# 3rd Mountain Lion Taken in ND



## nodakoutdoors.com (Feb 27, 2002)

Third Mountain Lion Taken

State Game and Fish Department officials have confirmed that another
mountain lion was taken by a hunter over the New Year's weekend.

The lion, an adult male, was killed in an area of the badlands west of
Grassy Butte in McKenzie County on Dec. 31.

It is the third mountain lion taken in North Dakota since a
season was opened last September. The other two cats were shot in
mid-November. One was a juvenile male, the other an adult female that
had not yet had a litter. All three lions were harvested in the same
general area - the northern badlands within 25 miles of Grassy Butte.

"This mountain lion is interesting because it's probably a resident male
that was holding a territory," said Dorothy Fecske, Game and Fish
Department furbearer biologist.

The state's first open season for mountain lions in modern times runs
through March 12. The Game and Fish Department will close the season
early if the total harvest reaches five before that.

Information gathered, Fecske said, will help Game and Fish better manage
mountain lions in the future. "So far, this season is telling us that,
while we get reports of mountain lion sightings statewide, their
presence is greater in western North Dakota," Fecske said. "It's another
piece of the puzzle to help us understand the population."


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Here's the story....these guys are crazy..... :eyeroll: :eyeroll:

01/04/06 Three Fools and a Big Cat

This hunt will no doubt always be a high light of my life and would never have been possible without many good friends old and new that I have had the opportunity to spend time with this past year. I want to thank Larry Schultz for teaching me the ways of the cat and the badlands where he has lived and hunted all his life. Larry raises bobcat and lynx and has a brother with a pet mountain lion, he knows cats. Pat Indvik for turning me on to three good hounds that got me hooked on the toughest, nastiest sport a guy could ever love. Chuck Thiel and Chad Held, these two guys have chased lots of cats and know hounds and tracking like I never will. Randy Miller and Chad Norpel, who have been on many of our **** and cat hunts that some times were more work than pleasure. The three of us watched a few sunrises after all night chases in the woods, swamps and what seemed like mountains. With the help of all of these guys they have turned my hounds into some decent dogs and also showed me what it takes to be a real cat hound. I would also like to thank my wonderful wife and family for putting up with another one of my wild lifetime desires and apologize for my many hours away from home. This was not a cheap hunt but money won't ever buy me a hunt like this! Thank you to all of you, and the many others I don't have room to mention.

