Catch and release lion hunting?
- Thread starter mtlion
- Start date
mtlion
Well-Known Member
Hey guys I just logged on and read the replies. I am in a pinch for time as I am heading out the door for a steelhead fishing trip and won't be back until Sunday evening. I'll get back on next week and give you guys some proper replies and find some more video to show you, I should have a bunch 
Deer with hounds , good lord sir keep your head down
devon deer stalker
Well-Known Member
Best of luck with the fishing, perhaps another thread on the results of your steelhead trip, lots of fishermen on here and i for one am very envious of your trip.Hey guys I just logged on and read the replies. I am in a pinch for time as I am heading out the door for a steelhead fishing trip and won't be back until Sunday evening. I'll get back on next week and give you guys some proper replies and find some more video to show you, I should have a bunch
Cheers
Richard
bambislayer
Well-Known Member
Quite amusing, sitting on your backside squeaking a bit of plastic = sporting
Training a dog, learning the habits of both dog and prey, hiking over mountains in pursuit of your quarry, getting up close to determine age and sex of animal before deciding to dispatch or leave alone = not fair chase or sporting
Hahahahaha, I love the lazy ass atitude to sport in the UK!
I love spotlighting foxes and have done plenty of it but it is nothing to a days hunting with hounds, especially an upland foot pack.
Tamus
Well-Known Member
Cougar.....I used to take the attitude that I only wanted to shoot things I could eat and would/should shoot no more than I might eat myself. I was about 11 when I thought that and shot rabbits with an airgun. My "ethics" of safety, "fairness" and humanity in the field were instilled from the outset. At home, we reared animals with care and devotion... for food... and in early childhood I was surrounded by all manner of countrymen. Against this early background I quickly graduated from the airgun to equipment that could shoot moving game, my old man's 12b it was. Now, after some practice, I could hit those rabbits even when they weren't sitting still and a new world of flying ducks, pheasants and partridges opened up to me too (delicious) but still I stuck to the idea of shooting only what I might eat or, as things developed, what my family and some friends might eat. Then the equipment improved again, my dad's .22rf next, and suddenly at the extremes of my ability a 100yard off hare became potential "fair game" and hare soup is still one of my favourite game recipes. However, since I was, as I say, brought up on a farm, there was also always the job of vermin control, mainly mice and rats around the steading and the corn stacks. Traps, poison and at threshing time; sticks, collie dogs and terriers, came into the picture, as did grown men and other laddies of the district, we all seemed to share a certain "excitement" on those ratting days. Can you see where I'm going with this?
Time passes.... and the often play-stalked roe deer of my childhood days become a minor fascination, infatuation even, in adolescent days. Other interests also developed, but I needed to upgrade the equipment
. For deer, SSG's were the first thought. And so it was that by the age of 14 I had made a total hash of my first deer stalk and wounded a roe doe with two barrels of SSG's out of the old man's BSA 12b, the day was only saved by dad and a collie bitch of exceptional talent. She could hunt-on the dairy cows, nipping mercilessly and barking at their heels, herd lambs by shoving them where she wanted them with her chest, at the gallop too (and never marked a lamb either) she could house the chooks at the darkening and even nail rats as well as any terrier, aye! while at the job of housing those hens, and damn me if she couldn't blood scent a wounded roe deer at the first asking too... What a great wee bitch old Nell was (Bred by the late Donald MacIntyre, for those who know/knew the great old shepherds, dog breeders, drinking men and boxers of the Southern uplands) Anyhoo, In the end the .22 rimfire was used to put the poor doe out of it's suffering and dad was absolutely furious about the whole escapade. Thus, the remainder of "that" box of SSG's had all to be shot into the midden at one session, forth with. So, a bruised ego and the shoulder to match but.... my first Roe Doe's venison was very fine all the same and much appreciated, in the end.Maybe I should call this an essay and entitle it "a sporting life"... or something
, but if you allow me the indulgence I'll continue now I've started.The whole deer = forbidden fruit thing led to much scheming in my young mind. As it happened, I also had an uncle with a Parker-Hale rifle in treble two. He only really used it to shoot foxes on his hill farm. Now, I was brought up on an upland dairy farm and our only sheep were much cosseted pedigree ones, who seldom needed to be concerned about Mr. Todd (the fox) in-wintered as they were and only allowed out with lambs when the better weather of April arrived. But... on my uncle's hill farm, his "cheviot" hill ewes and their lambs had to fend off every tooth and claw. Outdoors and exposed to pretty much every risk, but with a little bit of armed suppport from my uncle. So, obviously, I just had to help my cousins and uncle out with their vermin problems ....and thereby gain some experience of this amazing smoke stick. At that point my "only shoot to eat" theory and my vermin control experiences all began to become fused into one process with little emotional or ideological distinction betwixt and between. My next Roe Deer (six months after the first) was a late May Buck to the treble two, cleanly dropped on the spot, but with Nell for company... just in case... Dad was inclined to be furious again... but I recall his stern looks melted to a shake of the head and a laugh once he thought through all that had just happened. Later followed my own ownership of centrefires and eventually the astonishingly, amazingly, exciting experience of accompanying the foot hounds...
