Scenic Sports. Paddlefish headquarters. Paddlefishing at its best.

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 coon 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 milli-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 rather than risk a human life. Old blue was better equipped and 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 an empty stomach. The North Dakota Game & Fish furbearer biologist has aged the cat at four to five years old and also taken DNA samples to determine if other cats previously killed were related. They also hope to track the DNA to find out where these cats have moved here from.

Hunting mountain lions with dogs is much like hunting pheasants with dogs. They cannot do it alone but make it much more enjoyable and also give us the opportunity to choose what we chase and harvest. Like I mentioned above this is the second cat I had the opportunity to see in North Dakota the first was the cub pictured below that was with it's mother and another cub. This one was a female and probably the other as well as they were the same size and males grow much quicker. Photographing and watching the cub run off was as enjoyable as hunting the big cat and something that anyone with hounds would truly enjoy.

A brisk North Dakota day at about fifteen below zero I am standing next to a cedar tree with a four or five month old mountain lion cub right behind me. One of the many surviving cats in the Badlands of North Dakota.

The finished product thanks to Phil Soucy of Soucy Studios. This mount has quickly become our most popular in the store and we get complements on it daily. It is truly fantastic what Phil can do with a cat and it is no wonder he is one of the best in the world. If you ever have the opportunity to stop by do it, as he has not only defied gravity but also done an ultra realistic mount. I hope many others will get an opportunity to hunt one of these beautiful creatures. Andy



2005 North Dakota Cougar Hunt
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 coon 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 milli-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 rather than risk a human life. Old blue was better equipped and 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 an empty stomach. The North Dakota Game & Fish furbearer biologist has aged the cat at four to five years old and also taken DNA samples to determine if other cats previously killed were related. They also hope to track the DNA to find out where these cats have moved here from. Hunting mountain lions with dogs is much like hunting pheasants with dogs. They cannot do it alone but make it much more enjoyable and also give us the opportunity to choose what we chase and harvest. Like I mentioned above this is the second cat I had the opportunity to see in North Dakota the first was the cub pictured below that was with it's mother and another cub. This one was a female and probably the other as well as they were the same size and males grow much quicker. Photographing and watching the cub run off was as enjoyable as hunting the big cat and something that anyone with hounds would truly enjoy. A brisk North Dakota day at about fifteen below zero I am standing next to a cedar tree with a four or five month old mountain lion cub right behind me. One of the many surviving cats in the Badlands of North Dakota. The finished product thanks to Phil Soucy of Soucy Studios. This mount has quickly become our most popular in the store and we get complements on it daily. It is truly fantastic what Phil can do with a cat and it is no wonder he is one of the best in the world. If you ever have the opportunity to stop by do it, as he has not only defied gravity but also done an ultra realistic mount. I hope many others will get an opportunity to hunt one of these beautiful creatures. Andy