It’s less than a month until the nonresident big game license application deadline.  It’s always kind of a nervous time for  me.  I hope everyone gets their deposits here in time, so we can get them lined out to apply for their licenses.  I hope everyone fills in their applications correctly.  I hope every application gets to FWP by the deadline.  Online applications have taken a lot of worry away.  I’m not a computer man, but my wife understands the online system and can help you get your application completed properly. 
We've still got a lot of ice and snow on the ground that we got in January.  It’s slowly dribbling off.  Enough slopes have blown clear to give the game good foraging.  I've seen more moose sign than usual in our neighborhood.  I talked to the biologist for our main district the other day.  He expects to fly an elk survey in the next few weeks.  Last year he counted some 800 elk on the north end of our lease and the next neighbors’.  Indications are he’ll see about the same number this year.    
 
People ask me what an outfitter does all winter.  I spend a lot of time on the phone talking with hunters.  I have horses and cattle to feed, and cattle to calve.  We just started calving last week.  I've laid in some extra straw bales to build more elk blinds for next season.  I run a few traps for long fur.   I trap a few beaver.   So far this year, it’s too icy to trap beaver.  Bobcat trapping season has just ended.   I've got some pretty nice cats ready for the Western Fur Auction in March.  The last two days of bobcat season were the most eventful in the past twenty years.
 
In some forty years of bobcat trapping, I’d only caught two mountain lions - until the last two days of bobcat season this year.  A lion got caught in a bobcat set, and managed to break the anchor wire, the day before the season ended.  He left the set wearing one trap on a foot, and dragging another behind him.   Luckily, although mountain lion hunting season has closed, the chase season is still open.  I called the Fish Wildlife & Parks mountain lion specialist and some local houndsmen, with a plan to capture the lion and remove the traps.   I sure didn't want him getting tangled up somewhere and suffering.  The next day, I came upon a good sized lion caught in another bobcat set, on the edge of my horse pasture, only a couple miles from the first site.  Two incidental lions in two days!  This guy was really putting up a fight. The FWP specialist came later in the afternoon with his tranquilizing equipment to help release the lion.  Just as we walked within full sight of the set, the lion gave a big jerk that broke the swivel between the trap and chain.  He vanished into the brush in an instant, with a trap on a front foot.

We hadn't come onto the first lion with hounds yet, and now we had another lion on the loose.  We decided the second lion would be easiest caught, because he’d probably lie down to rest for some time after his escape.  The next morning we had hounds on the scene just after daylight.  They treed the lion in a giant fir tree about 300 yards from the set.  One dog climbed the tree right after the lion.  We had to get the dog down before the lion tried to kill her.  First time I ever climbed a tree to help a dog down, and first time I ever climbed a tree with a lion in it!  The first tranquilizing dart didn't do its job.  The lion jumped down, and was almost immediately treed again in a mountain maple tree.  This time, it appeared the tranquilizer had worked.  The lion was stuck in the tree, and the only way to dislodge him was to cut the tree down.  The tree came down, and the cat took off!   He bounded a few yards and went up into a good-sized juniper tree.  That time, the tranquilizer took effect.  We shook him out of the juniper.  We took the trap off.  He had three swollen toes; they’ll probably heal fine.  Rich weighed him, measured him, and eartagged him.  By his teeth and his coloration, the lion is only about a year old, but he weighs 120 pounds!  We pointed him away from cattle and horses, facing up the mountains, before injecting him with the antagonist to wake him up.  In less than ten minutes, he was wobbling off up country, like he knew where he was going. 
 
Fred Jakubowski and Rich DeSimmone, of Fish Wildlife and Parks,  took pictures of him, and of the dog in the tree.  Some people say lions don’t have a learning center in their brain that recognizes cause and effect.  I hope they are wrong.  I hope he learned to stay out of my horse pasture.
 
We continued to look for the other lion the rest of the week, but haven’t located him yet.  Possibly, he was able to pull out of the trap.  In the meantime, we have located three other lions in that drainage:  a large tom, a female, and a juvenile.   They've been eating well on mule deer.
 
In reviewing the Montana state antelope records, it appears Steve Haynes’ 2007 buck will rank in the top five ever recorded in Montana.
 
Montana Outfitters and Guides Association and Safari Club International recognize youth hunters every year at the annual MOGA convention.  Yesterday I was at the taxidermist’s, scoring Logan Hammerschmitt’s antelope, mule deer, and elk before Jared ships the mounts this week. 
 
While Steve has been field trialing his labs this winter, Callie, the English Pointer, has been vacationing with us.  A very different world for her.  She points at the chickadees and runs from the cats.  The ranch dogs have taught her that cows are important, but she doesn't know why!  While the wild turkeys were feeding in the corral, she thought she was in some kind of heaven.
 
If you haven’t gotten around to making your fall hunting plans yet, you've still got time to apply for licenses:  

• General big game license deadline is March 15.
• Spring bear license applications are due by April 14.
• Antelope and elk B applications are due by June 1.
• Upland bird and migratory bird licenses are available online or over the counter anytime. 
• Sandhhill crane applications are due by July 31. 
  

Now, I need to go ditch some snowmelt water from my outbuildings.  An outfitter always has something to do in the winter!   Give me a call to discuss your hunt plans.