"IT'S IN THE BAG"
By Dick Muldoon
The lion I will always remember, I believe, was the first one I ever caught alone with dogs that I raised from puppies. It wasn't just my first lion; it was the first of the very few I ever captured alone.
I had been down sick in bed for a week or more either with the flu or from the result of a tick bite. I'm not sure as it happened nearly 40 years ago.
After getting on my feet, I decided to go south 45 miles or so from my home in Independence, California to a place a friend had seen some fresh lion tracks just a couple of days before.
I drove along a two-track road (road is not a proper description believe me) about three miles north of the main forest service of Haiwee Canyon on the eastern side of the High Sierras. Parking my 1963 Chevrolet four-wheel drive pickup, I took my two dogs, a Matthes Lion Hound and a Walker Foxhound bred by Charlie Tant and started the climb of about a mile or so up towards Mud Spring at the 7 or 8,000 foot level.
Dick Muldoon in 1964 with Tant's Rounder's Teena and Matthes' Brave Rip.
I'm sure it took me a long time to pull the nearly straight up trail as I felt weak from being laid up so long.
I had both dogs, neither of which was much past a year and a half old, coupled together and following me right at my heels as I had trained them to do. Steve Matthes had advised me to train my dogs from early on to follow me when not actually working or running any kind of a track. Eventually they would learn to "stay back" without the use of coupling snaps.
It was not long as I recall when both pups were trying to push by me. I was putting a leash on them when I looked down and saw several Iion tracks in the deep dust of the trail right under my feet.
I kept them on the leash but let them go ahead of me. They were both whining and working the brush on both sides of the trail about two feet up off the ground. I was certain the tracks were very fresh. I turned both of them loose and they blew right out of there baying every breath. At just the same moment, the wind rose up hard, blowing like it seems it always does as soon as a man turns a dog loose in that country.
The dogs were out of hearing almost immediately. I had to sit down on a rock to get myself together. I was sweating hard and breathing harder and felt like I might pass out from the climb and my being in such poor physical condition after my illness.
The wind was now blowing so hard I could not hear the dogs. The last I heard of them they were headed full open straight up the mountain. I climbed out on a bluff to try and locate my dogs when I saw a lion right below me about 100 feet on top of a fresh killed deer. I got so excited that I did not know what to do. I raised my Winchester 30-30 and almost fired. Only a person who hunts with hounds would understand why I did not shoot.
Just about this time I heard the dogs coming right back down the mountain heading straight at me screaming on the track. The lion, a female heard them also and left in a flash off her fresh kill and off the little ledge. She was on and out of sight. I started yelling at the top of my lungs hoping to get the dogs on her not knowing for sure it was her track they were on. At this instant another lion, a yearling female or possibly some months younger, climbed right up the pinion pine that the dead deer was laying under.
When I saw this, I really got excited and called loudly for the dogs who had made a loss just about then. I had a very good handle at that time on both Rip, the Matthes Hound, and on Teena, the Tant female and came right in under me and right on to the fresh kill. I yelled to them and they locked up and immediately saw the treed lion. They went to treeing hard. I climbed down off my place on the rocks above and got them to treeing solid on the young lion.
Both dogs seemed to want to leave to get back on the other track. I grabbed Tena and tried to send Rip alone after the adult female that had made the kill. He left for a short time but returned soon to the tree.
I sat down and tried to figure out just what to do. I was sure that there was at least another young lion along with the adult female as well as the youngster I had treed. Yes! I am sure that my yelling had caused the young female (as that is how it turned out) to tree right before my eyes.
This was the perfect lion to take alive. I had been told how to do this and had the equipment back at the truck to do it with but was not sure I could get back down there and make the return trip and having the strength left to "sack up" the lion, I Ieft the dogs at the tree.
Now understand this situation. I need to explain to the reader that this was the first lion these young dogs ever treed or had ever seen. They had been on plenty of bobcat and coon and a few bears but no hot or fresh lion tracks and neither could be considered deer or coyote broke.
Teena left the tree as I got about a hundred yards away and then Rip pulled too. I took them back. The lion was still there feeling quite safe and secure or so it seemed.
I did something I would never do again but it should be considered by anyone reading this that I knew very little at the time about lion hunting or much else especially attempting to take a lion alive. This young female appeared to weigh about 60 pounds, possibly less. She had no spots but still had the black bars under her upper legs that indicates an immature lion.
I coupled Rip and Teena together. Having somehow lost or laid down my leash and not been able to find it, I took a lace from one of my boots and tied the dogs to a small sapling right below the pinion holding the lion. They had settled good so I though this might work.
I do not recall just how long it took me to get off the mountain and to my truck but on getting there I realized I was not going to be able to pack the large canvas bag, rope, light, cable and myself back up to the dogs and lion and have enough strength to get the cat roped, tied up and sacked up and then carry it back down to the truck.
It came to mind that it was only about an hour or less to a friend's house who I knew would be willing to help me get the lion if he was at home. I got there, told Bill what I'd gotten into, and he agreed to come and help. As it came to pass, he did a lot more than just help!
After getting back up on the mountain (Bill ran ahead knowing I would have to stop too often), we discovered both dogs gone but the lion still treed. We could hear the dogs above us in the big bluffs right under the rim of the Sierras.
The fact that I believed both dogs to be still coupled together caused me a lot of concern for their safety. I was certain the adult female had returned to claim both her kill and her kitten and figured the dogs had fought her and ran her back up the mountain.
Bill told me "Dick, build a fire and settle down here. I'll get those dogs." He did not have to say it twice. I had some coffee and water and a lard can in a sack and built a fire to get the coffee boiling. n about an hour, Bill returned with Rip and Teena. Luckily, they had broke loose from the coupling and were trailing in the bluffs where no doubt the lion had gotten over the top on them.
Bill got the rope on the lion and jerked it out of the tree and between the two of us we got it tied up. We put a heavy stick (not heavy enough it turned out) in its mouth and then tied it in good. The best thing to have used on the feet was a couple pair of regular handcuffs. But we used light rope I had along and got the cat shoved into the canvas bag, all but her front feet and her head, and then started carrying her off the mountain. We did this after eating some canned beans I had in the gunny sack and drinking our coffee.
Dick Muldoon with his first lion, taken alive.
The trip down to the truck was not bad. I handled the dogs and Bill did most of the lion work.
We could not put the cat into my dog box with the dogs. So, Bill put it on the floor and put his feet on the sacked-up lion. Things went pretty good until all of a sudden, the lion, we discovered, had bitten the oak stick right in two and gotten her front paws untied and was working herself out of the sack. Bill threw open his door. I cut the engine and set the hand brake and we gave the pickup to the lion.
I truly do not recall just how we got the lion recaptured but we did it. Bill came through Luna last year and spent the night. We had a good laugh over the lion hunt. Somehow in all of my hunting I have managed to have hunts that were always just a little more interesting (to me at least) than the average hunts I hear about today. Things were different back then I guess.