AzDiamondHeat Report post Posted June 18, 2021 A few months ago I sorta teased about needing a taxidermist for a lion. and now the rest of the story..... My brother is relatively new to serious hunting. He does have a few deer under his belt but has not been "serious" about hunting until the last few years. In the last few years he has been fortunate enough to have some pretty good success on the predator trail though. To date he has several doubles both fox and coyotes and even a 1 day Az trifecta (coyote, fox and bobcat all in the same day). Considering he only goes out a couple times a year he is doing pretty well. In March we made a run up to Strawberry to do some work on our cabin. We were hoping to get a day of calling in but with a big weather front coming in and the cabin work taking longer than expected our plans got a little derailed. Regardless of not being done with the work, we set out early(not really) to try to get in a couple stands before the wind got ridiculous. Big winds of 15-25 mph were predicted for most of the day. First stand, big beautiful area that should have produced. Nothing. DRY DRY DRY everywhere so not too high of hopes on seeing critters. Second stand was right next to one of the few water holes that had water. on our approach we kicked out a couple ducks. Made a big racket. They dive-bombed us a couple times showing their displeasure as well. Coolest sound ever. I don;t remember what kind of ducks they were but I have never seen them before. So I get my brother set up and I head around to set up the call and get in position. I turn on the call and start to get.. BAM!!!! 5 friggin seconds in he shoots! I keep calling for another 15 minutes and nothing. I stand up and look over and he gives me the thumbs up. I walk over and dead coyote. I don;t know if that thing was heading to water and just had the worst timing in the world or if he was camped there and jumped up when the call started but whatever, dead coyote. So we gather him up and head for our next stand. Wind is howling by now. We head down into a canyon and set up by a dry waterhole. With the canyon set the way it was and the wind blowing we only had 1 approach for coyotes. They would have to come straight over a mt against the wind. Easy path to circle around us and wind us. Pretty much a dead stand but we tried anyway. about 12 minutes in I gave up and was about to call it when I saw a flash on the hillside. Sure enough a coyote was trotting across the hill and heading to my right to circle us. I quickly adjusted and tried to get a shot. No dice. I thought about jumping up to catch him circling but was really just too lazy to do so. I sat and watched for a few minutes just in case he was stupid enough to take a short cut. He didn't. My brother was to my left and saw me shift and get on the scope so he also shifted and was watching the hill. The call was about 50 yds in front of him in a bush. As we stared at the mt for about 3 minutes we heard a big crash. My first thought was "dang wind just blew the call out of the bush". I look to my left at the call and... WHAT THE HECK???????????? What is that? cat. ITS A CAT!!!! LION!!!!!!!!!!!! Dang lion was on its hind legs stretching up in the bush swatting at the caller! I start my swing left and BAM!!!! My brother shoots. Lion flops and is down. I am on it now. Lion starts to get back up so I shoot to anchor it. "click" Not kidding. I had nothing in the chamber. For those of you who know my history with lions this is REALLY funny. For those of you who don't know, this is pretty much status quo for me and lions. It is truly a comedy of errors so many times. Fortunately my brother is a better student than I am a teacher so he fires again. Dead lion. I started screaming like a little girl "LIOOOOOOOOON!!!!!! We got a Liooooooon"!!!! I really don't know why as it was far from my first. but probably because it was so unexpected. And it was really cool that my brother was threre The best part....we had TWO cameras running. The worst part...BOTH cameras failed. I HATE tacticam. With a violent passion I HAAAATE them. They have let me down more times than I can count. Turns out he didn't need the second shot. Both shots were double lung kill shots. I wish he hadn't taken the 2nd shot because skinning it was a drag. it was like skinning a bag of chunky pudding. So now he pretty much just needs a bear to finish of his Az predator list. Not bad for a "novice". G&F says 5-6yr old female. It was the last lion for the unit before it closed. Overall a good day. Thanks to Adam for help with prepping it for tanning. 16 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
eddielasvegas Report post Posted June 18, 2021 That is some story and man what a read! Thanks for posting it. Eddie Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PJM Report post Posted June 21, 2021 Great story - well done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wildwoody Report post Posted June 21, 2021 Thats awesome, nice kills Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flatlander Report post Posted June 22, 2021 Sweet. Congrats! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CatfishKev Report post Posted June 22, 2021 Thank God for a for a freakin hunting story! Congrats that's awesome. I learned a lesson about loading an ar, i tried to rack mine quietly. Had a chance at a twofer when dog hunting and woulda been my first dogs but also went click. Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way. Still aint got one yet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Delw Report post Posted June 22, 2021 Congrats to your brother. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WHT_MTNMAN Report post Posted June 22, 2021 Very cool. Lions are neat critters. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
