Ep. 79: Mountain Lion Hunting with Hound Dogs
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So we're going to kind of skip the traditional question and answer that we take from our listeners and just kind of jump in the conversation here with Bradley. But if you have questions for myself and my guests or Dirk and his guests, feel free to email them to us at ctb.com.

at phelpsgamecalls.com and we'll do our best to get them on on the podcast so we're just going to kind of jump right in to hound hunting you know 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 uh one of the things that we were brought up earlier this morning as we were talking is uh you

you know, the perception that hound hunting isn't tough. And I think from the outside until you get to go with a hound hunter, it may, you may think of that as like, Oh, well the dogs did the work, um, this or that. And you basically walk up and shoot them, but it couldn't be further from the truth. And, uh,

Me and Dirk were kind of joking that hunting from a clear cut and sitting 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, almost your own commitment to being a hound hunter? Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on your podcast.

um yeah so the there i definitely get a lot of comments like hound hunting's easy and um you know why don't you hunt the hard way and i just shake my head because uh yeah you know first of all you got to get a commitment that you want to be a houndsman and then you got to find find a good line of dogs that you want whether it's plots walkers or and then

just find some good dogs and then you get a pup you know and then um 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 uh train it with you know so there's that journey which could be a really long journey you know and um a lot of time a lot of money um 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, but just kept at it, never gave up, you know, and, and just kept pushing. But yeah, so you got that part of it. Well, then, and then the hunting part of it, you know, you know, we still get extremely early, as you know, now, yeah, we get up early, we get out there. I mean, you got to have all the equipment.

um tons of equipment you know get get out there early get everything unloaded um 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 it might you might go two or three days before you find what you're looking for and then uh

you find what you're looking for and then it's like okay my dog's even gonna catch it you know yeah as you've seen yesterday that wasn't yeah it was it was not easy at all um and uh you know multiple attempts and and some stuff where like oh this is not going to go in our favor where you thought it was going to go in your favor and just the unknowns right yeah and they got into rocks yesterday and i i kind of thought he was going to get away there for a little bit and

um you know and just hiking in there i know we're all a little bit sore this morning oh yeah it was so that's easy yeah yeah no and and uh we'll get back to the easy like i want to touch on the physical side but you you'd mentioned something there about equipment um

You don't just get to have a snowmobile. You don't just get to have a four-wheeler. You don't just get to have a pickup truck, the trailer, the collars. I mean, you've got your investment into all this equipment to make these hunts happen, whether you got to go high, whether 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 um it 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 um

I would agree. It's a little easier, right? By hunting, by hounds. 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's times the weather didn't cooperate, you know? And 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 snowmobile tracks, you know, and it's, there's all of this. And so, I mean, you just got a ton of equipment into this. Yeah. Ton of equipment. I mean, yeah. Like the other day, I,

You know, it's been a rough winter. So I had enough snow where I started, ended up running out of snow. And they were brand new skis, you know, that were close to 300 bucks that I paid for them. And I toasted them that very next day after I put them together.

and a lot of that was, I knew better, but it happens, you know? And yeah, the gear, like I have a couple different four wheelers ready to hunt with the hounds, like bear hunting, 'cause I know how breakdowns are, you know? When you're hunting every day and you're kind of in that routine, you know, you gotta have a backup plan. So you gotta have, I have extra collars, 'cause collars always go bad. They're 300 bucks a piece. 350 actually now for the ones I like. And I've got 20 of them, you know?

And, yeah, pickups, the wear and tear on pickups, I mean, I don't think I could sell you any of my pickups, right? You wouldn't want a buddy to buy them. No, I wouldn't want to sell them to a friend, you know. So they're really, it's just, it's hard on everything. It costs a lot of money. And, yeah, it's just, it's...

It's a big commitment to be a houndsman, you know, and there's no doubt about that. And you don't really get that money back, you know, it's just, you got to love it. And it's like a boat, they say, you know, you just keep dumping money. And so touch back on the physical side.

