It was a pretty dry winter, but there were just enough good storms to get the dogs out a few times chasing cats. After one of the storms, my buddy and I knew the next day would be a great day to chase. First light hit right as we cut a fresh track, and the dogs just blew up. We turned the pack loose, and all of the dogs took the track. We watched the dogs on the GPS as they chased. It was about a five-mile chase before they treed the cat. We evaluated the GPS and found a road that took us about 600 yards from where the cat was treed. We thought this was going to be the easiest lion hunt in the history of lion hunts. We were wrong.
The big tom was treed in the bottom of a nasty canyon. It took us about an hour to navigate our way to the cat. We eventually got to the tree and tied the dogs up. I made an easy 15-yard shot with my old Remington 700 chambered in 25-06. The lion fell out of the tree about 45 feet. We spent the next four hours skinning out the cat and hiking out to the truck. We didn’t have a tape to measure the lion before we packed it out, but I am 6'2" and 230 lbs. to help give perspective. My taxidermist green scored the skull right at 14".
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