Jason's Story

I have a Mt. Lion hunting story I would like to share.

Last winter I had a call from the Fish and Game Officer with a trouble cat. A man called him and had a Mt. Lion in his yard. He asked if I would go check it out. My hunting partner and I headed out there with a lady that had a tag and always wanted to get a Mt. Lion.

As we arrived the man came out of his house and showed us where he saw the Mt. Lion. The tracks went right by the front door along the side of his car and through his yard and down to the creek. We turned the hounds loose and away they went. The Mt. Lion was running some crazy loops trying to shake the hounds. When we got down there, we saw the Mt. Lion run across the hillside with the hounds hot on its tail.

It wasn’t long and they had it treed up. It was treed in a thick snow-covered fir tree. We tied the dogs back and got her set up to make a shot. When she shot the Mt. Lion it jumped out of the tree and ran down the hill and around the ridge. My partner went down looking for blood. Thinking she missed I cut the hounds loose. Right after that he hollers, "I found blood!" but it was too late. I took off running down the ridge knowing we were in trouble.

They had it on the ground and as I got closer, I could see that the mountain lion was wrapped around one of my partners hounds. Running in there, I jumped as high as I could and kicked the mountain lion in the head. It then let go of the hound but it got ahold of my boot. I was wearing the Kenetrek Mountain Extreme 400. The strength of the MT. Lion was unreal!

I found myself on the ground trying to pull my foot free. It had a hold of my boot with both paws and was biting the toe of my boot. The top canines were popping through the leather. With my toes curled up as much as I could, I could still feel the pressure from its jaws. Finally, I somehow got my foot free. We were able to then get the hounds back to get the finishing shot in.

I couldn’t believe how I didn’t get a scratch on me. Both paws had ahold of my boot and I never felt a claw come through the leather. The canines of the mountain lion did puncture through the leather but not the inter layer. I’ve had those boots for about 4 years and they held up great until this happened. My daughter was having an ice fishing field trip at the lake just down the highway from where we were hunting.

My friend is a teacher and told me if we were to get a mountain lion, bring it to the lake so the kids could see it. So, after we loaded up, we headed to the lake. Most of the kids had never seen a mountain lion before so it was pretty cool to see their faces when we showed one to them.

-Jason M.