We, you know, we went in. We weren't very far from the road, but you couldn't pick a much steeper canyon, you know, for this cat to be in. You know, you let off in one place. It was one of the longer cougar chases that you said you've been a part of at times, and you didn't know if they were going to, you know, tree. And then when you 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 so now we're side-hilling. Snow is involved. You know, usually your hunters are in more snow. So you're dealing with steep slopes, lots of snow, and you're not the easiest to get around in 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 going to get a cakewalk to an animal or that they don't treat two miles that way. And it takes you two hours to get to the tree. Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yesterday, you know, it ended up jumping.

twice on us so it jumped the first time which then we had to walk quite a ways and then it treed and then we were fooling around there looking it over and then it jumped again well then it went to you know baying the dog so then yeah we had to cover more ground and yeah there was nothing easy about it um i remember i had a client last year that hunted with me and um

Anyways, he was older and kind of out of shape, and we treated this lion in some deep snow, you know. And it was probably only 600, 700 yards from the road, which doesn't sound far, but anybody that's familiar with GPSs that's in Idaho. In eternity. 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. And the snow was over my – past my knees, you know. So I just –

Made a pass with my snowshoes like two or three times to make them a walkway and just got them, you know, a little bit at a time and stuff. And I mean, I'll tell you what I was with that day harder than any elk hunt I'd ever been on, you know.

It's not guaranteed, not easy. The other thing where I feel, you know, I grew up as a deer and elk hunter. We had about a month season maybe. And when I think of easy, you know, a lot of people think of how much work did I put in that day? But then I look at like, what are you doing for the whole year? Like you're out there, you know, I know you've been to some trade shows and you do deer and elk hunting. But I mean, you're out in the field constantly.

250 300 days a year oh yeah it's safe to say that yeah and so i mean like i said i'm going back to the houndsman and i think the houndsman typically get more you know more guff than i do as the hunter even or you know maybe maybe not but um yeah i want to i want to kind of put the rest the idea that like hound hunting is easy in some form it's it's not um i i will i would agree that

hound hunting probably has a higher success rate. If you're going to be a, I mean, obviously bears, cats, whatever, you're going to, you're going to have a better chance of success, but doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to get there. Right. And then I, I would say on the success part, you know, it all depends on the pack of dogs, you know? I mean, I've seen guys, you know, that are just getting into it or, or maybe, uh,

good hunters good hound hunters that had really good dogs at one time and then kind of lost their line or or you know our wolves wiped them out you know and then they're back to square one and and so their hound hunting trips aren't so yeah productive and productive yeah yeah and but yeah i would say yeah it's easier and it's easy to i can see why people think that it's easy and especially with social media nowadays you know you see these little clips and guys

They're basically just showing a minute long. Turning dogs loose, tree, shoot it.

Knock it out. That's it. And that does look pretty easy, but there's a lot of stuff that ain't shown. It's not easy. I can promise you that. So I'm going to keep throwing you some hard ones, Bradley. One thing the antis like to use or one thing they always say is that hunting behind hounds isn't fair. I want to hear your opinion and I'm going to follow it up with a twist there.

Yeah. So, yeah, fair chase, you know, they do use that it's not fair chase. And, I mean, you just heard us talk about how much time and equipment and stuff that goes into hound hunting. So, again, I'll bring back the lion hunt yesterday. That thing almost got away. Yeah, it was. I mean, there was actually a better chance of it getting away yesterday than us getting it. We happened to get it yesterday. Yeah.

Um, bear, especially, I know Dirk's been with me on, on times that, you know, the bear got away. Well, you have to. Yeah. That beta bear, we just couldn't do anything with it. And, um, so when I think of fair chase, I think about all the bears and lions that got away from tons. Yeah. You know? So, I mean, in my mind, that's fair chase because they do have a chance to get away. Yeah. Um, and so I'm going to, when I think of fair, I come back to the management and, um,

I'm going to not use the word fair, but I'm going to look at like you in particular, um, the way that you manage hound hunting, you're not, it's, it's the most fair way. You're not just shooting, you know, a female lion across the Canyon. You're, you're pursuing the biggest, most dominant males. You're doing it in a way that's more sustainable. You're in. And when I say fair, like I still see us as hunters, whether it's a hound hunter, whether it's a spot and stock hunter, um, like,

Like we are a management tool and the fairness, like in order to go into this North American model of 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 lion 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 use dogs,

Go look at a cat in a tree and be like, you know what, too young. We're going to let him out of the tree. Or that's a target animal or that's a female. We're going to let her go so she can stay and breed 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 behind hounds and like, those people want to wipe every animal off the face of the earth. It couldn't be further from the truth, especially hunting with you. Maybe, maybe some houndsmen and we're going to get into, you know, bad, bad reps or, you know, kind of get a bad rap as a houndsman at times. And then some of these, these things that have affected it. But I would say the majority, and you know, more houndsmen 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. And so it's like, 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 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, hound hunting is the best way to do it. Yes, I agree 100%. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, I mean, I...

