|
Author
|
Topic: Called a Lion I Never Saw Last Night
|
LionHo
Knows what it's all about
Member # 233
|
posted October 09, 2003 06:48 AM
Got out last night along my most promising river canyon trail. Started a little too late, hiked a little further than expected, scouted around until I found a meadow with some good angles and good light... I hoofed it uphill to a knob where I'd have a few minutes more light, through open oak savannah, a grassy swale of wild oats below me, the meadow abutting the brushy dry side canyon that the trail I'd just hiked through. I'm picking these spots so that I have longer sight lines than I used to concern myself with when I was calling bobcats and setting up specifically for them... don't wanna have a ML show up suddenly 8 feet away from me, particularly.
So about 20 minutes into the stand, I've got jays and acorn woodpeckers are all around me and adding to my set with their squawks-- and another pocket of jays starts razzing something down in the canyon a couple of hundred yards off...you know how jays love to scold a daytime cat . So I switched from the recorded CritR call sequence to a set of juvie lion chirps--right then my homebuilt e-caller cuts out! Can ya believe it? Anyway, I had a couple of mouth calls with so I blew a couple of series on the Grantham jackrabbit tube Richard swapped me awhile back... called for another ten minutes til I lost the light.
Turns out the caller had a snap on transistor radio type connector to the 9V battery pack break (blame that %&*$## engineer for not specifying a better grade of material! Err, wait a minute, that's me!)... Go cruising around the meadow looking for more sign and other sightlines for other stands, when I hear something large down in the canyon roll a rock or snap a twig. Got down to the trail I'd come in on, and right where the apex of the switchback crossed the damp sand of this rivulet that is just now drying up... a set of fresh cat tracks! Not huge, possibly female, about 3 1/4 or 3 1/2 inches across, not the huge tom I've been patterning for some years, but dang... my sixth called lion!
Dunno whether it freaked out at the juvie chirp-- it might have. Don't know if I'd had more time before dark whether I might have called it in. (Do figure, though, that if I'd had a couple of Airedale strike dogs like Bob Mc's, I could've treed that sucker! )
LionHo
"So there I was, armed with nothing more deadly than a camera, taking only pictures and leaving only footprints."
Posts: 88 | From: Ventana Wilderness, CA | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barry
Knows what it's all about
Member # 34
|
posted October 09, 2003 04:45 PM
Ran across a set that was over 4in wide last Saturday.A sage filled arroyo bottom with lots of places to hide.Kinda makes it hard to sit still during the stand and not look to see whats behind you.Told the rancher about the tracks and he said his neighbor opened his barn door and a lion was laying on the hood of his truck,go figure.Great story,keep your powder dry.
Posts: 133 | From: Trinidad CO. | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
