Side tracked

[snafu]

Well this Winter has been pathetic for snow cover. I haven't heard of a lion sighting for some time now. However, we did get 4" of snow awhile back. So I decided to go check the coyote pop in my old hunt area. I seen a boatload of tracks & spotted 4 coyotes. Ran across a small group of spot/stalkers in the rolling hills & informed them where one was bedded down along a fence line. The group informed me they already had 2 & killed 4 the day before. Winter is already winding down here. Seen 2 squirrels playing piggy back the other day. At least someone is having a good time? er...whatever.

Thanks Santa, for ripping me off again on the snow cover. FYI I'm gonna kick you in the biscuits (liar) When I see you again...FATSO.

[Okanagan]

Hey snafu, good to see your post.  Stick around and let us know more of your doings.  I'll bet you fish or cook or do several things better than I do and I'm always interested in how other people go about stuff. 

I hear you on poor snow conditions, at least for most of this winter.  We've had two tracking snows since Christmas, and I've gotten out twice, though I've missed the best due to other grown up responsibilities, drat!  Today would be excellent:   cold and clear rare sunshine with a half inch of new snow last night about dark, but today I am driving to a family event too important to miss.  My first day out I hit two lion tracks, one a day old and the second one a smallish adult, very fresh but I didn't find it till just before dark, too late to do much with it.  I would have been back at dawn but had a prior commitment.  I wish that you and I could head out together today.  Snow stopping at dark is perfect and allows a whole night for animals to move around and make tracks in it by dawn the next morning.   

That fresh cat had wandered back and forth down a 100 yard stretch of old road, plus I cut his tracks two other places within a quarter mile radius on other spur roads through clearcuts and old growth forest.  When we find a cat that is wandering, he is either hunting, or more likely with this many tracks in a small area, he has a kill nearby and will stay fairly close for four days or so till it is eaten.

The day old track I'd found earlier was a quarter mile from the last batch of houses and it was travelling, tracks lined out striding along without jogging aside to look over  a bank nor sniff something.  Cats like that are almost impossible to call because they are moving so steadily and covering so much distance quickly that it is hard to catch up close enough behind them for them to even hear a call sound.  If the roads allow, a man might get ahead of them and set up. 

I found an odd isolated camp as well, and went back a week later to check if the person was OK.  I found fresh tracks again, so he was alive and I decided that the person simply wanted privacy so never got out of my vehicle near the cheap little tent and snow covered vehicle. I stopped my rig nearby and called out to ask if he was OK but nobody was there, judging from tracks.  The tracks both times I visited had been made early in the day and followed the same route down the mountain into unbroken forest with nothing down that way but a river a half mile down with no trails nor roads on the near side of it.  The through road is way high on the side of the valley at that point, above his camp.  Each time I was there in late afternoon and neither time did his tracks return uphill.  Curious.

Nattering here when I should be packing for my trip.

Anyway, good to see your post.  Best of luck!

[snafu]

I can't fathom hunting your terrain. I use to be part mountain goat but not anymore. I'd probably need my elderly mother's help? Land I hunt is most all open rolling crop hills for many miles around. With scattered timber, streams, & ponds. If I were to catch sight of one out on the open hills. Then dead lion. I'm not getting any younger, but I'm not quiting.

As for the 4 coyotes had I been hunting them? I would've give them a go. One was sleeping around 350+yrds out off the road. The makings of a good prone shot. Would be nice to hear of a fresh lion livestock kill. So I could use my walker for a shooting platform. I'm not above stooping that low.  

Good hunting to you.