That's what I should have been talking about is how much stuff I've let go in my life. Way more than I've killed. I might catch, say, 80 bear in a spring and fall or whatever and maybe shoot four or five of them. I'm not kidding either. I've done that several times. Like you said, you can look them over good and, okay, that one's a female or that one's young or I don't know. His...

his height 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 um hunter group obviously i'm for everything but um you know where you you spot and stalk you know you might see one 300 yards and not and get up to it and be like oh man didn't size it up right that's only 80 pounds you know 80 pound bear i thought it was bigger um are the same with you know mountain lions or

Or, you know, you might spot and stalk one of them and shoot and be like, oh, shoot, that was a female, you know. Yeah, without knowing. Right, not knowing. Where hounds, you know every time what you're shooting. Yeah, or at least have the opportunity. I think just the opportunity for, let's say, you're not buying hounds and you're just out there trying to find a kid. The opportunities are slim. A lot of times people get in a rush. They're just going to shoot the one they see because it's legal. And there's no, like, set time.

you know, target animal. Call it trophy hunting, call it whatever you want. I don't care what people call it to this point. Like, in our opinion, it's the best way to manage that species as an overall is behind hounds. Yeah, I mean, you take hounds out of any state and watch the predators. Yeah. I mean, it's...

It's a wonderful tool. Yeah. I'm in Washington where, you know, any houndsman that's left is, is a rebel at this point. You know, some of them stayed on, but, and it might just be more time I spent in the woods, but I've seen more cats on the, on their feet, like daylight. Um,

in the last 10 years than I did for the 20 years before then. Our cap populations are bad, which I'm not going to sit here and get into. Unreaded populations, and there's these ebbs and flows, and we're just not in a 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 dang near starving because now there aren't enough and it's like well i don't want to see the cat suffer either so let's just you know balance them keep the let's keep them all as high as we can get them and have the best population is you know basically the highest density the landscape can hold is what we should shoot for and then balance everything to that um

But yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. And, and I, I hate when people say it's not fair and I'm like, show me a fair way to manage cat populations. There isn't one behind hounds. I don't believe, um, you know, bears may be bait, you know, bait could be argued potentially yes or no. Um,

you know, we got the bear hunt last year and sometimes it's sometimes tough to get your big bears up a tree and maybe, you know, but if you have, you said you've treated big bears as well as little ones. - Yeah. - And you know, maybe bait is just as equal or maybe better or worse in certain spots, but you know, aside from that, like just, you know, glossing them and stuff sometimes unless you're in the right terrain just isn't the best way to manage those either. - No, no, it's not.

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I'm curious, I'm going to kind of preface this with, I think there's bad apples in every group, but can you kind of elaborate a little bit? We've talked about this, like, you know, you talked about an area where some hound hunters, you know, just refused to fill out some paperwork and got it shut down for all you guys. And some of this stuff, like the perception of hound hunters is,

Can you clarify that or elaborate a little bit on that? Yeah, I mean, like you said, a few bad apples can make the whole tree look bad because I've seen it so many times. And I would just encourage anybody that's listening and thinking about getting in hounds or anything, you know, just remember, you know, we don't have the greatest name, unfortunately, from those bad apples.

So, I mean, you know, I know hound hunters have broke a lot of gate locks off the gates. I mean, that's no good. To go get their dogs. To go get their dogs and...

you know, and I get it in Wolfie country and they're nervous, you know, some of them, you know, might've 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 keep it clean. But I've seen it. I think the biggest thing 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 bad apples. Lumping you into the hole. Right. 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, or beating them with a stick real hard. And, um,

Nowadays we've got shock collars. - Yeah, technology's helped you guys out in the training. But I was telling you the story earlier, a guy that I knew, and it was specifically cat dogs, right? So what you sometimes run is bear, coyotes, everything else is trash. They only want them to run cats. And I can remember dogs getting back to the truck and getting on the wrong whack, 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 duty to take it out. And you're like, holy smokes, man.

I trust that 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 and the way that they treat their animals. And like you said, you're, you know, you, if it doesn't hunt, then it'll make somebody else pet, you know? And, uh, 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. Yeah. I've gave a handful of them away that,

I knew they were going to get homes and shoot. They live really good. The next thing they know they're living in the house and just one of the, they make a great pet really. I mean a great house dog, a hound, kind of like a black lab or something, you know, they're real calm dogs for the most part, 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 to. So,

That's bad. Again, that's only a few people that we're talking about. A few hound guys. I'm going to take this bad route.

