Duke,

The Cats are nocturnal so you spend most mornings driving roads looking for tracks with spot lights. We started most mornings at 5 a.m. with sunrise at 7:30+/-. Fresh snow helps alot. The guides are expert at spotting the tracks on dry ground as well.

Many private land areas after driving all of the roads and looking for tracks, they send out another vehicle which will drag trees behind them to smooth out the dirt. This is so the next morning when you search for tracks you start with a clean slate so to speak.

Once they get a track they search up and down that road to see if it reentered/crossed the road. If not they will let the dogs loose to track the cat. Various varieties from all type of hounds to Blue Tick, etc. Once the dogs are on a track we would drive to a high vantage point over the canyons and watch the dogs work. They all have GPS collars and the trail the cat can be tracked can be 500 yards or as much as 5 miles.

The amount of wildlife we passed was significant-6x6 & 5x5 Elk, really nice Mule Deers 150-175" range, Bobcat, Rabbits. Utah has some great hunting along with beautiful scenery.

Never saw Sagebrush as high as we saw in 9 Mile Canyon; some 5-6' height! Amazing rock formations.

Definitely a different hunt than I am used to; you feel like a spectator at times rather than a participant. But what a show to watch those dogs work. Without dogs the likelihood of getting a cat would be drastically reduced. Some states have banned the use of dogs to hunt Mountain Lion. However, their populations are exploding as a result of this change.

All of my hunting guns are Colt Sauer's-458 Win Mag, 375 H & H Magnum, 300 Weatherby Magnum and my 30-06. The barrels and actions were made by JP Sauer & Sohn in West Germany. All have walnut stocks and were sold through Colt Firearms. My longest shot with the 300 Weatherby was 1,027 yards(fixed target). Shot a Mule Deer with my 30-06 at 440 yards. Shot a Kudu at 280 yard with my 375 H & H. Schmidt & Bender scopes on all of them and I reload my own ammo.

Next year is Sea Ducks in Maryland and then later in the year Alaska for Mountain Goat and Coastal Black Bear with a possible Halibut fishing trip while there.

Tom Flynn