This was my eighth North Dakota mountain lion hunt. A day that started, the day before watching the weather and calling the weather service in hopes that we would have the right conditions to put a hunt together. A few calls later the plan was to meet early and start our search for tracks. Our search started where we had treed a small mountain lion kitten on the last hunt about ten days earlier. The tom had been there and I was reassured by my buddies that the old tom would stay there until he killed the kittens or the female moved from the area. Like always they were right and within an hour we had found his tracks near a ranchers hay stack that we had met on one of our earlier trips. Another example of the wonderful folks I have had the opportunity to meet on my year long adventure. We spent the rest of the dark hours circling the tracks to locate where the cat had moved to. About a half hour after sunrise we walked four dogs from the truck and were swallowed up by the badlands. The tracks where in shallow snow and were not loaded with scent by any means but within an hour the three most experienced dogs were working a heavily wooded slope hard and soon went up and over. It is anybody's guess how the cat did it but he some how manage to get around that butte and back to where he started, leaving the dogs on the far side. Walking over the top we cut the tracks again and he had slid down the south slope, much more gracefully than we did and cut back into the heavy cedar timber. With the help of my old dog Bo, Larry and I followed the tracks up and down some nasty bentinite hills into a couple of small caves and soon found ourselves looking back into the wooded side hill. Right in front of us on the top of the cedar ridge were five fresh mule deer beds and on the other side five mules stood and gazed across the canyon like they had seen a ghost. Leading more dogs to the lion tracks they quickly pulled to the left and opened up on a fresh bobcat track. Pulling hard on the chain it was obvious they wanted the bobcat more than they wanted the lion. Soon, I would understand why! The plan was for me to work my way down through the timber following the lion tracks with my dog Bo. The other guys and three dogs would meet me on the bottom after going for the vehicle. Twenty five yards down the hill I hollered back to come on down, the cat is in a hole. There in front of me was a sink hole six feet across and eight feet deep with fresh cat tracks going in and not coming out. Bo and I circled down below to check for a second escape, but there was none. We had our big tom but he had found the safety of a hole when there were no big trees to climb. A clever move for the cat, but the dangerous part about running cats in the North Dakota badlands. When the old pro Chuck, had found his way down I asked him what can we do now? There is only one way to get that cat, he said and that is to go down in that hole. "I would never do it ", he quickly added, but stupid me with the high speed chase syndrome said, "If I had a flashlight I would do it". That's when Larry pulled off his pack and started digging! He pulled out a little Workhorse, not exactly the self defense Mag-lite I had in mind. With still more desire than brains I slipped into the hole. The track showed the cat going down and into the cave but I quickly studied the bank on the up hill side. With the flashlight in one hand the Smith Wesson 45 semi-auto in the other I shined the downhill side of the cave. No cat, oh ---- , then Chuck hollered from the top, "Behind you"! I whipped my head to the left to see an eighteen inch hole right next to my shoulder. How could I have not seen it going in! Filling that hole was the nastiest looking face I have ever seen in my life. I was rolling back as the cat snarled and I brought the pistol between us, put the sights on his nose and pulled the trigger. The forty five bucked back and the lion pulled back farther into the hole. After dragging the pistol through the dirt and not to blame Smith & Wesson, the second pull of the trigger did nothing. Even being the terrible pistol handler that I am it took me mille-seconds to jack another shell into the barrel and fire two more shots into the hole. Then it was out of the hole like I was twenty-five years younger. The first shot, at least one of the guys thought I was jacking with them, but one look at my face they knew that there was a cat in that hole! "Did you get him?" one of the guys asked. "I don't know how I could miss." I said, but they soon knocked me down a notch when they said "You didn't see that pistol shaking!" We set up camp for at least an hour just to make sure the cat was dead and then decided that the old blue dog should go check it out for us. Old blue was more then willing but in no time flat the dog was bawling, the cat growling and we were screaming at the old blue to get out to there. If the cat would have had the room he would have pulled the hound into his little hole and dispatched her but this was one time a bigger dog paid off. The cat had managed to put a few nasty wounds on the hound but nothing that could not be fixed. We hoisted old blue out of the hole and tied her up with the other hounds. Then once again it was the waiting game until Larry came up with the idea we were going to have to go back in. He would hold the light and a healthy stick while I did the shooting. At least now I had a fifty percent chance of surviving if I could just beat Larry out of the hole! I was game and now two fools climbed into the cave. This time it was easy to find the cats head filling the hole with a huge mouth of teeth! Any decent shooter would have given him a mouthful of cavities, but I did manage to get one good shot in and survived a false attack, thanks to the calmness of my partner, who I quickly beat out of the hole. We were out for about thirty seconds when the cat walked out of his cramped quarters right across in front of us and disappeared into the larger part of the cave. I tried a shot with the 45 but someone had put the safety on and that was one time that I didn't think the safety was very safe. We once again played the waiting game trying to warm up and calm our nerves taking turns watching the hole and listening for sounds. It was one of those times when you don't know if you are shaking from the cold or excitement. Chuck was on watch when he hollered "He is coming out." I searched for the trusty old 45 then found it in my holster. With the cats head and neck showing I was just ready to pull the trigger when the cat slowly rolled on his side. "He's dead? Shoot him again" Chuck hollered and the forty five rang out again. The cat quickly retreated back into the cave. Once again it was back to the waiting game. Now we were trying to get ingenious and tried lowering the video camera into the hole on an eight foot stick. The dirt, cold and snow got the best of it and the video camera would not rewind. I wonder if it was made by Smith & Wesson? We waited till we heard no more sound and then waited some more. New Years Eve was only hours away as we had spent all of four hours after holing up this cat. The old blue hound, in spite of her wounds had more desire to climb into that hole than we did, so it was a quick decision to let her have her way, but this time we hooked all the ropes and leads together. That would surely work better to get her out of that hole than all that begging. I felt sorry for her when she leaped in that hole thinking she was going to win this time. It's kind of like that little minnow going into the ice hole. But, this time luck was on our side and laying on the uphill side we could see old blue wagging her tail. With our help she had won the battle. Once again Larry and I jumped into the hole still packing a pistol. Chuck followed, but as a non-resident all he carried was the camera. It always saddens me to see something so majestic dead but this was one battle I wanted and had to come out on top. With the cat on my lap and two great friends at my side this hell hole was once again a great place. Whether I wanted it our not, I acquired a new name that day when the guys looked at me, shaking their heads and said, "You tunnel rat!"

