Well crap folks I didn't intend to drag this out but it's been one of those days... Just got back from a HS ball game, it's an hour past me bedtime so please excuse me if this doesn't make sense at times
First off Jess is a Walker cross, (with redbone I think), she lost her tail in a tiff with a cat a few yaers ago. The little guy I'm packin across the river is Jodie, my buddy Tom's Jack Russell and a real champ.
Jeff, your knife went out yesterday and glad you like em Calvin, looking forward to the call.
OK Day two... After worrying John half to death with my taking off the day before I wasn't sure how he felt about taking me again but he was all for it. Turns out he'd intended to try and end run on the cat but I'd put a kink in that plan but he was tickled I'd gotten as close as I had. John's a great guy and has an unbelievable drive to chase cats. We get along REAL good in that respect. After a few miles behind a good dog I think I've made a friend for life.
Well there was a nearly full moon so thirty minutes before daylight the next morning we were sneeking up to the deer kill and believe it or not as we closed to about 50 yards saw the cat streaking up the hill away from us. This was quickly becoming pretty unbelievable. I'd only seen a couple cats in my life and here in less that 24 hours I'd seen this cat three times.
Well a track doesn't get much hotter than this one so off Jess went again with John and I thinking there was no doubt we be packing this big kitty off the mountain before the morning was out. So goes the best laid plans....
The cat took a hard run right back up the same terrible drainage as the day before and we were both praying it wasn't going to be a replay of the previous day. We'd climbed several hundred feet up the steep ridge above the canyon and couldn't hear anything over the roar of the creek below. The track appeared to keep heading up and we were thinking we should maybe try and head the cat off by crossing the canyon early. Just then I caught a faint baying but couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. We circled north away from the canyon and noise and couldn't believe it but the cat had taken a completley opposite direction from the day before.
Off we went at our best pace, which wasn't much going up a 45º slope
and we weren't even into the steep stuff yet. Every time we'd top a high spot we'd hear Jess's faint baying. John was pretty sure he heard a tree bark and this gave us enough of a rush to push ourselves harder. The mountain before us got steeper and steeper as we got higher and higher till we were practically going on all fours. My poor Widow was being reduced to a walking stick at times just to keep from sliding back down.
It quickly became obvious that Jess wasn't stationary any longer and was circling higher and coming back by well above us. so we abandoned the track we were following and tried to head them off. About the time we got close to the same level Jess turned and started heading away again and back down hill.
We'd been going full bore up the mountain for a couple of hours and certianly weren't excited about loosing any altitude. We decided to cut across parallel with the slope and soon came on dog and cat tracks again. We found where the cat had treed then bailed then a hundred yards or so further where it had turned and fought Jess. We were getting very concerned about Jess's health as there was a few spots of blood and it was becoming very obvious this cat wasn't going to cooperate with our plans.
We could hear Jess cutting back across below us and abandoned the track again bailing off down the side of the mountain intending to try and catch her. As expected we didn't have a chance of pulling off that move and Jess continued back toward the river.
It was time for a break so we decided to try and decipher some of the myraid of tracks all around us. Turns out we were going backward and the lion had backtracked on us somewhere throwing us and Jess off the track. This was turning out to be one very interesting cat and as far as John and I were concerned he'd won this round, it was time to regroup. We headed slowly back down off the mountain and soon ran into Jess coming back up. Much to our relief the blood appeared to be coming from the cat and I remembered some blood in the track the day before. The cat must have cut a pad or something going thru the rocks.
It had warmed up all day and tracking conditions were deteriating fast. With nothing very positive looking for the next few days we decided to hope for snow and cold and take a break for a few days....
Topic: The Lion Hunt (Read 2483 times)
