Well here is the only cat I have shot. Was pretty cool hunt. I had helped a guy for a couple winters run cats for his resident hunters and he said if I wanted to do the leg work and find a track, box one in and then if he had no client out he would run one for me. The zone was only open for females so when I found this track I figured thats what it was so I spent the time and got it boxed into about a 1 mile square area. I called my buddy but he was on a cat already so I was out of luck for that day. This went on for 3 days. The cat moved the second day so I re boxed it and found when I walked in it had made a kill on a whitetail doe on the south edge of Swan lake west of Caroline. The next day she didnt move and on the morning of the 4th day we headed to the kill site with the dogs and let go. They jumped her right away at daylight and the chase was on. We figured she would tree right away but no chance. Well every once in a while would find a tree where at the base there was a large scuffle but then the chase would resume. She was a smart old cat and stuck to the Swan creek and the worst blow down she could find. This went on from about 8am and we killed her on the ground(not in a tree) at around 5pm. So once we got here it was seen what the issues at the base of the trees were. She had pretty much no rear claws and the fronts werent in very good shape either and the guys figured she couldnt climb very good so she just would stand and fight. We finally cornered her in a culvert on an old lease road and with darkness approaching we made the decision to end it there.
She was really old. Parts of her ears were froze off, a bunch of her tail was missing, she had a tone of scars and the under side of her belly was pretty much black.
While not a huge cat she means a lot since a lot of the work I was able to do myself. Hope to maybe get another, one day but just envoy being out on the chase.
So here she is,
SG
