Ep. 79: Mountain Lion Hunting with Hound Dogs

But if you have questions for myself and my guests are Dirt and his guests, feel free to email them to us at CPD at phelpsgame Calls dot com and we'll do our best to get them on the podcast. So we're just going to kind of jump right in to hound hunting. And we have a lot of side conversations that I wish we could actually you know, we

bottle them all up. So today I'm just going to kind of just talk about what we do as we're driving around the woods looking for tracks and looking for you know, one of the things that we were brought up earlier this morning as we were talking is, you know, the perception that hound hunting isn't tough. And I think from the outside, until you get to go with the hound hunter, it may you may think of that as like, oh, well, the dogs did the work this or that, and you

basically walk up and shoot them. But it couldn't be further from the truth. And being Dirk were kind of joking that hunting from a clear cut and city is the easy way, Like you could easily make the argument that baiting is a harder way because you're putting in all this effort or hound hunting. So can you elaborate a little bit on how much work goes into hound hunting and not only being successful keeping your dogs in shape, the almost your own commitment to being a hound hunter.

you know. And then well then you got to train it, you know, and that's time consuming, especially if you've never done it before or you don't have any older dogs to train it with, you know. So there's that journey, which could be a really long journey, you know, and

a lot of time, a lot of money. And then you get that part kind of down after years sometimes that you know, I remember in my younger years of it, I went days without catching stuff, you know, and uh but just kept at it, never gave up, you know, and and just kept pushing. But uh, yeah, so you got that part of it well then, and then the hunting part of it, you know. You know, we still get up extremely early as you know now, Yeah, get

up early, we get out there. I mean, you got to have all the equipment, tons of equipment, you know, get get out there early, get everything unloaded. That's all work, you know, And and then you got to try to find a bear or lion or whatever you're doing. And sometimes it might you might go two or three days before you find what you're looking for. And then you find what you're looking for, and then it's like okay,

and my dog's even going to catch it. You know, as you've seen yesterday, that wasn't.

you got to stay low. You know, people can say easy because you're on a machine, but you're out there freezing, you're cold, you're putting tons of miles on tons of road like just time on the machines, and isn't easy And I'll I want to say now when I say the difficult side and Bradley's talking about the houndsman side, for the hunter side, I would agree, it's it's a little easier right by hunting bhyd hounds, like I would say, and easy really just comes into play, like do you

consider driving up, getting out of your pickup truck and sitting on a clear cut easier than the hike we did yesterday? Like, yeah, I would say it may be easier to find success. I guess that part, but not always right there. There's times the weather didn't cooperate, you know, and so so how much I mean, is there any other equipment I didn't miss? And just to the extent of you know, you're getting you around, you're getting your clients around, like you got to have multiple machines, you know.

You guys were telling me the story the other day about thinking you had enough snow and you went up and ruined your snow and bill tracks, you know, and it's yeah, there's all of this, and so I mean you just got a ton of equipment into this and.

was I knew better, but it happens, you know. And yeah, the gear, like I have a couple of different four wheelers ready to to hunt with the hounds, like bear hunting, because I know how breakdowns are, you know, and when you're hunting every day and you're kind of in that routine, you know, you got to have a backup plan, so you got to have I have extra callers because callers

always go bad. They're three hundred bucks apiece, three point fifty actually now for the ones I like, and I've got twenty of them, you know, And yeah, pick up the wearing hair and pickups. I mean, I don't think I could sell you anyone in my.

get there it's like it's rugged. And then it just so happened that when we showed up between then and when we got to the dogs, it had moved trees, and and uh, we're that's when we're side helme. Snow is involved. You know, usually your hunters are in more snow, so you're you're dealing with steep slopes, lots of snow, and you're not the easiest to get around in and and all. You know, not that I'm in the greatest shape, but when I got to the tree, like I was

a little bit cooked already, you know. And then I mean, so it's just because you're behind dogs doesn't mean you're gonna get a cake walk to an animal, or that they don't tree two miles that way, and it takes you two hours.

