Redbone Hounds

This particular day started out like just about any other typical day of hunting.
I went out at about a quarter to five in the morning to get the sleds loaded and ready to go. The 2 place trailer already had one new sled on it and one of my buddy’s old sleds that you do not go to far from the truck on. I unloaded the new sled as the snow was only 3 or 4 inches deep and put the 4 wheeler on next to the old sled. I put the dog box and sled on and loaded the dogs in the truck.
I was meeting Dave Ferguson a good friend from Northern Utah that morning and we hoped that with the fresh snow we could cut a nice fresh track. I was going to go cut a couple of canyons and try to have a track found by the time Dave got down here as I was suppose to be at work that morning not out hunting.
I gets myself to the canyon and unload the 4 wheeler which I had just filled with gas the previous weekend and 50 yards from the truck I realize that my kids have done a little bit of riding during the week as the gas light comes on and I turn around and load the wheeler back up and head for town to fill up.
I get the wheeler filled up and back to the canyon and jump out to head up the canyon and the wheeler will not start. I give it a blessing of sorts and finally give upafter 20 minutes and try to start my buddies snow mobile but to no avail it will not start either and I do not have any starting fluid with me which is what it always takes to get that old beast fired up the first time each day anyway. I finally give up and head back to the house to load the other sled back up so that hopefully I will be able to actually get more than 50 yards from the truck some time that day.
By the time I actually get a mode of transportation to the canyon that actually runs Dave is there as well so we both load up and head out. Now not many mornings do you go less than a half mile from the truck and cut a nice track but this morning things for just a moment had started to look up. Mind you it was just for that moment.
The track was from early the night before and was not a real bad sized track. Dave had brought his Bridger dog so we turned him and Boone loose and away they went. Within a minute the dogs were out of hearing and over the hill. We shed all of the riding garb and with a lighter load started hiking. It took a couple of hills before we could hear the dogs and then I do not know if the cat had spent some time in this one group of trees or just done a lot of circling there or what but we had tracks going a couple different ways and Boone was running one of them back towards us and into a this group of trees. By the time we got there and started figuring out where the tack had went Boone picked up on one he decided he had not been on yet and off he went.
I had told Dave how intense Boone had been treeing this year on cats and as we came over the top of the hill and we could hear the dogs treed in the bottom of the canyon. Boone was not making a liar out of me he was flat out getting with the program the only problem was is that there was not a tree big enough to tree a cat in, in the bottom of this canyon. We started busting down the hill as quickly as we could but it was slow going because the scrub oak was so thick that you could hardly fight your way through it.
Dave was the first one to the bottom and as he come around the corner he found Boone and Bridger with that cat bayed up against the bottom of a little tiny cedar tree. Well when the cat seen Dave that was all it took to send him packing. He ran a couple of hundred yards down the bottom of the canyon and up a tree. That tree is the one you see the cat in at the top of the story. We get over there and take some pictures as this cat is flat jumpy and ready to bale at any time. We are quick about getting in some camera time before he bales but a few minutes or so later he finally settles down a bit but is still willing to jump if given half a chance.
At this point in the morning we have only been out for about an hour to two tops and still have plenty of time to run this cat again if he were to jump out of the tree while trying to get the dogs gathered back up and this is exactly what he did. Dave had made the comment that if he jumps while we are getting the dogs out of the tree hopefully he heads down the canyon and back towards the truck. Wishful thinking!!
This is one bad cat for dogs. This cat jumps but instead of going down the canyon he heads back up the canyon and doesn’t run but walks away the same way a bear would from a pack of dogs. He stops and turns around and swats at the dogs here and there and the worst part of it was once he got into the scrub oak he just settled in for a nice long fight.
At this point we know the dogs are in trouble and Dave is in a little better shape than I am and gets across the canyon a bit quicker yelling the whole time that we have got to get the dogs out of there before one of them gets hurt. The adrenaline is going and I am plowing through the snow and scrub oak as fast as my fat but can go when I see Boone jump over the top of a bush and right on top of that cat.

The only thing I heard was one big yelp and then everything went quiet. I thought for sure my dog was a goner!!
I had this sick feeling in my stomach and I am still trying to get on across the hill when I see Boone a minute or so later kind of walking around in a daze with a look of what the hell just happened on his face. Dave finally gets Bridger gathered up just about the time I get over there Boone comes back to his senses or at least back to the living if he had any sense he would not have turned around and jumped back in on the cat again. Myself and Dave are hollering back and forth to each other from different parts of the scrub oak about what is going on and where the cat is and every time I try to get a hold of Boone the cat comes after me and I have to jump back out of the way and then Boone gets it’s attention again and it takes after him. Finally after what seemed like forever the cat decided that it had had enough and headed out and went up another tree on up the canyon another couple hundred yards.

Needless to say we were all to glad to just get the dogs quietly and leave this cat right in the tree where he belonged!!
All in all it was a great day we had went out and treed a cat got the dogs back with only a few minor bumps and bruises and were of the mountain and to work well before lunch. In fact nobody at the shop even questioned where I had been that morning!