Sean Shea - Feature Article

   Well it’s the evening of February 13, 2002 and everyone that I called has given one reason or another (Valentines Day) for not being able to go walking with me the next day.  Once they find out what happened I have a feeling that they all kicked themselves.

   It’s the early morning of February 14th, and since no one wanted to go, I decided to just grab my young dogs and go for a little walk and do some stump shooting with my recurve bow.  I figured that since these young dogs have only seen a lion once the adults caught it that I would be ok just taking these youngsters for a walk.  Boy was I mistaken.

   I drove the truck up to the foothills, put the collars on the dogs, grabbed my bow and pack (which always has a pistol in it, except for this time) and off to the first canyon I went.  The ground was dry for this time of year so walking was pretty easy.  I was keeping my eye on the dogs and winging arrows up and down the canyon at the same time.  Everything was going normal until my little female decided that she had found something that smelled good and she wanted to run it.  I walked up to where she had started getting excited but I couldn't tell what she was smelling because it was all rock and I couldn’t find a track.  So I just let her dink around and work what she thought was there.  I started walking and throwing arrows up the canyon again.  A few hundred yards up the canyon I looked back and I could see all the youngsters working the same thing up the rockslide.  I decided to walk in behind them and make sure that they weren’t tracking another four-legged animal that has antlers.

   I followed the dogs up this ridge for about a mile and half and I could never find any sign of what they were tracking.  I followed another half mile before I saw the first track in a little skiff of snow that had been laid down the night before (it was dark when I started walking so I didn’t see the skiff that fell) high on the mountain.  Those young dogs had worked a lion track through some really rocky country. I was very impressed with those young dogs.

   At this time I could see that they had the lion track worked out and had lined it out.  I couldn’t hear any of the dogs so I just kept walking along the ridge following their tracks.  After about another mile I stopped and could hear that little females faint bark every once in awhile, so the walking continued.  I finally came to the end of the ridge and then I could hear all the dogs just ripping it up, they either had it treed low or rocked up by the sound of them.  I slowly worked my way down to them and finally saw the cats tail hanging from the tree.

   While following the dogs tracks I kept looking at the cat tracks and they didn’t jump out to me as a big cat, they looked like a large female or medium tom's track.  The cat’s stride seemed a little bigger than the track showed, but I didn’t think to much more about it, until I finally saw the cat's body and head in the tree.  I did a double take, more like five double takes.  The paw print did not match that cat in the tree.  I couldn’t believe the size of this cat's head and body.

   I started thinking that the guys that I called last night are going to kick themselves for a long time after I tell them what happened.  Then it dawned on me, I didn’t have a gun, and I hadn’t shot anything with my recurve.  I decided that this recurve was going to take its first animal TODAY!

   As I let the dogs work the tree a little longer I took some practice shots at a log near by, then I tied the dogs back.  I walked around the tree until I found the best angle for a clean and quick harvest.  I took a few practice pulls and then I let an arrow fly.  It was a beautiful shot.  As I watched the cat jump out of the tree and run down the hill I caught out of the corner of me eye a red streak hauling after it.  I looked back at the dogs and could see the little female that started the track had broken her lead and was that little red streak I had seen.  I let the other dogs loose to give back up for the little female.  I ran down the hill and come up on the dogs in a little thick patch of brush, and I could see that the lion had not expired as fast as I would of liked.  I grabbed another arrow and was just about to shot when that lion swung around and hooked that little red female by her forearm, she immediately bit the cat in the face and lunged backward ripping the claw out of her forearm.  The cat made one more swipe and collapsed dead on himself.  Even though that little dog was bleeding all over, she insisted to go over and show that cat that she was the boss, or more like the little red psycho.  After everything calmed down I wrapped a tee shirt around her leg to stop the bleeding and I went to work on the lion.

   After skinning and removing all the meat, I headed down the hill with dogs in tow.  All I could think was that this was a great valentines gift to me from the dogs, and I turned around and thanked all of them with a chunk of the valentines lion. The lion scored 15 1/16 Boone and Crockett points, and was awarded the first place belt buckle in the 2002 annual competition, and the seventh largest cougar ever taken in Nevada.