took anyways. He was he was older and kind of out of shape, and we treated this lion in some deep snow, you know, And it was it was probably only six seven hundred yards from the road, which doesn't sound far, but anybody that's familiar with TPS is in Idaho, right, But anyways, I got the guy. He made it about halfway and he was so whipped and he was ready to quit, you know so, and the snow was over

my past my knees, you know. So I just made a pass with my snow shoes like two or three times to make him a walk way, and just got, you know, a little bit out of time and stuff. And I mean, I'll tell you what I was with that day, harder than any l kind I'd ever been on.

some form, it's it's not. I will I would agree that helen hunting probably has a high your success rate if you're going to be a I mean obviously bears, cats or whatever you're gonna you're gonna have a better chance of success, But doesn't necessarily it's.

you know, you see these little clips and guys, you know they're they're basically just showing.

it in a way that's more sustainable. And when I say fair, like, I still see us as hunters, whether it's a heund hunter, whether it's a spot stock hunter, like we are a management tool and the fair in it, like, in order to go into this North American model a wildlife and use it how it is, we need to take some of these larger toms out. And if we target that, we're making sure we've got good line population. We're not trying to wipe them out. And so I'm like, find me a fair way to do this, use us

as management tools and to use dogs. Go look at a cat in a tree and be like, you know what, too young, We're gonna let them. We're gonna let him out of the tree. Or yeah, that's a target animal, or that's a female, we're gonna let her go so she can stay and repot, you know, breed and and do it. It's not like you don't want to see these things wiped off the face of the earth. And that's where I think people look at houndsmen or people that hunt mind hounds and like those people want to

wipe every animal off face of the earth. That it couldn't be further from the truth, especially hunting with you maybe maybe some heundsmen and we're gonna get into you know, bad bad raps or you know, kind of get a bad rap as a houndsman at times. And in some of these these things that have affected it. But I would say the majority, and you know, more helmsmen than me, aren't. You know, they're not out there thirst killing, They're not

out there trying to kill everything on the landscape. You know. They want to manage. I mean, and not everything doesn't have to come back down to dollars or cents. But you make part of your living off of having big toms to kill, yep, And so it's like there's there's multiple reasons, and regardless if you took the money away, you probably wouldn't think that they all needed to be

killed anyways, even if there wasn't a reason. So, uh, I think fairness, to me, is the best tools we have available to manage the population in a certain way or manipulate that population, and to me, held hunting is the best way to do it.

mean I've done that several times. I mean, and like you said, you know, you can look them over good and okay that one's that one's a female, or you know that one's young, or or I don't know his his his hide ain't looking that great. You know, you can let you know, there's lots of reasons you can let him go where. And I'm not picking on any hunter group obviously, I'm for everything.

To this point, like and in our opinion, it's the best way to manage that species is an overall is behind helens and I.

good spot right now. And as much as you say they'll balance themselves out, they will. But now all of a sudden, these cats are day and you're starving because now there aren't enough, and it's like, well, I don't want to see the cat stuff for either, So let's just balance them, keep the deal. Let's keep them all as high as we can get them and have the best population is you know, basically the highest density of the landscape. Behold is what we should shoot for and

then balance everything to that. But yeah, it's it's it's interesting and and I hate when people say it's not. And I'm like, show me a fair way to manage cat populations. There isn't one than no behind hounds. I

don't believe, you know, bears maybe bait. You know, bait could be argued potentially, yes or no. You know, we we got to bear hunt last year, and sometimes it's sometimes tough to get your big bears up a tree and and maybe hew, you know you have you said you've preed big bears as well as little ones, though you know there're maybe bait is just as equal or maybe better worse than certain spots, but you know, it's aside from that, like just you know, gloss of them

and stuff. Sometimes unless you're in the right train, just isn't the best way to to manage those either.

the perception of Helen hunters. Can you like clarify that or elaborate a little bit on that.

