Montana Houndsmen

If you've ever wondered what it takes to tree a mountain lion with hound dogs, here's your answer. Montana houndsmen, Austin explains the process from start to finish.

Austin "Around here the quota's fill very fast, the reason for that being is there are so many county roads that go up through the mountains. Starting, midnight – 2 o clock in the morning we'll get in the rigs and we'll drive the county roads and look for fresh tracks across the road. If we find one early in the night, we'll have to sit on it and wait for daylight. Or if there's a nearby county road we'll drive that one as well to see if he's making a B-line or if he's wandering around hunting. And at daylight we will turn loose on his tracks on the freshest tracks we've found. Once you dump the dogs on the track, usually the houndsmen will follow the dogs and we've got a GPS tracker on all the dogs. Keep track of where they're going, how fast they're moving, if they're running the track hot and whoever is at home base with the pickups or snowmobiles, depending what we're on. They will make a big large circle and try to contain where the Lion is going. Then our GPS will also tell us when the dogs have the lion treed. So our dogs tip their heads back, and are barking up the tree, and that sends a sensor into the GPS that tells us the lion's treed. We'll head straight for that point, rather than follow the tracks through the timber and over the terrain and try to get there as soon as possible so the lion doesn't jump and start all over again."

Sounds like a good way to learn the lay of the land in just a few short hours.