Dog sport seems to get a bad reputation in this country, in my opinion, mainly in the minds of those who know little about it and are either biased against "Toffs on horse back" (the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable) or the badger baiters and fighting-dog men of criminal kind. In reality there's a world of "good" sound, ethical sport with man and hound and gun. Some of the variations of which many on this board will be acquainted with and approve of e.g. the, labs, spaniels and HPRs, etc of the walking gun or of pickers-up, on bird shoot days, the tracking dogs of the well equiped stalker and so forth, all totally ethical and acceptable... However, there's many an other sporting dog too, not one bit less ethical, from ratting terriers to mountain lion hunters with their hounds.
These days, I'm an unsatiated addict of the driven boar hunt, largely strung out waiting for my next chance to score. The music of the hounds and intensity of concentration when that crashing through the trees finally yields game for the taking, make for proper sport. I mean food, essential control of wild animal numbers, man, dog and gun all in one fluid and dynamic process, excellent! And.... frankly, if you want to see "ethics" you need to see our continental neighbours' standards. They put the word venery into veneration.
Personally, I still love it all, From ratting to deer stalking and a rabbit for the pot. Oops! there's the title of a short story in'it?
My point... Oh yes, there was one.... mtlion your cat and hound "sport" must indeed be a very intense and rewarding experience. I'd happily join you if I ever had the chance. Those who don't understand it are unfortunate souls. Bambislayer and me are not the only ones who get it though..
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devon deer stalker
Well-Known Member
Tamus, a great post, i think we all know you a little better now!
Cheers
Richard
Cheers
Richard
John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
I imagine that many on the other side of the world dont see it as kosher at all ( the time honoured tradition of legal sambar hunting with hounds) but if anyone got up me for it so what ha ha. When one see`s the almost impossible mountainous terrain that is hunted and spread over many many square miles and has participated in the game they can then have a fair say in it.
Its not gentle hill and dale foxhunting country its steep and often covered in some shiitty bush low scrub and done during Victorias winter,rain sleet snow or more rain is often the days weather just to keep the lads keen too.
To lead the hounds into a mountain gully to start up a set of marks from the night before and to hear the top hound/s cold scenting all the way in nutting out his marks and to kick the stag out of his bed a couple of kilometres away up high is something to appreciate....its done for months in Victorias winter by many dedicated hound men.
Many many times the stag wins the chase too and its those stags that repeatedly beat the hounds over years,the crew reassemble the next week and try again of course.
I always loved ratting with the terriers,hare coursing with the long dogs,fox catching with a good staghound and catching/dispatching hundreds of wild boar with my dogs too.
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mtlion
Well-Known Member
nick100, It seems like we always max out with 4 to 5 hounds although I have gone with as many as 8. It seems like too many dogs and you may end up with two seperate chases as some dogs may strike another seperate lion or bocat track. Also we typically have 6 dogs at our disposal and we prefer to keep a couple fresh for the next day. If you go on a long chase and wear out your dogs you can't run them again the next day, by keeping 2-3 fresh for the next day we can run a cat any day of the week. My buddy had one dog who's gone now, that would tree toms by himself and he treed several hundred lions in his career. That dog was a legend.
Here is a tom that dog treed on his own...It was this guys first mountain lion.
Where would I post such a thread? I do have some nice pictures
Here is a tom that dog treed on his own...It was this guys first mountain lion.
Where would I post such a thread? I do have some nice pictures
devon deer stalker
Well-Known Member
Hi Mtlion,
Just raise a thread under general discussion, perhaps title it 'non stalking related, steel head fishing'
Cant wait to see the pics
Cheers
Richard
Just raise a thread under general discussion, perhaps title it 'non stalking related, steel head fishing'
Cant wait to see the pics
Cheers
Richard
John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
Apols nick100,I only caught your above post,buggered if I know how i missed it.
