MOUNTAIN LION HUNTING IN ARIZONA

A good friend of mine Chris Williams owns Trapper Den Taxidermy in Pinetop/Lakeside in North East Arizona.   Over the years Chris has mounted more then 20 of of my animals and trophy fish.  Chris also is one of a hand full licensed guides on the White Mountain Indian Reservation in Northern Arizona that is not a tribe member.  This reservation is known mostly for it's world class elk, but there is a large population of deer, black bear, antelope, varmits and lots of very large mountain lions.

I scheduled a mountain lion hunt with Chris for January 1995.  At this time I had to assure Chris  I would be on call 24/7 and that I could be ready in 15 minutes for him to pick me up.   We were waiting for a light snow fall in order to locate fresh lion tracks for the dogs to pick up the sent.  On January 18th  I received a call at 4:30 am and we were on the road by 4:45 headed for the reservation in the middle of a light snow fall and -20 degree weatther.

The reservation was only 6 miles away but the location we wanted to hunt was a 2 hour drive in a snow storm and on a 4 wheel drive road.  We reached our destanation at 7:30 am just as the sun was rising.  It was a very cold but beautiful morning.  Perfect for tracking a mountain lion.

As luck might have it after only a half hour we came accross some very fresh lion tracks and the race was on.  The lion had crossed this back road not more then 15 minutes before we arrived.  The dogs were let loose and the chase was on and what a chase it was.  We were in very rugged country that seemed to go straight up beside being covered with 2 feet of soft snow.  This made the traveling very slow and hard.  Chris being 20 years my younger was able to keep up with the sound of the dogs.  I eventually lost the barking so I was left with following the fresh tracks.  It was only about a mile up the hill before I begain to hear the dogs.  They were at bay which indecated that they had something treed.  I was out of breath and praying that it was not a bobcat, as we had seen may signs of them along the way.  Chris begain yelling for me to hurry up and get there as he had a  big suprise for me.

Upon reaching the the top I was overwelmed to find that the dogs had treed a very large Tom Mountain Lion.  After taking some pictures with the cat in the tree I had my trophy lion with one shot from my Ruger Black Hawk 44 Magnum Pistol.  He weighed 190 pounds and made the SCI Record book and at the time was the 3rd largest Mountain Lion to taken in Arizona.  Thanks to a life size mount from Chris he is over my bar providing me memories and stories for everyone.