of gate locks off the gates. I mean that's to go get their dogs or go get their dogs, and you know, and I get it in wolfy country and they're nervous, you know, some of them, you know, might have made that decision on that. I don't know, but it's not good. You know. We just need to we need to prove to everybody that you know, we're we're fair chase and we're responsible enough to do this, and we're not tearing up roads or tearing up gates or

or trespassing on property. You know, we've got to you know, be aware of all that stuff and and keep keep it clean. And but I've seen it. I think the biggest thing with with hound guys is how they take care of their dogs. I've heard that from you and other people so many times. You know, I've been at trade shows and had people walk up to me and say, I just don't like how you guys take care of your dogs. You know, you guys so like again back

to the few business. So yeah, I mean unfortunately, you know, I you know, hound hunters, a few of them, you know, especially the old school ones were pretty rough on dogs, maybe shooting them and shooting them in front of people or whatever because they did something they weren't supposed to, or are beating them with a stick real hard. And you know, now we've got shot collar.

And I can remember, you know, dogs getting back to the truck and getting on the wrong whack, you know, getting beat and you know, I didn't ever see any get cold, but you know, you hear about like these guys were so hardcore that you know, if you didn't you know, belong in the bloodline, and they felt it was like their dude to take it out. And you're like, holy smokes, I try. Even though I hunt, I still love animals, and like, I don't know, but yeah, it's they get a bad rap on on a lot of

that in the way that they treat their animals. And like you said, you're you know, if it doesn't hunt, then it'll make somebody else a pet, you know. Yeah, And I like that because it's not maybe the way it was back where I come from, you know, where there were hound hunters, right.

especially when they get older. But yeah, I've never I've never agreed with shooting a dog because it didn't you know, it didn't work out for you, or it didn't do what you wanted it too. So that's bad. Again, that's only a few people that we're talking about, you hound guys.

I'm not going to fix your kid up. You know it is, basically, But you guys struggle even finding bets that want to work on you know, hunting dogs or work dogs.

bear and need stitches or whatever. And I've got some strange looks at bets and had them you know, pretty much tell me they weren't well. Actually, all this backup. So I have this three legged dog not gatling. Actually she had four legs, her back legs she couldn't use very well. And I wanted to make a cross before she died with another male I had and anyway, so I tried to make the cross with them. Well, her back hit. She just fall to the ground every time

mel got on her. You know, they couldn't do it naturally. So I really wanted to cross. I said, well, I'll just do it artificially. I'll just get a hold of the bet. And so I got a hold of the bet and made the appointment. I had a bear hunter, I think client here, So I called and asked my mom if she could run the two dogs over for their appointment and get that done, and yeah, I'll do that. And anyway, she called me and said, hey, the bets wouldn't do this, and I was like, what do you

mean they wouldn't do it? And she said, well, they're hounds, so they refused to do it. And I was like, you're kidding me, and so yeah, I'm don't use that bet again, but they but yeah, I was just blown away that when they found out they were they were fine with doing it until she got there and they realized they were hunting dogs, and then they refused to do it, and that's just like really But anyways, so yeah, a good bet, you got one, keep it.

Like in your opinion, is how you know, how does hound hunting insert itself as a management tool, you know, for for the health of all species.

that kill all the way up. They cover it up every night they come back, so they're only killing what they eat. And I like that about lions. But again, you know, a big tom like you killed yesterday is killed a lot of deer and elk. I mean, I don't know for sure, but I would say he's probably killed, especially in an adult life, he's probably killed every seven to fourteen days, because I've tracked him around and seen where they killed and then tracked him and where they've

killed another one. You know, and I've actually hunted them, you know where they were. I didn't catch him for several days back to the easy right and several days to catch him. And literally known he's been traveling for four days. I know he hasn't eight. He's looking for something to kill. But so you add that up, that's just one lion. I mean, if you don't manage them. And again I don't kill every lion I catch, and I don't kill females. But that's killing a lot of

deer and elk. So I mean, if you took if you took the hound hound hunting out of that, holy smokes.

