?
The reality is, you know, I'vegot our website, you know, and
the company the lion portion, isMontana Mountain Lion
Adventures and we're currentlygetting our websites even more
updated.
But I own both Ironwheel.

(01:18:27):
Ironwheel Gas Ranch is whereall our lodging is our deer, our
elk operations, our summerfishing trips Everything is out
of Ironwheel.
So it's just ironwheelcom,which links to Montana Mountain
Lion Adventures, and on there isphone numbers, and the best way
to contact me is by far phone.
I don't check email very often.

(01:18:49):
I don't even have Facebook.
My wife has it and I kind ofborrow it sometimes, but I spend
so much more time in the woodsI'm going gonna be gone for 20
some days here running bears andI won't be in in around a
computer.
So the best way by far is tocall me um, and our lion hunts
are five days long, um, and weonly take a limited amount of

(01:19:14):
people.
So typically I'm booked out ayear to two years in advance.
Okay, yeah, just because I don'twant to take a bunch of people.
I could, but I just don't thinkthat's fair to the client, it's
not fair to the public, justjust the the better experience
is focused on my one individual.
Don't worry about the next guythat's in line.

(01:19:38):
Take that guy, give him a truebest opportunity.
I can and um and then goforward.
You know I'm not into pushingpeople out the door to to take
more hunters because I, I justI'm not that guy.
I'm as much of a hound I'mprobably more of a hound guy
than I am an outfitter like I.
My passion for the dogs is sostrong that I became an

(01:19:59):
outfitter to support, to haveenough money to pay for my dogs.
I'm not doing that lion huntingto make money to buy dogs.
I'm buying the dogs and thengoing shit.
How am I going to afford thesole deal?
You know, and so absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
No, that's good to hear.
You know, when people listen tothis, if they're looking at
booking with you, yeah, justhearing that, knowing that you
know they're in good hands, andthe fact that you're not trying
to, you know, just put clientsin and out, in and out, just get
them going, you know how youtake just a select few and just
have a.
I think you know a much betterhunt that way.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Sure, and it's the same with, like, the tax for me.
You know, we I only do I'llmelt up to five mountain lions a
year and that's it, um, andthat's all I'll do is mountain
lions.
So, okay, and I do normal.
Normally it's the people thatum have hunted with me.
Um, I, I won't take on muchoutside work.
Um, I just I can't.

(01:20:57):
If I take 10 lion, if I do 10mountain lion taxidermies,
they're not, they're not goingto be the same quality.
You know, I can only do what Ican do and and we're very
everything about Montana,mountain lion adventures and
Iron Wheel is quality based.
You know, um definitely notgetting the numbers.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
So yeah, yeah, no.
Thanks again, Scott, and I hopeto talk to you again and happy
hunting.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Yeah well, I appreciate your time and thank
you for everything and good luckto everybody out there and if
anything comes up in the future,you got my number.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Yeah, that's right, great Thanks.
So much All right, thank you.