And hopefully you want to talk about this and not just tell me to go fly. Some of your dogs do get injured in the process of hound hunting, right? And you found veterinarians that label hound hunters as bad people, that you're putting your dogs at risk. And you guys struggle sometimes to find anybody that will repair your dogs. And you treat these things like your family. So it'd be like some doctor telling you, I'm not going to fix your kid up. But you guys struggle even finding vets that want to work on hunting dogs or work dogs.

Yeah. And that seems to be getting hard. That seems to be getting really hard. Um, if you have a great vet and you're a hound guy and you're listening, you're lucky. I mean, yeah, unfortunately I, I've got some, I've, you know, taking dogs in for bear bites and stuff. And again, these dogs are doing what they they're hurt and want to keep hunting. They love it. I mean, you've seen them, they hate to be left home, but yeah, every once in a while, you know, they'll get caught by a bear and need stitches or whatever. And, um,

I've got some strange looks at bets and had them, you know, pretty much tell me they weren't. Well, actually, I'll just back up. So I had this three-legged dog, not Gatlin.

Actually, she had four legs, but her back leg 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 the metal 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 a 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 vets 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 refuse to do it. And I was like, you're kidding me. And, um,

So, yeah, I haven't used 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, uh,

Anyways, so yeah, a good bet. If you got one, keep it. Yeah, it's crazy that they would discriminate against like hunting dog or what its purpose was versus a non-hunting dog. But anyways, we're going to jump into like,

in your opinion, like the impact of hound hunting on like wildlife populations. We can all agree that, you know, killing predators has an impact on the, but then those predators would also kill, you know, the ungulates. And so how does this all kind of balance out? Like in your opinion, is how, you know, how does hound hunting insert itself as a management tool, you know, for the health of all species? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I couldn't imagine what our deer and elk population would be without hounds. I mean, I just, here in Idaho, because I've hunted these cats for years now. Let me say this, though, about cats. I will say this about cats that I can't say about wolves. I've found a lot of kills, you know, deer and elk, but mainly deer. I do find more deer than I do elk. But, yeah.

I've literally seen them, most of the time they eat 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 has 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 his adult life, he's probably killed every seven to 14 days.

Because I've tracked them around and seen where they killed and then tracked them and where they've killed another one, you know. And I've actually hunted them, you know, where they were. I didn't catch them for several days back to the easy hunt, you know. So easy. Right. Four days trying to find them. Several days to catch them. And literally known, he's been traveling for four days. I know he hasn't ate. He's looking for something to kill. But so you add that up and that's just one lion, right?

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 the hound,

hound hunting out of that holy smokes yeah because there's nothing i mean we talked yesterday you know aside from wolves and a cat a big tom's gonna run up a tree um still let's take like big cougars don't have any natural predators for the most part right they live on a landscape as an apex um and you know these things like you said seven to fourteen days so you know everybody always says one a week but let's say seven to fourteen you know they're killing at least

40 to 60 you know deer elk or kills um throughout the year and it's like that's a lot in the you know same with bears you know hunting bears you know those things are eating a ton of fawns in the in the um you know spring and when they start to drop or you know early summer at that time and it's like you know yeah they will you know take berries 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 keeping your ungulate population hopefully as healthy as you can. Right. Yeah, I mean, I've seen where bears, you know, especially really work the fawns over. And coyotes, you know, I don't hunt coyotes much, but that's another thing. There's a lot, I feel like coyotes, you know,

I'm glad you guys are making predator calls because, you know, I mean, maybe get after they, uh, I've seen it, you know, lion hunt in the wintertime where these coyotes are taken down deer, like three or four of them. I've seen it, you know, 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, um, so that's another thing. Um, predators need managed bad. Yeah. 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 that's why, you know, I don't want to say I'm necessarily for 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 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 to feed. Yeah. They probably kill more. Well, I know they kill more than a tom does.

So let's roll into, and I'm going to quote Dirk's scientific fact, and I don't know the study. He was mentioning that there was a study where, you know, a cougar, you're seven to 14 days, but then they found that this cougar was killing more and more, you know, three to five times a week, right, in a study. And then you look back, and all of a sudden, that cat was killed out of necessity because it kept getting its kills stolen from the wolves. Mm-hmm.

