Cat and Mouse Hunt

By Don Gallo

   First I’ll tell you a little bit about the cougar hunt I always wanted to go on, and then I’ll fill you in about the mouse hunt. Last year at the SCI convention in Reno I mentioned to my wife Eve that I would like to book a cougar hunt, and of course her reply was “ what are you crazy”. But with her blessings I was able to book it, (with out her knowledge).

   At the convention there’s probably a 100 or so cougar outfitters, where do you start. Well, I started with #1 and got to #3 and just didn’t feel confident with any of them. Then I ran into my friend Jim Nichols, and knowing he’s been on a cougar hunt before I picked his brain. As he asks me if I ever hunted cats before I reply no and then he gets a smirk on his face and his thoughts are good luck. Back to the outfitters I go, #4-#5-#6, and have the same thoughts. The next day I run into Bill Lauer and Jim Burkhart and they tell me to try this outfitter in this one isle, so I do. As I’m standing there being unacknowledged by this outfitter Bill comes up from behind and whispers to me, wrong booth, and then points over to the right booth. That was the start of my most memorable and toughest hunts, ever. It was the booth of Total Outdoor Adventures from British Columbia. There I met the outfitter Vince (Vinny the Walrus) Cocciolo and the guide which has since become Vince’s partner Nathan (Lids McScruff) Kelly. After talking to them for a while I said that this is the real deal, and besides you can’t go wrong hunting with another dago (I think). TOA was #7 and I said I’d talk to some more outfitters just to be sure. So I went to #8 and said that’s enough and back to TOA and booked the hunt. When I returned home I went on TOA’s website. I’ve never seen anything like it before, it gave me all the information I needed, even a client’s manual to assist you through the hunt. I briefed it and felt like I’ve been on the hunt before. Great job!

   Now the mouse hunt. In early November my lovely wife Eve says to me that if your going on a cat hunt I’m thinking of taking the kids on a mouse hunt. Huh! Then she asks for my blessings to take our 3 girls Angela, Alexis, and Amanda to Disney land for the week, Ah, the mouse (Mickey), and of course my reply is “ what are you crazy” and she replies that she has to be to take 3 kids to Disney by herself but too bad because it’s already booked.

   Now back to the cat hunt. I flew into Kalispell, Montana got my luggage and had a shuttle and hotel room all in order set up by TOA. The next day I was picked up by Vince’s wife Lisa and their 4 year old boy James. It was a pleasant 2-hour ride to Grasmere, British Columbia to their ranch as Lisa and myself conversed about everything from hunting to kids as she said she had a 6 year old (Mia) and a 9 year old (Danielle). Well, I’ll have to include James in the conservation too, because he would just chat along with us, even taking over the conversation at times, what a great kid. Upon arriving at the ranch Vince and Nate were waiting to load my gear into the camp vehicles that were already loaded with their gear and the dogs. Let’s get going they said as we’ve got a lot of road to cover to camp. About 6 hours later we arrived in the Whiteswan Region of  B.C. The temperature that night was –20 degrees F. Brr! All through the night I kept thinking about the last text I got from Eve, Hi honey I’m at the pool with the girls and it’s 80 degrees. Maybe I should have gone on that mouse hunt, NOT!

   The next morning I got a knock on my cabin door at 2:00 AM, Lids says let’s go, I’m like O.K. I only needed 15 minutes to get ready as I slept in ½ my hunting suit, boy was it cold! That morning Vince and myself cut a track that was a few days old, but a nice one. Vince says we have a chance as long as the cat has a deer kill. We unload the dogs which are Walker Hounds, and great one’s at that. He took Bear and I got Amy, this is easy walking these dogs I said, as it was the first time handling a cat hound for me. Boy, did I speak to soon, when Amy hit that track it was peddle to the metal. That 50# bitch (female dog) took me for a ride down the mountain, half the ride on my feet, the other half on my rump!  We tracked for about a mile when we came to a ledge, a 1000’ straight down ledge. Vince says that the track isn’t hot enough and it’s not worth the risk and I say O.K. (from about 200 yards back). Now we had to get back up the mountain to the truck, so I figured that if Amy pulled me down she could pull me up. She literally pulled me back up that mountain, the strength of these dogs is incredible. After that brief stint I think Amy knew she took advantage of me as the rest of the hunt she would sit on my lap and lick my face. Back in the truck Vince explains that you need the right weather conditions for the dogs. Not to cold but not to warm, got to have snow but not too much snow. Huh! Good snow with high temps melts the track in which the scent dissipitates,O.K.

   Day 2, We find some small cougar tracks and a few Bobcat tracks, even though I had a Bobcat tag I didn’t want to pursue them to early in the hunt and burn out or lose the dogs, as cougar was my main goal.