elk or kills throughout the year. And it's like that's a lot in the you know, same with bears. You know, he hunting bears. You know, those things are eating a ton of fawns in the in the you know, spring and when they start to drop or you know, early summer at that time, and it's like you know, the yeah, they will you know, take berry, they'll take whatever. There

there's an opportunist. And so it's like by by helping you know, manage that bear population as well, you're making sure that you know, you're you're you're keeping your ungulate population is hopefully as healthy as you can, right.

in the snow, don't lie. You can see that they've ran them down and caught them, whether they had a broken leg the deer or whatever. I don't know, but so that's another thing. Predators need managed bad. I mean, all of them, and I don't want to wipe them out because I enjoy hunting them, you know. So it's a fine line, you know, And and that's why, you know, I don't want to say I necessarily four quotas or anything, but you know, quotas on females, you know, I think

is a good deal. So you don't completely wipe them out, you know, but but you kill enough of them to because you know, again I don't kill females, but you think of a female raising three yearlings. They're killing a lot of deer. Yeah, yeah, she's killing a lot of the feed. Yeah, they probably kill more. Well, I know, they kill more than a tongue. So let's rule.

you had wolves back in the landscape. Now these cats, which are maybe better killers than these wolves, are now killing three to five times as much. And now all of a sudden, it doesn't take long for the balance to be way out of whack, right, because these wolves now moved in and this created this killing is free basically, yeah, because I mean, lions are killers.

You've talked about like the effect that it's even you guys feel maybe he's had on your dogs as of late, where these cats getting a little bolder, a little tougher, and let you know what, I've you know, warded off some wolves on enough like maybe I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, start to not be so scared of your dog is at a point which isn't good for Heleneman at all.

a plot dog. Anyways, I had an old track, so I ended up walking with these dogs for a while. Well they ended up taking this track. And anyways, I heard this. I'm telling the story pretty quick, but I heard this got awful squeal down there that I thought that was the dog, but I wasn't sure. And I thought, well, did they jump and go out of hearing already or what.

But I just never heard the sound again. Well, anyways, in the meanwhile, my dog had veered off on another track, going backwards, actually on a track, and my buddy's dog was off to the right, you know, I could tell. And I was still using the peepers back then. But anyways, I walked down to where I heard the noise just to kind of see. And I get down there and I see nothing but blood just everywhere. And there's that plot dog, Frank was his name, laying there dead, and

I'm like, what in the world. And I started looking there and the lion had to kill, you know, and was laying there, and the dog jumped up on the log there and the lion was just waiting for it. I could see what everything happened, and it just bit it one time through the top of the head. It just had those puncture holes in the top of the dog's head. And so my theory was always that they've learned to fight, because I mean, anybody the town hunting for a long time, it's rare. I mean, yesterday was

rare with your lion. You know, it bade the dogs and stuff. But you know where there's trees where we're hunting up here in northern Idaho and stuff, and there's a lot of trees like it is so rare to bay up and for a lion to fight. I think I can only think of about three times it's happened to me in thirty years of whatever doing it. So I always felt like, and that's like I said, again, that's when the wolves were real bad. I always felt

like and it was a big tom, big tom. I always felt like it had to learn to fight canines and it probably had fought some wolves off when a hound was nothing, you know. And again that's just me thinking, but I think there's probably a lot of truth to Yeah.

Dog safety. And then we're gonna roll. We're kind of well, we'll tell h you know, my hunt story, and we'll kind of roll into some times where I was like, I don't want this on my shoulders, and you know, throughout this hunt, so we we you know, we finally get to the your location and we get down there, you know, and we get to the tree and we're we're looking at shot angles and it was in a great spot and then we thought we had a shot. Well, then he would slump on the tree and vidals, Well,

what you do to protect your dog? Because these animals, whether it's a bear or whether it's a cougar, they're they've got fear of the dogs until they're wounded or until they can't run anymore. Right, right, They're willing to go away from the dogs, but you've now put a fatal shot or a non fatal shot, and they're not as fast and the dogs get to them. It's it's not gonna be good typically, right, So we get to the tree. We're trying to fiddle around and look at

