Calling Lions Works Again

[orwapitihunter]

Finally made it out to try and call a lion today. The weather hasn't been great, no snow to speak of. Anyways this young tom came in behind me. Not real sure why but I did the molasses head turn and caught him in my peripheral vision. As soon as I knew it was a cat I raised the rifle and turned enough to make the shot. I hit him head on lengthwise with the first shot at 15 yrds. He crumpled at the shot but righted himself and was up and running in about a second. The next shot at 40 yards hit him at 7 oclock at the base of the tail and he piled up again as he went out of sight. We found him about 15 yrds past that piled up for good. I usually use something a bit bigger but this trip I grabbed my daughters .243 pushing old school 75 gr Barnes X bullets.

 

[Coyboy]

nice job.

 

[Magnumitis]

Congrats! Were you using a hand call?

 

[NW Hunter]

ORWAPITIHUNTER,

Give us the scoop on your technique of calling. I too love "talking to animals".

 

[rooster740]

You are the man! I would love to know the call type and sound, by the title of your post I assume you have done this before. I envy you!

 

[orwapitihunter]

I posted a couple of pics of other cats that came to the call on this thread.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f30/lion-calling-83697/index3.html


They are...
A 150 lb tom in the snow.
A 140 lb tom wearing a dead radio collar.
A 100 lb tom.

The one I shot today was 95 lbs. But eye level at 15 yrds sure made him seem bigger!!

Distress calls from an electronic caller.

 

[alpinehunter]

At 15 yards, I bet he did look huge.
Way to go!!!

 

[alpinehunter]

How long did you call this time?

 

[orwapitihunter]

Casey,

This was my calling partners first trip for cougars. I tried to tell him about all the hours of sitting in the snow, slowly freezing to death, and seeing nothing. I don't think he has a true pic from this trip as he said to me that it seems pretty easy. "Roll out late (8:30am), grab a bite to eat, drive for an hour, walk 300 yrds, call for 12 min, shoot a cat, and go home". "How hard is it?" And on top of all that it was about 55 and sunny!

We can get 2 cat tags a year so I'll pick up another and we'll hit it again. If we have another come in I hope it comes by him. I reallllly want to go over to the east side of the state and call a cat in the desert. The place I have been applying for sheep tags went from 8 tags to 1 tag this year. I dont have the scoop as to why yet, but we saw a cat in there while scouting for my daughters sheep hunt 2 yrs ago. And several other folks we talked to had seen cats.

 

[alpinehunter]

Ha! Ya, he is gonna be in for a rude awakening next time you take him out. That's pretty cool though. I made five sets for coyotes this week but didn't see anything. You're a lucky dog. I mean skilled skilled sorry.

I was plowing around the sheep forum a while back and saw your daughter's sheep hunt. It looked like a great trip. Going from 8 tags to 1, that's a pretty serious drop. Your speculation of the sheep herd dwindling and the cats being the problem sounds like a reasonable conclusion to me. You better get over there and take a few out!

 

[orwapitihunter]

Well I don't know what the deal is with the sheep for sure. I know the cats get blamed for a lot, and I know that the world isn't always that simple. I have been meaning to call the biologist over there and see what his take is on things. I also love hunting that country and we did see that cat come creeping up on a pile of rocks overlooking where about a dozen rams had been bedded about two hours before. So a cat hunt over there would be a good thing. I was wanting to make a trip to Idaho to try my hand at wolf hunting but as the winter wears on, and the $$ are thin, I would be happy just to make it that far to try and save a few mulies and sheep.

 

[grit]

That's great! Enjoyed the pic and story. I'll have to look up the others.

 

[gunaddict]

Good job Mike. When are we going? Did you make Keith pack it out? That dry spell you had, didn't last to long! Give me a call.

 

[midwesthunter]

Thats awesome, I would be nervous as hell, I have called in and shot a lot of yotes here in the midwest, closest kill was 5 feet in front of me. But we do most are calling in the dark with out lights so it adds to the excitement. Congrats,