   Day 3 comes and so does the rain. We find a large track and Vince says we have about a 10% chance of finding that cougar, but if we go back to the cabin we have a 0% chance of killing a cougar. This is one point of my hunt were I said that these guys are true competitors and not cabin dwellers as we could of sat in the cabin all day and just talked about cougars instead of pursuing them! Well, little did I know but that 10% chance was the toughest day of hunting in my life, but I loved every minute of it. Vince and Lids warmed up the track with Bear, (that’s where you keep the dog on the leashes til he picks up the scent) for about a ½ hour and then releases him from the leash. Bear tracked that cat for 4 hours and then lost the scent. It was amazing he tracked that long as the rain was coming down hard at times. After we lost Bear it was Vince and Lids’ turn to play cat hound, for the next 4 hrs. we tracked that cougar in some of the toughest terrain I’ve ever been in. You need to be in a strong mental state of mind as well as physically fit to hunt cougars, (in that clients manual on their web site it even includes a work out program to assist you before the hunt, do it!). After 8 hrs. of hell we lost the track and the dog and figured we better head back to the truck. Thank god for GPS’. Later that night we retrieved the dog in which is another story in itself.

   Day 4 The weather was warm and rainy which made it almost impossible to hunt. It worked out all well as we had some complications and had to go back to the ranch. Finally, a hot shower, (the only one in 10 days). I got to have dinner at the ranch with Vince’s family and Nate. Lisa made us a great steak dinner and it felt like I was at home as there 3 children and my 3 children are about the same age. No matter what country you’re in 5-10 year olds are all the same, adorable!

   Day 5. We leave the ranch, back into the bush for the remainder of the hunt, we finally get back to camp, the weather is so-so and we find no tracks. You know the weather has been to mild all year whereas we see numerous bear tracks (grizzly and black) in the first week of December.

   Day 6. The weather is finally on our side but the cats aren’t moving. No tracks!

Day 7. The last day of the hunt. We get up at 2:00 AM to find fresh snow and great temperatures. We’re all exited, so into the bush we go to find that track. No track! You’ve got to be kidding me, I know that this is great cat country. We finally have the perfect scenario but the cats aren’t moving. All week there’s tracks everywhere, but it’s either raining or the temps are too cold for the dogs to track. Well, we have to keep hunting. That morning Lids’ finds a Bobcat track in which I had a tag for but was secondary on my list. So I say let’s check it out as time was running out. Lids’ starts to walk the track for about 100’ in which he should of only walked it 10’ (personal joke), only to find a deer kill, can you imagine, a Bobcat killing a whitetail. So we release the dogs. Bobcats are about a 30% kill rate as they are tough to track because they’ll run in circles, jump tree to tree, and hide in the thick firs were you can’t see them. Good excuse anyway. No Bobcat and back to camp.

   Back at camp Vince explains that cougars cycle their loop every 7-10 days and that they should coming back down the mountains or up out of the canyons. He says that they kill a deer every 3 days and it’s time for them to move. He then says that I should stay a few more days, as he is confident that he’ll get me a cougar. In 22 years that I’ve been in business I’ve picked up a sense in which I can tell if a person is truly sincere and honest or if he’s full of  B.S., and I could tell that Vince wasn’t one of the B.S. people! I say, “ OK let’s do it”. Oh wait, Eve and the girls. Now we have to drive into town to phone Eve for her blessings. I phone home and ask my lovely wife if I can stay a few more days and she responds, “ you’ve got to be kidding me”, and I respond “no”. Then she tells me that the girls will be crushed as the wake up every morning and count the number of days til I’ll be home. She must have sensed that puppy dog look I had I my face because she says Ok. Did I ever tell you guys that I’ve got the sweetest wife in the world! Ok Vince, let’s get some more supplies for camp. Well actually, we got the supplies first and then phoned home.

   Day 8. Yes, cougar tracks! We release the dogs, not great scent but the dogs are howling. Oh no, moose tracks, deer tracks, elk tracks, no more snow. To no avail we give up.

   Day 9. –25 degrees C. It’s a bust, even if we find a track it’s too cold for the dogs, their lungs will burst, but we still need to look. No tracks, too cold, nothing is moving. Not even the deer, elk, or moose. This is the day I am supposed to return to Kalispell, Mt. For my early AM flight home the next day. As we’re headed back to camp we start seeing muledeer, whitetail, and elk everywhere, Vince says hey Joe (personal joke), we need to hunt tomorrow, the cats are going to be moving. I tell him I don’t think I can because I can’t miss my flight as there are to many variables against it. Lids looks at me and says, Joe we need to work double overtime but we will get you a cougar! The guys finally convince me but I say on one condition, and that’s I get to cook dinner tonight. I tell them that chicken parmesan is on the tonight’s menu. Well, there’s Vinny the Walrus and Lids McScruff both nodding their heads yes and licking their chops. After a great dinner and a couple of bottles of wine we needed to bunk down as we had to start the last day of my hunt at 2:00AM.