The trip back to the vehicle was long and hard, but a triple dose of adrenalin helped this old body along. I have never been so happy to crawl into a truck in all my life, even a Ford! This is an adventure that like I said money can't buy and if it could it would be a million dollar hunt so all I can say is thank you to everyone again for helping me along the way and a special thanks to Chuck and Larry. We made a memory that will bond us forever and thanks for putting yourselves on the line! Thank God that we are all still alive in North Dakota where we can continue enjoying the outdoors!

The cat which was an adult male was measured by the skinner and was seven foot three inches from nose to the tip of the tail and weighed on his scale at one hundred and fifty six pounds with a virtually empty stomach. The North Dakota Game & Fish picked up the carcass and will study it to see what the age is, check DNA to try to determine where these cats have moved here from, and also check stomach contents to see what the cat was feeding on. They also checked on the incidentals of the hunt to make sure no violations had occurred. I would like to remind every hunter and especially the cat hunters with hounds to study the maps carefully, carry a GPS, and stay on the right side of the law because while most ranchers will help however they can to control the cougar numbers, not every rancher wants the public harvesting these big cats.


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## MossyMO (Feb 12, 2004)

I read that story earlier, I don't think I could crawl in that hole......


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## Quackkills9 (Oct 25, 2004)

Thats pretty amazing, it was the way they could get it that night and they did it. Now 3 down 2 more to go or til season close.


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## sotaman (Apr 6, 2004)

Wow that is a hell of a story man oh man I would have brown shorts after going into the cave but I hope I would go.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

I would go too, but maybe with a bigger gun. Think of the poor camera man... I wonder what the velocity of a camera is when hurled at a charging lion? :lol:

Congrats on the lion hunt!!!!


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## fargojohnson (Oct 17, 2005)

does anybody have pic. of these cats? :huh:


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## MossyMO (Feb 12, 2004)




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## cbass (Sep 9, 2003)

awesome story! I can't even begin to imagine the rush you must have had. Time to order some hounds.


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## fox412 (Mar 18, 2005)

That would have been a million dollar hunt for me too.

They would have had to pay my fat a$$ a million dollars to crawl in that damn hole.


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## 94NDTA (May 28, 2005)

My uncle has one of the other lion tags. I better tell him to get a move on.


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## MossyMO (Feb 12, 2004)

94NDTA

Your uncle has one of the 5 ND mountain lion tags.....?


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

What tags?????


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

we all have a tag.... only need a fur bearer license as far as I know??? :sniper:


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## fishhook (Aug 29, 2002)

Wish i would have known these crazies were going. I would have taken a life insurance policy out on this guy and made me the beneficiary 

They are just insane. Life or a big kitty....not a tough choice for me.


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## 94NDTA (May 28, 2005)

MossyMO said:


> 94NDTA
> 
> Your uncle has one of the 5 ND mountain lion tags.....?


Sure does. He's been so busy lately, he hasn't had the time to go out and hunt. He allready has one scoped ou near him. I'll post pics when he gets it.


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## djleye (Nov 14, 2002)

There are no tags........You only need a fur bearer license in order to take a lion!! Everyone who has a furbearer tag, has the right to shoot a lion until 5 are taken.


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## 94NDTA (May 28, 2005)

I guess I was misinformed. I guess he has the intent of shooting a mountain lion near by, I could have sworn you had to get tags.


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## MossyMO (Feb 12, 2004)

Thats what I was getting at, wanted to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Thanks for helping make sure.


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