Got my Cat!!!

[winston2789]

I was fortunate enough to pull a tag this year and went out with Dale's son Brian with Bearpaw outfitters. Got my cat on Sat.  , I'm at work now but story and pics and maybe some video when I get home from work.....

[BlackRidge]

Sweet! Congrats, looking forwards to the pics!

[bucklucky]

Congrats Winston!! Cant wait to see some pics!! What are you going to do with it , mount, rug?

[mulehunter]

    soo cool. Very happy for u. Can't wait see pics.

Mulehunter. 

[HUNT]

Congrats on the cat! 

[PacificNWhunter]

Congrats!

[Machias]

 

[winston2789]

Congrats Winston!! Cant wait to see some pics!! What are you going to do with it , mount, rug?

Going with a mount

[bucklucky]

Lifesize??

[whacker1]

very cool - looking forward to pics

[winston2789]

Lifesize??

Oh yah gotta go lifesize, Just not into the rugs that much. I really like cats slightly walking down a rock or branch.

[724wd]

make DAMN sure your taxi is good with cats!  it doesn't take but a millimeter to ruin a cat mount!

the taxidermy forum on accuratereloading dot com has some fantastic taxi's on it with photos of their work.  do your research!

[BLKBEARKLR]

Winston sounds like you set the bar high from talking with you, hopefully will be able to take one as nice when I get over there with Dale.


Joe

[ser300wsm]

Congrats to you...

[winston2789]

This was a dream come true hunt!!! I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to hunt as I knew of a few females that had been taken by boot hunters and there was a total of 7 females for the quota to be hit. I got a call two nights before the hunt would start by a gamie and he said the season was closed but they were going to extend the season for toms only. This was great news!!! They put the quota at 11 toms. I left Tues. morning to head east and meet up with Brian from Bearpaw Outfitters. What should have taken 6 hours to get there ended up being 10 because of the snow and road conditions. When I finally made it there I met up with Brian at 8:30 pm and he said get some sleep we are leaving at 11 to go look for tracks. I thought he was kidding  . After getting about an hour of sleep we headed out for the first day of the hunt. The conditions were perfect but we didn't come across any cat tracks just lots of deer,moose, and other game. The next day we did come across some tracks but it was later in the day and they were about 12 hours old and it would have been too late in the day to run the dogs. The next day we seen lots and lots of tracks but no lion tracks. The 4th day of my hunt we found some lion tracks early in the morning before light, boy was I excited!!! We waited til the sun came up and let the dogs out. The dogs were striking pretty hard and it didn't take long and they were hot on his trail. It only took 45 minutes for the dogs to tree the cat up this mountain and we started up there. Once we got to the tree we had a good idea it was a tom by the size of his body and head but it took another half hour for him to move enough to where we could tell he had a black spot under his tail and that he was for sure a tom. He had climbed pretty high in this tree and the branches were very thick where he was at.  I took some pictures and video of him and then looked for a lane I could slip an arrow through because I really wanted to stick him with my bow. We all got in position and leashed the dogs to trees and I let it one fly.....WACK!!! I put a great shot on him and he hunched up jumped and tried to climb higher, about 5 seconds later he came a tumbling down. He hit just about every branch on the way down and hit the ground hard. I had my first mountain lion and I was extremely happy  . We were able to pack him out whole and put him on a scale back at the house. We figured he was right around 140 before he lost all the blood. Bearpaw outfitters has a great operation going on. The cabins were very comfortable, I was fed very well!  Brian worked his tail off and it sure paid off  . I wasn't able to meet up with Dale as he was in Idaho looking for lions for some clients too, but I'm sure this won't be the last time I'm hunting with these guys.  I plan on getting a lifesize mount and can't wait to get him back. Work sure was rough today, didn't get much done...just kept replaying the hunt in my head. I will add some photos and raw footage of the hunt but I will let Dale put a video together and I'm sure you will all see it once things slow down for them a little bit. The pics aren't the best quality, I borrowed my brothers camera and I'm not much of a photgrapher!