Before we leave in the morning I tell Tom and Jerry no matter the outcome of the day I have had a great trip.Finding Odie yesterday was worth more to me than any lion could be.All we need now is a little more luck and who knows?
We leave the ranch early that morning just as we have done in the nine previous days.The day unfolds pretty much like all the others too. We make a big loop checking some creek beds, dry washes and ridge tops to see if a lion has been through them lately.Ocasionally the dogs will hit a cold track and bawl on it for awile but there is never enough scent for them to follow far.The young dogs can't resist chasing after a fresh deer track after they have jumped it including Rooster's three dogs that have joined the pack today. They usually don't chase them far and we continue on our way without them. They always return a short time later, tongues hanging out.
By late evening we are in Stratton Canyon making our way back to the ranch house.The last two times we have come back this way it has been past dark so I'm glad we still have a little light left so we can see to duck the overhead branches in the trail.The dogs are scattered about some still hunting for sign others following the horses. When a dog suddenly bawls ahead I don't think much about it.The dogs following the horses are gone in a flash and pretty soon the whole pack is barking on a fresh track. We aren't far from where the dogs treed a family of coatimundis the first day so I'm thinking that is what they are chasing. Jerry rides ahead and in a short time I can here the short chops of the dogs signaling they have something treed.I'm sure of it now, coatimundi.I here Jerry yelling I think at first for the dogs but as we get nearer Jerry is running towards us yelling hurry up the dogs have a lion cornered in a mesquite bush. He then turns and runs back. Tom and I are off our mounts I grab my bow and quiver and we are running up the creek bed towards the commotion. The dogs are in a barking frenzy with a few yips thrown in. I'm ahead of Tom and as we reach the scene I can see Jerry standing on top of a rock on the side of the creek bank.He is yelling for me to get up there.I claw my way up the bank to him and peer over the rock. The lion is sitting on a rock ledge twenty feet away with Rooster's bluehealer, Joker and Jerry's catahoula, Junior barking in his face. I grab an arrow from my quiver before handing it over to Jerry. I can't shoot from here for fear of hitting one of the dogs so I step closer. It isn't like when yo have a cat up a tree and there is time to tie the dogs up. Things are happening fast. We are all yelling for the dogs to get back and I am waiting for an opening. The lion turns just enough and I draw and release all in one motion. I am less than fifteen feet away and at a steep angle. The arrow enters high in the left shoulder but looks good to me. The lion seems uneffected by the shot so I grab another arrow from Jerry. The lion has turned and I can't get another shot from this position so I quickly move around to the other side of the boulder to where his right shoulder is open. I drive another arrow down high behind that shoulder. The lion pitches off the rock into the pack of hounds below. I'm sure he is done. We scramble off the rock Jerry in the lead followed by me and Tom bringing up the rear carring my quiver.Once again I was wrong as the lion wasn't finished quite yet. I no sooner hit the bottom of the creek bed and looked up and he was headed straight at me with the pack of hounds and Jerry in tow. All I could do was swing my bow at him for protection and he passed by me a few feet away. I grabbed my quiver from Tom and joined the chase that had ended in the middle of the creek fifty feet away in a shower of water, dogs and lion. In the time it takes me to cover the distance Jerry already has his foot on the lions neck the lion has Jerry's dog Blondie by the head in a death grip and a dew claw through her ear. I pulled an arrow from my quiver and drove it with my hand through the lions chest in an attempt end it's life quickly and try to save Blondie's. It is over in an instant and the lion moves no more. We have to use a stick to pry the dead cats mouth open and release the hound who is howling the entire time and then thread the lion's claw back out of her ear. She will survive to chase other lions. I'm not sure I will ever again. I think one lion is enough for me.
The whole incedent is over in a matter of minutes from chase to finish. It is too late for pictures so we bring the lion back to the ranch whole. We prop him up on the back of Rooster's flatbed for a pose in the morning and he is frozen to the truck bed in that postion when we get up. We need to pour warm water on the truck bed to unstick him. We take our pictures and Tom and Jerry bring him in the ranch house skin and butcher him while I'm packing to catch my plane.
By that night I am back in Michigan and still amazed by what happened.
Outfitter Tom Klumker
Topic: Back From Arizona (Read 4633 times)
