In my earlier post about hunting Cottomtails with a sixgun Cherokeetracker ask about my Lion hunt with a sixgun. It was many years ago using a S&W 357 magnum & a Keith 173 gr. cast slug at a distance of about 5 feet. I was in the tree next to it & my buddy was in a tree behind it & things were getting real crazy so we decided one of us had better get down so the cat wouldn't jump one of us.
I'll tell the whole story as I find more photo's. This photo is the Lion mounted life size above my computer. This was a snow shoe hunt that lasted 11 hours in deep snow & was the toughest hunt I've ever been on. More details as I find the other photo's.
If you look close you can see where most of the toe's on the left paw are missing from being caught in someone's coyote trap. He still had the killer claw & had killed a big buck the morning we jumped him.



Dick

Anxious to here "The rest of the story"!

I`ed give my right "you know what" for a shot at a mountain lion

Awesome mount, Dick. I'm sure the hunt was equally great.

I would love to hunt for a Mountain Lion..You took a really nice one.

Dick, Nice cat! I killed my one and only mtn lion in the middle fork of the Salmon (ID) back in 81. Reminds me I'm getting old! Those cats are deer killing machines for sure.

Great cat and beautiful mount!

Great trophy! I can not wait to hear the story behind it.

That is a great mount - I can't wait to here about the hunt as well.

Seems I've seen this mount.... and a few others.

Thank You Dick, I always enjoy hearing the story, and seeing the photos again.

Charles

As Mark Hampton mentioned the Middle Fork of the Salmon in central Idaho is one of the greatest spots in the US for Lion hunting.....if you are up to the task. I've hunted it many time in many different ways & its some of the most rugged country in the lower 48 states & its also the largest primitive area in the lower 48. You can walk in, ride a horse, float down the river or have a bush pilot drop you on one of the remote dirt air strips but there are no roads & it can rip your heart out.
Many people have went in there & never came out, some by choice & some by being stupid. Mother Nature takes care of the dumb one's. On one spring bear hunt a friend & I bumped into a mountain man that had been living in there for 7 years. Had 4 horses, a black powder rifle, a 30/30 Winchester & a Ruger revolver & some people up river had warned us not to mess with him.
Back to the lion hunt!! My gun of choice was a nickle 8 3/8's S&W 357 that I had sent over to Denver to the old 300 Gunshop & had Sadowski work his magic on the action, smooth as silk & the trigger broke like frozen lettuce, I packed it in an old Lawrence #7 shoulder rig.
We jumped the cat off his kill at daybreak & he only ran an 1/2 mile or so & treed in a short Juniper. By the time we got there the fight was over, he had bailed out because the tree was short & they had a little boxing match, blood, hair & dog crap scattered in the deep snow, then it got western!
Straight up, he was leaving & it was hell for the next several hours, my buddy was much lighter & could snow shoe on top, I was heavier & broke through. We were sweating hard & it was aboout 10 degrees, the sweat was freezing on our vests.
He would tree, bail, double back, tree, get in the cliffs, etc. one of us was getting tired!!
Finally we caught a break, he treed in a tall pine, we tied up the dogs, you always tie them up, the lion will kill them if its wounded when it comes down.
We went up & started taking photo's & the cat went nuts, so we switched off, he settled down after that & I decided to take the shot. My plan was to pop him in the lungs & then give him a quick second shot double action, all this at 5-6 feet.
Young & dumb, when I shot that cat he hit the ground before I could even blink, took one huge leap in the air & died while he was air borne. It was an 11 hour marathon but I had my Lion.
I'll show more photo's tomorrow.


Any of you see the hound in the background?

Dick

Great story!

5-6 feet? No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

I don 't even like getting that close to the mounts!


Great story Dick - another great handgunning adventure

Great story, Dick! A Lion hunt is something I hope to be able to do some day; maybe when all my chil'ns get out of college.



...and this is coming from someone who jug'd a hawg with a knife barely long enough to clean your fingernails with.

Now that's what I'am talking about.

Charles

After reading that story,no wonder most people are "one & done" on lion hunts, I got tired just reading it !!!

I've done two lion hunts. each 5 days, both on horseback with hounds. total of 200 miles in the saddle and I still haven't had a good hound race with a lion. Dick, your mount is exactly what I would like to do if I ever get one. I can totally respect what you went through to get it....on snowshoes...in deep snow...for 11 hours....in ten degree weather. Not sure I could do that at my age, and I'm not old. You must have slept for three days straight after that ordeal.

Thanks for sharing and keep posting up pics as you find them.

Very exciting hunt, Dick.

I have a friend who outfits hunts for lions but I have not ever done it.

Feel like I'm reading fur fish and game from the 50's and your pic is the cover.

I'll never take another Lion, they are such a magnificient animal, the real challenge was the chase, the sweat, the hounds, treeing it 4-5 times but not catching up in time, the rugged mountains, breaking through the snow, seeing country in winter time that few people ever get to witness, thats what makes a Lion hunt.
I've benn in on a couple others just to watch but one's enough for me. I like the thought of them being out there, knowing I've been watched dozens of times by a big Tom from a rocky ledge. Nothing is more crafty than the big cats.
Without hounds its next to impossible to even see one, much less take one, the number of people that have taken a Lion without hounds you could probably count on one hand in the state of Idaho. Having said that one of my son's did it & he did it with a bow & arrow! We had been seeing both Lion & Bear sign around 2 of our water holes one year so I bought Travis two tags, he was 15 yrs old.
One evening I was just settling in to my tree stand & here comes Travis on the 4 wheeler, yelling like like Callshot over a free corndog. He had a huge Tom come in for a drink & he popped it, the cat made a huge leap straight out into the middle of the pond & then another back on the bank & disappeared into the brush.
When we got back up there it was pitch black, all we had were our bows & it was spooky! 50 yds into the heavy brush was an enormous Mountain Lion, record book size for bow or gun. Its head was bigger than the shoulders of my cat, re read what I just said, thats true, it was that much bigger than my cat.
I don't have a photo of it but we mounted it life size & he has it in his home.
Here's another photo of my cat.


In the same Middle Fork country Mark mentioned we found a huge granite boulder with this plaque embedded in it honoring a mountain man that had lived in these mountains for many years. We were on a spring bear hunt with our horses & mules. At the base of the boulder were a lot of cartridges from hunters that had passed by as a tribute to Dick Bacon. I left a 6.5 TCU from my XP100 & Shane left a 243 from his Sako. A couple of hours later I filmed 5 Bighorn rams & Shane killed a huge black bear.



Dick

Great stuff Dick. Really enjoy reading about your adventures!

Wow. Crawling in the brush on the blood trail of something that bites back.........there's nothing like it. Awesome story telling as usual.

Dick,,
I had never heard or read about this before. That is exciting for both of you. I would not have been able to sleep that night of that particular hunt. You are so fortunate to have been able to share a hunt like that.

Charles