every different angle. We got guys going everywhere trying to look at shot angles. It was way too steep. I wasn't comfortable using my bow. So we were him and hand around and you go one thing that you I'm all hounds, but not just you. You got you go and leash all your dogs to the tree right before that time. If we're getting ready to shoot it. You do not want your dogs to be able to get to this cat during this wounded expiration phase, right, So

that's one thing that you do. So we're sitting there, so that's that's vital. It's for the dog safety. You care about these things. So the tree, we start to see him get antsy and starts to get himself down the tree. We're all out of position, dogs are, so I remember it was a mad dash. You guys were trying to keep it up the tree by knocking on it, and the cat just didn't care, jumped out over our buddy, your buddy, Tim's I just met him yesterday, Tim's head

and he's off again. Well then it's a mad scramble. We'll get the dogs loose so we can hopefully retreat it because now we're working again, it's time. One thing I love about technology is you had ran off in the direction that the cat and then your dogs quickly went and we were trying to get all of our gear, grab packs, do everything, you know, grab leashes, and we come in here and we all kind of get back

to your everbody sit down. They're coming back. You could see on and we sat down, and you said, it's not very rare. I just assumed, well, this always happened this way. Like you can see this cat start slothering down the creek and then it turns right in front of us at what forty yards? Yeah, And I always assumed on these cat races that it's everything's sprinting all

out right. No, this cat was low, he was tired, quiet, I mean, but he was and he held dogs dogs close to him, just like he was gonna slowly get away. Dogs came around the corner maybe twenty seconds behind, kind of get there, catching up to him. Getting the track heated up, and you'd mentioned the dogs were a little tired, you know. I had to have some time off with

all your trade shows. And they finally they're milling around and they're on the same trail and at the same time, we're watching the cat get higher on this steep steep rock and we're watching the dogs and and you kind of watch this cat like he doesn't really want a tree. He doesn't really want to get away from the dogs anymore. Like we didn't know at this time what was going to happen. And one of your dogs, you might know

which one bark was. It was on the kind of what I'm my terminology is horrible, a hot bark, like it was a different bark than what they had been doing. And the cat skewed it real quick. But you we got the coolest sillho whatever. This cat walks out onto this rock, which looked very flat from from our side, right,

and then you see it turn around. And the first thing that goes through my head is all these desert hunts or Rocky Mountain, you know, rocky southern desert hunts where you know they bay upcause don't have a tree to climb at times. And I think you and Tim and everybody, I think we all thought about the same Illinois's going to bay up, and you you weren't. I don't blame this on you. You're just letting me know a situation.

I know this isn't good for the dog. You know you mentioned something I'm gonna get a dog killed here or something, so you you kind of take off me and you bump way forward and I think dirt chase. And then we got up there and then you you put a lot of pressure on me because you're like you've got to make a good shot here because my dogs are there, Like this isn't in a tree, they're not leashed up, a little different situation than ninety nine

percent of them. Is this cat, you know? And for those that don't know Beta bears cats, basically, they're not climbing a tree at this point. They're gonna sit and fight on the ground and swipe and hiss and they're they're now defending their ground at this point, this cat, we assume had been on the rock before, very sharp, very tough for the dogs to get out to where

this cat had got to. But like so I'm not gonna jump into the shot right now, but explain when now we're in a different situation than the first tree. You don't have dogs on the leash. Your dogs are tree to be all over this cat. Now we're shooting and hoping that dogs, you know, Like we're making very clear, like we can't see the dogs because we're very steep, rocky pinnacle country where we're trying that me and you

were talking like where to hit him? You know, you almost want to shock the spine, so there's a move You need to get a lethal shot so he's not just sitting there paralyzed. What's that like as a hell and guy? When the cat's on the ground, Like, have you seen them like expire and not move whereas like are typically is there going to be a little bit of a skirmage afterward? Like what's the risk both bear and cougar for when these things get wounded? Are they

just more tenacious the dogs? You can get on and there's gonna be a fight? Like what are all your concerns at that point for dog safety?

something gets hurt. So that's why I made it, because you had a shot, you know, but I just didn't feel good about it. So I was split second decision and decided not to shoot there. Okay, Well, then when it got on the rock, you know it was, I was pretty confident there wasn't no dogs around it. I don't have a lot of experience with cats on the ground because they don't bay, especially in this country where we're hunting like that very often. I mean, it's rare.