   Day 10. Knock Knock, Lids opens my cabin door looks in and says, “it’s double OT Joe let’s go kill a cougar”. On the road we go. The first 9 days we drove over 2000 km. And saw hundreds of snowshoe hare tracks but no hares, this morning I’m driving with Lids and we see 3 hares, Lids looks at me and says it’s an omen. Beep Beep! The radio comes on, it’s Vince, I found a track, get over here. We’re 2 hrs. away and I know what the rides going to be like, icy roads, hairpin turns, and logging trucks that don’t move out of the way. Ye Ha! We get to Vince and see the track. It’s a nice one he says, but, (my heart stops), it could be an old one with no scent left. He calculates the time of the track by talking to the loggers to see what time the last logging truck came through, (the Walrus goes the extra mile). They tell him at 9:00 the night before. He looks at the cat track and tire track is over it. Oh no! It’s about 9:00 AM right now which means the track is at least 12 hours old, what are we going to do I ask. Let’s get the dogs he says. He tells me that if the track has good scent the dogs will howl Arh Arh Arh! He then puts Bear on the track and he goes Arh, and then releases him. Then he puts Belle on the track and she goes Arh, and releases her. Then he gets my girl Amy and Velma and releases them also. All 4 dogs in the bush and all we get is a soft Arh. Vince then has Lids follow the tracks to see what’s going on. About a ½ hour later Lids calls on the radio and says he thinks the dogs are scattered and doesn’t think that they’re on the cougar track. I’m like, Oh no I’m going to miss that flight because it can sometimes take up to 2 days to retrieve the dogs. Vince say let’s hit the logging roads, we need to find these dogs. We start driving the logging roads in which sometimes you look out your window and not only you can’t see the road your on but also can’t see the slope of the mountain for a 1000’ or so, scary! We stop a few times to try to hear the dogs, but the same sound, a soft Arh! After a while we finally get an Arh Arh! Get your gear Vince says we’re going in. We find the tracks and follow them to a, No way, another canyon with straight down cliffs. Now we hear Arh Arh Arh further down the ridge, let’s go he says. We come upon the dogs and their running in circles going crazy, Arh Arh Arh, Arh Arh Arh but see no cougar or track and the dogs aren’t treeing. Vince tells the dogs, no cougar quiet down, but they keep howling and looking up but in no particular tree. Vince tells me to wait here while he looks for the cougar track. As I’m standing there I start to think, no track and the dogs are going crazy I better start to look up before some cougar pounces on me and has left over chicken parm for dinner, but after about 20 minutes of scanning every tree I see no cat. Vince then yells over that he can’t find the track and he’s going to make a bigger loop around the dogs, still no track. He’s then walking along the ridge and looks down the canyon and yells, there the cougar! This cougar jumped straight off the ridge some 30 feet and landed into a tree that was 80 feet down the mountain, there’s the cougar hanging on a couple of limbs looking right at us. The dogs lost the track because of that leap and couldn’t tree him but knew he was in the area because of his scent. As Vince is tying up the dogs lids finally arrives after a 5 mile trail. Vince says to me, what do you think, nice cougar Ah, and I tell him that I’d like a bigger one. Vince is about 6’2” and 250 #s with crooked knuckles from playing professional hockey, he then proceeds to tell me that he holds the record for penalty minutes, 80 minutes in 12 games and gives that I’m gonna kick your *#!*# look. No no Vince, only kidding, it’s a nice cougar let’s kill him. I get a good rest and put my crosshairs right behind his front shoulder and squeeze the trigger. You then hear the crack from my Ruger .223 and the cougar frantically climbs tree. I couldn’t of missed I say to myself as Lids tells me to shoot him again. So I proceed to eject the empty casing and my gun jambs trying to reload another cartridge into the chamber, as I’m trying to unjamb my gun the cougar falls out of the tree and rolls 50 feet down the canyon and is stopped by a tree, as he is lying there I recycle another round into the chamber and shoot him again. Vince tells me to give him my gun with another round chambered, as he wants to go down and see if he’s dead. I look at him, laugh and say, come on tough guy you don’t need a gun! He then proceeds down the mountain with the muzzle pointed at the cougar and his finger on the trigger at all times. Nudge nudge with the muzzle of the gun, no movement. As it turned out the first shot with the 60gr. Nosler partition bullet hit the vitals and he was dead even before he fell from the tree. The last couple of hours on the last day of the hunt I harvested my cougar. A beautiful Tom, 7’-2” in length and 141 lbs.

   I would like to give a special thanks to everyone at Total Outdoor Adventures. Lisa for her hospitality, Nate for his hard work and special skills, Vince for his perseverance and never giving up, and last the dogs. They were the toughest dogs I’ve ever seen, they never quit. I was ecstatic when I harvested my cougar but more thrilled for the dogs who ran all week for me and finally got rewarded. I said to myself that if I went home from this hunt with out harvesting a cougar that I wouldn’t be disappointed, the weather was tough for cougar hunting but Vince and Nate busted their ass for me!

   Total Outdoor Adventures is a top class outfitter with much game to hunt including cougar, black bear, grizzly, mule deer, whitetail, elk, mountain goat, big horn sheep, moose and much more. Anyone interested in any information can call me at 913-3411 or can contact Vince or Nate at www.toaltd.com.

P.S. Hey guys, I’ll see you in the fall on that goat hunt Ah!

       (Boy I hope Eve doesn’t read this)

What a successful hunt!

Eve, Alexis and Amanda got their mouse.

And dad got his cat!