You know, until you add this in where it's like, all right, now you add 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. You know, because these wolves now moved in and this created this killing spree, basically. Yeah, because, I mean, lions are killers. You know, I feel like they're more successful than...

You think of your house cat out here killing these mice and everything. I mean, lions are successful hunters and more successful, I think, than the wolves. But I think a kill, a lion kill, one lion can eat on a kill longer. Yeah. So if you've got a pack of wolves and I know this is this has happened, you know, where where they're following the lion around, you know, that's creating a lion, you know, running the lion off the kill. It's creating a lion to kill more. And that's not good. Yeah.

And yeah, it's just an unbalanced deal, really. And you mentioned a little bit, it might even be changing the characteristics of these cats a little bit where they're having to be a little bit tougher and realizing like, all right, maybe I can fight off these wolves a little, you know? So 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 like, you know what, you know,

warded off some wolves long enough, like maybe I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, start to not be so scared of your dog. Is it a point, which isn't good for a houndsman at all? No. And I mean, that's just their survival. You know, they, they've been around for a long timeline. So they, they know how to survive. And, and I'm pretty sure, you know, this, this is my theory, you know, but this would have been in like, I want to say 2005 or something. The wolves are bad here. They're managed now and it's better here in Idaho. But, um,

but, um, a lot of wolves and we were hunting and I had a couple, I had a buddy with me with a, a nice hound that he had plot dog. And I had 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, um, um, anyways, I heard this, I'm telling the story pretty quick, but I heard this God awful squeal down there that I thought that was the dog, but I wasn't sure. And

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 beepers 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 a 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 that's hound hunted for a long time, it's rare. I mean, yesterday was rare with your lion, you know, it, it bathed 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 30 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. - And wasn't scared of one hound. - And a hound was nothing. - Yeah. - You know, and again, that's just me thinking, but I think there's probably a lot of truth to that. - Yeah, yeah, I think so.

um yeah and let's get into the you know you guys you know call them family i don't want to equate them to your kids but you know for a lot of you guys they're they're part of your family um dog safety and we're gonna roll we'll kind of we'll we'll tell uh 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, we get to the tree and 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 vitals. Well, what you do to protect your dog, because these animals, whether it's a bear or whether it's a cougar, they've got fear of the dogs.

until they're wounded or until they can't run anymore, 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 not going to 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 hemming and hawing around and...

You go... and one thing that you do... I'm all hounds, but not just you... 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 vital. It's for the dog safety, you care about these things.

Um, so the tree, we start to see him get antsy and starts to, to get himself down the tree. We're all out of position. Dogs are, um, so I remember it was a mad dash. You guys were trying to keep it up the tree by knocking on it. And, and the cat just didn't care. Jumped out over our buddy, your buddy, Tim's. I just met him yesterday. Tim said, and he's off again. Well, then it's a mad scramble. Get the dogs loose so we can hopefully retreat because now we're working against time. Um,

One thing I love about technology is you had ran off in the direction that the cat and 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 and we all kind of get back to you. Everybody sit down. They're coming back. You can see on. And we sat down and you said it's not very rare. I just assumed that.

well, this always happened this way. Like you can see this cat start slithering down the creek and then it turns right in front of us at what? 40 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 in his dog's dogs close to him. Just like he was going to slowly get away. Dogs came around the corner. Maybe 20,

20 seconds behind kind of get there catching up to him getting the track heated up and you had mentioned the dogs were a little tired you know had some time off with all your trade shows and they finally they're milling around and 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 um

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 scooted real quick, but you, we got the coolest bark.

silhouette ever this cat walks out onto this rock which looked very flat from from our side right um and then you see it turn around and the first thing that goes through my head is all these desert hunts or rocky mount you know rocky southern desert hunts where you know they pay up because they 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 oh no he's gonna pay up and

you you were I don't blame this on you you're just letting me know the situation like oh no this isn't good for the dog or you mentioned something like I'm gonna get a dog killed here or something like uh so you you kind of take off me and you bump way forward and I think dirt

chased and then um 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 um a little different situation than 99 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 going to sit and fight on the ground and swipe and hiss and

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 going to 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 trained 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 all the dogs because we're very steep, rocky pinnacle country. We're trying that me and you were talking like where to hit them. You know, you almost want to shock the spine. So the thing doesn't move. I need to get a lethal shot. So he's not just sitting there paralyzed. What's that like as a howling guy, when the cat's on the ground, like,

Have you seen them, like, expire and not move? Or is, like... Or typically, is there going to be a little bit of a skirmish afterward? Like, what's the risk, both bear and cougar, for when these things get wounded? Mm-hmm. Are they just more tenacious? The dogs are going to get on, and there's going to be a fight? Like, what are all your concerns at that point for dog safety? Well, yeah, there was a lot going through my mind yesterday, you know? I mean, when you were talking to back up a little bit when it was coming through the tree, you know, we talked about maybe shooting then. But...