So so I did have a lion tagg in my pocket, and I know that, and I appreciate it, you know, You're like, hey, you know you want to shoot it because I don't want to hurt a dog, and I do. I really do appreciate that. But my good buddy Dirk has told me how well you do under pressure, and you definitely proved it yesterday.

they would have, you know. And so I think it just the timing worked out perfect. I seen you had to rest and the dogs weren't right in his face yet, and I was like, he's gonna shoot, and if he hits it right, it'll roll off the back of that rock. And I think the dogs will be smart enough if we would have waited and the dogs were more face to face, you know, and you made a bad shot.

And I've seen this and heard about it. You know, where a cat, you know, if you would have made a bad shot and there was a dog right there, it's going to grab a dog and go off the place with the dog.

elk is different, archery deer is different. You're like this scene is trapped in a tree. To me, it's just a weapon to dispatch the animal at that point, and so I wasn't that hung up. I did bring my bow. I like, you know, it's cool, but it's like man, in the end, it's just a way to dispatch the animal that's stuck in a tree. Yep, you know. And that's what I looked at it. It wasn't didn't need to be a bow kill.

But you know, I've killed lots of bear, a few lions.

And once once you shoot, and the problem with the cat in the tree most of the time, once you get one shot and it goes airborne of the time, and you're lucky, even with an open sites, you're lucky to get another shot most of the time. So you have one shot, and then I'm not willing to turn my dogs.

I do without them. So like, the last thing I want to do is put them.

never own another dog like her. I mean, she once in a lifetime dog and it I couldn't replace her. There's no, there's no I've been offered a lot of money for you know how much money I've put in, and she's not for sale because I will never ever, probably more likely own another dog like that. And and that's I can say that because I've done this so long and I've owned a lot of good ones, but a dog like that would be beat or hard to beat. So I just any of them, even my worst dog

down there, I don't want to put in harms. They're really special to us.

bad up. And it was a cool hunt, like like you say, And there were times, you know, if we had like a reader board over our head with like percentages of killing this thing, we started a one hundred percent and then when that thing jumped out of the tree, I want to say we were down in single digits, maybe because one now we're racing the clock to get to a new tree before dark. You know, all of these things working against us. And we you know, as he came up and bade up, right, we're back up.

But then the risk of hurting a dog goes up. You know, I had no doubt it would die, but is it going to die fast enough before it gets ahold of the dog or multiple dogs? And no, it all worked out good. It was you know, I can't think you enough for for you know, helping me out alongside me, and it was awesome. And yeah, like I say that, you know, we've got to help with you a couple of times, you know, bear and cougar. Dirk's got to hunt with your cougar Bear and now cougar again.

And you know this was a buddy hunt. But you know you do outfit for these as well. And uh, you know I can thank me and Dirk both put our stamp of approval on you know, you and Amy, you know, work your tails off run a great operation. Yeah, I think you know, I appreciate it, you know, even as far as you know, like you tell a lot about by people's kids, Like your kids are awesome, Like you guys do an awesome job. It's a family, you know, it's family run. You know, coops out there. You know.

It's just it's cool. I really like the experience. And like I said, I think you do it right. And one thing that you can never explain through these and you try to get across, it's just like how hard you're gonna work for your clients. You know. It's like you you know, and I can tell this this hunt we're kind of waiting for the right weather, and you could just tell like how nervous you were to to have us come early or to like be here when

we don't have the right weather. And you know, like and you know, talking to Tyrol yesterday is like man if Bradley had like you know, paying clients right now, he would be in a nervous wreck, like trying to make all this work. But ye know, we appreciate everything you guys do. Like I said, it's it's it's awesome,

you know, glad to have this friendship. And yeah, if you ever have any you know, I think as a houndsman, you know, sometimes they get a bad rap, but you know, Bradley's doing it right, and I can't thank you enough for all You're welcome.