Of course we shoot them,there are shooters posted up and around the likely places hoping to get a crack at one.
I hunted over foxhounds a 50 year old pack at the time now laws restrict to beagles and bloodhounds.
caught heaps of pigs in my youth with my dogs..not hounds.
mtlion
Well-Known Member
I'm with nick I would love to see some pics.
mtlion
Well-Known Member
mtlion this is a great post and thanks for the stories and photo. I love hunting with hounds and love any working dog. This mountain lion hunt is on my bucket list
Keep the stories and photos coming.
dogfox
OK...Since you asked!
Here is my wife with her first cat...She tells me she's ready to try for another this year...I bet she gets one!
In the tree:
On the ground:
On the wall:
Yes cougar you are right sat on your backside with a caller switched on waiting for one to turn up and ambush it, or tracking it for miles and trying to catch up with your dogs.Some people have weird ideas on what is fair chase and sporting.So is fox hunting, beagling ratting and spaniels putting up game birds wrong too?So to you mtlion i have only a couple of things to say "good hunting" and "god i wish i could do it"
Geordie
wildfowler.250
Well-Known Member
I may have missed it but can you eat the mountain lions? Or are they purely shot as a trophy? I don't have a problem with shooting them out of trees but i am not sure it is something I'd travel across to america to do 
I realise this is digging up a bit of an old thread but had to ask!
I realise this is digging up a bit of an old thread but had to ask!
shooter
Well-Known Member
Thanks for this interesting thread.
1) a mt. lion hunt is one of the toughest hunts. Much tougher than deer stalking in the uk.
2) Shooting a treed cat is very sporting. one only needs to do it and then realise how 'easy' it is to follow tracks through the snow in the canyons. Lions by their very nature are shy. it is very rare to see them. one needs dogs to follow them. sometimes the lion doesnt get treed but goes to the ledge to the edge of the canyon. So it is on the ground. How does that make it more sporting than a treed shot. Like all hunting the thrill is in the chase. Whether that is the stalk or tracking lion or on an airboat in swamps looking for gator. pulling the trigger is the last half second of a hunt.
3) Shooting a treed cat is recommended by the dept. of fish and wildlife just like high seat shoting is recommended in DMQ/DSC.
4) passing a judgement about whats sporting is easy and dependant on background and shooting culture. for e.g. when i was in australia, people were surprised to learn about high seat shooting of deer. Similarly UK is the only country in the world where one has to pay for the meat of the animal in addtion to the trophy fees. Nowhere in the world does this happen (dont quote some remot corner of the world as an example; i am talking about most common hunting destinations). Everyone who hears this finds this a "greedy" practice but we dont bat an eyelid here about this practice.
5) lion has been eaten by a few (not regularly). It is very gristly and not tasty.
6) I am not an expert and have very little knowledge compared to most people here but i have hunted lion and will do it again. If money wasnt an issue, i would do it every year.
1) a mt. lion hunt is one of the toughest hunts. Much tougher than deer stalking in the uk.
2) Shooting a treed cat is very sporting. one only needs to do it and then realise how 'easy' it is to follow tracks through the snow in the canyons. Lions by their very nature are shy. it is very rare to see them. one needs dogs to follow them. sometimes the lion doesnt get treed but goes to the ledge to the edge of the canyon. So it is on the ground. How does that make it more sporting than a treed shot. Like all hunting the thrill is in the chase. Whether that is the stalk or tracking lion or on an airboat in swamps looking for gator. pulling the trigger is the last half second of a hunt.
3) Shooting a treed cat is recommended by the dept. of fish and wildlife just like high seat shoting is recommended in DMQ/DSC.
4) passing a judgement about whats sporting is easy and dependant on background and shooting culture. for e.g. when i was in australia, people were surprised to learn about high seat shooting of deer. Similarly UK is the only country in the world where one has to pay for the meat of the animal in addtion to the trophy fees. Nowhere in the world does this happen (dont quote some remot corner of the world as an example; i am talking about most common hunting destinations). Everyone who hears this finds this a "greedy" practice but we dont bat an eyelid here about this practice.
5) lion has been eaten by a few (not regularly). It is very gristly and not tasty.
6) I am not an expert and have very little knowledge compared to most people here but i have hunted lion and will do it again. If money wasnt an issue, i would do it every year.
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