You're better off to have a, a bay up job without a wounded cat. I mean, no doubt. And when, when a gunshot goes off, the brains leave from the dogs. They just assume it's dead, you know? And so the cat's drillings going, the dog's drillings going, and that's when something gets hurt. So that's what I made. Cause you had a shot, you know, but I, I just didn't feel good about it. So I split the second decision and decided not to shoot there. Okay. Well, then when it got on the rock, you know,

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 tag 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. So but so I just say like on bear, you know, the ones I've killed on the ground myself personally, I had shoot them.

You know, and I thought about having you head shoot. Now, I know you could have got it the way I watched you shoot yesterday. You're a good shot. But I just figured behind the front shoulder and I knew in my head it was going to roll off the rock. Yeah. And I knew there wasn't a dog there. My biggest fear is the dogs were going to get closer because they hadn't got up on the rock yet. And they would have, you know, they would have found the way. And so I think just the timing worked out perfect. I seen you had a rest.

And the dogs weren't right in his face yet. And I was like, he's going to shoot. And if he hits it right, it'll roll off the back of that rock. And I think the dogs would 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 cliff with the dog. And that was my big fear. So I just felt good. And typically...

We would have been probably better off, like, even if I would have been by myself, I might have tried to walk up there and just get the dogs with a leash. Just pull them off. You know, then taking the chance to wound it. But, again, I had confidence in you, and you did good. It worked out good. Like, we, you know, caught all lungs. We shocked the spine on the way through. Let's talk a little bit about weapon of choice. There were times I wish I had a gun with a scope, but you guys...

It seems like 30-30 is always the gun of choice or, you know, some lever action. Is that for quick follow-up shots? Is that for... Is that bullet going slow enough where it's going to put all of its energy? Like, explain why you go open sight and that gun in particular. Well, yeah. Open sight's definitely... I have learned in the, you know, several years of guiding now, I actually like scopes too. If I have a client that...

here hunting I want them to have a scope because you know most people are good at shooting scopes but the reason I had you guys bring a 30-30 is just experience you know and most of the time I mean our original plan was you were going to shoot it with the bow yeah you know and I knew that if I if you made a bad shot with the with the bow we're probably now it's going to be on the ground

And now it's going to be getting shots off really quick. And that's where the open sights come in handy because you can see what's going on around you. And I definitely like that on a bait up bear because you go shooting at a bait up bear with a scope. You can't really see where the dogs are.

then it's really dangerous for the dog. You might shoot a dog. And so there's some of the reasons. I like a good, and 30-30, you know, you can't go wrong with a good old 30-30, you know. Well, I'm glad you guys had, you and Tyrell didn't have a whole lot of faith in my archery ability because the gun was down the hill with us this way. And we ultimately needed to use it. So I know a reality, I don't know if this guy can shoot a bow. So just bring the gun in case. But no, it worked out good. Like, and I'm going to touch on this a little bit and some people might frown at me. I look at,

When you treat a cat or a bear...

Archery at that point doesn't matter to me. Archery elk is different. Archery deer is different. This thing 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... 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. And that's what I looked at. It didn't need to be a bow kill. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I...

I'm the exact matter of fact, you know, which I've only killed a couple lions personally myself. And I've, I've said that before, but, um, you know, I've been responsible of a lot of them dying, but I, I'm the same way, Jason. I, I, uh, I've killed, I don't matter of fact, I don't even hunt deer with a bow. You do. I, not that I wouldn't just, we have a good rifle season around here where I hunt and stuff. And I do that, but I, you know, I've killed lots of bear, um, few lions, um,

I love to archery elk hunt. - Yep. - Especially with Phelps game. - There you go, I appreciate it. - So I could have shot lots of Baron Lions with a bow, but I'm kind of like you where it's like, I may as well just use a gun, it's right here. So I kind of agree with you. And I get a lot of clients that bring bows and they ask me, I'm like, you know, I don't want it to be a deal breaker. You can bring your bow and stuff. But I will say that I've tracked plenty wounded with the rifle too though.

