Sean Shea - Feature Article

   One day in early 1999, my hunting partner Shawn Sliter and I decided to see if we should go out and start one last cat race before the end of the season.  We had been driving for a few miles when we came across what we were looking for.  It wasn’t a monster cat but we decided to see if we could get it up a tree for pictures.  That’s the whole fun about cat hunting, just to see if your hounds can figure it out and tree it.  "Catch and release" hunting at its finest.

   I had decided to walk the track with the two dogs until I felt the cat had "lined out" and then release them to work their magic noses.  After walking several hundred yards, I decided to let them try and figure this cat out.  My lead dog was out with an injury so I figured that this would be a good time to get a few of these other hounds some experience leading the way.  The two hounds opened up and were off down the track.  Shawn and I just walked the tracks and stayed behind the dogs to make sure that they didn’t lose the scent in the dry areas.

   We walked for about a mile and found my old dog stuck in an area with large cliffs.  I figured the old dog had lost the scent in the cliff face because she wasn’t barking.   My young dog had taken a track down the hill and back around the mountain and was out of hearing range.  I wasn’t too sure what the young dog was running so I decided I could find him later.

   As I leashed the old dog, Shawn decided to head down looking in the direction that the young dog had taken a track, and I decided to head up to the top of the cliffs to take a look around.  After forty-five minutes I made it to the top of the face cliff and decided to sit down, eat, and enjoy the beautiful spring day.  I thought I could hear the young dog in the distance but I decided to just sit back and let him do his thing.

   After sitting up on the edge of the cliff for about 20 minutes, I let my old dog off the leash to walk around.  I watched her sniff for about fifteen minutes and then she went off the side of the rocks.  I was overlooking this beautiful sage bowl that had pinion pines and western red cedars on the other side, when all of a sudden I heard my old dog open up.  She was directly below me about 45 yards away. I looked over the edge to see what she was on, and to my surprise, she was chasing a lion across the sage bowl.  I looked closer and could see that she was chasing not one but TWO lions across the bowl.  All I could do was watch as they ran to the other side in the pinions and cedars and treed.  I could tell that the tom treed in a pinion and the female ran about sixty yards further and treed in a large cedar.  My old dog was running back and forth between the two trees and keeping the lions up.

   I thought that this double could quickly turn into trouble so I bailed off the cliff and ran toward the treeing dog.  As I got to the treed tom, the dog went to the other tree, and worked on the other cat.  I looked up at the tom and realized that he was a big cat, much bigger than the one we originally released on.  I took video and pictures of the tom, forgetting about the second cat. Suddenly, the hounds voice brought me back to reality; I had two lions and only one lion dog!  I called the hound and had her yelling at the tom, while I walked down and looked at the female in the cedar.  She was absolutely beautiful against the red in the cedar tree.  As I took pictures of the female I could hear my young dog coming my way.  I figured Shawn was following him up the draw and would definitely want to take this tom.

   When the last picture clicked, my old dog went silent.  I instantly dropped my camera and ran to the tree with the tom in it.  Just as I came over the little rise I could hear that the fight was on!  The tom must of had enough of this hound yelling at him and was coming down to let her know.  When I finally saw the lion, the old dog had him by the side of the head, and the lion had his front claws wrapped around her.  The lion couldn’t reach his hind legs up to her, or he would of ripped her completely apart.  The cat kept trying to turn to bite her but couldn’t because the dog wouldn’t let go of his head.  That dog knew if she let go that she would be done for.  The whole time I am hitting this cat on the top of the head with my 44 mag.  I finally was able to stick the gun barrel up to the cats side and shoot.  The cat finally released the dog and started to run, but the dog wouldn’t let go of the cats head.  The old hound was getting drug down the hill holding onto the face of this cat.  The cat and dog went over the rise toward the other cat tree and I was in hot pursuit.  While running after them I could hear my young dog get into the fight.  I finally caught up to them in a large willow patch and was hesitant to go in after the cat.  All I could hear was dogs screaming and willows thrashing.  I finally saw Shawn run up on the other side of the willows.

   I yelled "Shawn! I'm going to try to push them towards you. Take any shot you can! Watch out for the dogs!"

   As I made my way in with the .44 drawn, I heard the final shot.  Then I saw the old hound dragging the dead lion out of the willows, by its head.  This whole time that old hound never let go of that lions face.

   When everything calmed down and we both caught our breath I told Shawn the whole story.  I then got a weird feeling and looked up; the female was still sitting on a limb about thirty feet above me.  This whole time she was watching the melee.  I took a couple of pictures and we moved the tom away. The female came down and went on her way. I hopeto run her again someday.

      * Shawn's cougar scored 14 3/16 Boone & Crockett points after dying for 60 days.