But like this year we wounded one and I hated to see that. And once you shoot, and the problem with the cat in the tree, most of the time when you get one shot and it goes airborne, like 90% of the time. And you're lucky, even with an open sight, 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 dog. Yeah. You don't know if they're going to get you're going to back up a tree or if they're going to bay up at that point. So your dogs are out of it. It's just you and the cat at that point. It's just me and the cat because I just feel like that's and there's a lot of people that turn loose on on. I'm not trying to say they're wrong or anything, but I personally turn my dogs loose on a wounded cat because that's just asking for it for a dog to get hurt that bills and I don't want to.

They are like my kids, like you mentioned earlier. I mean, these dogs are part of my family, have been my whole life, and I don't know what I'd do without them. So, like, the last thing I want to do is put them in harm's way. They're in harm's way and nothing. That's really putting them in harm's way. And they're special. These dogs are special. You know, I mean, you've hunted with Mallory and stuff, and I've done this for a really long time, my whole life. You know, I always say 25, 30 years, but really a good –

Since my dad was packing me into trees. I've done this for a really long time. And I know you take a dog like my Mallory dog there. And I know in my mind that I probably will never own another dog like her. I mean, she is a once in a lifetime dog. And I couldn't replace her. I've been offered a lot of money for her. You know how much money I put in that hill center.

And she's not for sale because I will never, ever, probably, more than likely, own another dog like that. 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 hard to beat. So I just...

Any of them. Even my worst dog down there, I don't want to put in harm's way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're really special to us. Yeah. So those wounded want, you know, they're tied up from that point on, and you or your client are on foot. Just like your elk. I'm looking for blood. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, we got to see some cool stuff. Got to see a cat try to slither away through the woods. I don't know if he knew we were there or not, but he acted like he didn't know we were there. Just kind of...

you know snuck through there and you know bait up and um it was a cool hunt like

um 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 um we started at 100 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 um you know all these things working against us and um we you know as he came up and bait up right all right we're back up but then the risk of hurting a dog goes up

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, can't thank you enough for, for, you know, helping me out and hunting alongside me. And it was awesome. And yeah, like I say that, you know, we've got to hunt with you a couple of times, you know, bear and cougar, Dirk's got to hunt with you, cougar, bear, now cougar again. And, you know,

you know, this was a buddy hunt, but you know, you do outfit for these as well. And, uh, and I can, I think 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. Um, yeah, I, I think, you know, you guys did a great job. Um, you know, even as far as, you know, like,

you tell a lot about by people's kids like 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 um 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 is just like how hard

you're going to work for your clients. You know, it's like, you, you know, and I can tell this, this hunt, um, we were 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 didn't have the right weather. And, you know, like in talking to Tyrell yesterday is like, man, if Bradley had like

you know, paying clients right now, he would be a nervous wreck, like trying to make all this work. But no, we appreciate everything you guys do. Like I said, 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 your help.

- You're welcome. Yeah, and it's always a great time hanging out with you guys. I just, I really like your story, you know, where you've been through and how hard you worked, you know, you've told me the story, we won't go into it, but.

how you had a regular job and started your calls on the side and stuff. I just really respect that. An American dream, right? Yeah, yeah. And same thing you guys are doing here. You're expanding, and it's been awesome. Well, can you tell all of our listeners how to find more about you, where they can find you, ways to get a hold of you if they're interested? Yeah, so IdahoWhitetailGuides.com. We have a website.

I'm on Instagram and Facebook, but it seems like I'm on Instagram more. Yeah.

I've done that when I started that about when COVID hit, that Instagram thing and trying to build that up and stuff. So, yeah, I'd appreciate a follow. Yeah, yeah. Go check them out. We appreciate everything. And, yeah, until next time. We're thinking about coming back maybe May or June and chasing some bears around. So I look forward to if we can make that happen. Yeah. We better get her done. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Last time, I think somebody got your bear. I think Dirk shot my bear. No, nobody owns a bear, but no, I still hold that against Dirk. Right. Yeah. No, it's all good. All right. Take care. Yeah. Thanks. I'd like to also let you know, my mountain line film is currently live right now on the Phelps game calls YouTube channel.

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