Raining Cats & Dogs & Bears By Babe Winkelman One of the best things about being in the hunting and fishing business is having the opportunity to meet like-minded sportsmen and women from all over the country. I met one recently whose experiences and lively storytelling made an indelible mark on me. His name is Jerry. Or “JB” to his friends. Jerry is a born-and-raised Wisconsin woodsman, although his dialect is not telltale Midwestern. It has a touch of the West to it – seasoned by the fact that for the past 20 or so years he has divided his time between the Dairy State and Colorado. Wisconsin for black bears. Colorado for mountain lions. Jerry is a hunting guide and a darned good one. His forte is cutting the track of a specific animal he knows inside and out, from tireless scouting, then cutting his dogs loose on the scent to let them do what they live for: hunt and chase. After meeting JB, I did more listening than talking. The adventures he has had and the spirit with which he spins his yarns is captivating. He has the knack of painting a picture in your mind about how a hunt went down. One such hunt, which happened this past year, was for a giant Wisconsin black bear that he had been after for five years. A big boar who had eluded his dogs and his clients several times. The bruin had the clever ability to confuse the dogs, take the chase through impassable swamps, run rivers and ultimately find refuge in protected land not open to hunting. JB had named him “Limpy.” But on a special day in 2011, JB’s experience paid off. In the distance, the hounds bawled and JB knew where the bear was taking them. If he could get his client to a nearby slashing in time, he knew right where the bear would cross. They got there, and the bear appeared just where JB had anticipated. A perfectly placed 30.06 bullet put down 541 pounds of scarred, half toothless old bear. He had limped from an old injury, likely inflicted by a past hunter. When they skinned him, Limpy had several old bullet and birdshot wounds. He was a warrior, with a skull that easily made the Boone & Crockett book. In fact, it’s in the top 20 overall. It was one of seven B&C bears that JB’s clients have harvested in the last six years. After the Wisconsin bear season wraps up, JB packs the dogs and heads west to Colorado. There he guides hunters on elk and mule deer hunts. But his favorite thing to do is chase cats. He regards the mountain lion as the most fascinating and fearsome animal in North America. Yes, grizzlies are more powerful and timberwolves are more organized as pack hunters, but JB’s money is on the mountain lion for sheer, solitary will. He told me plenty of lion hunting stories. About having to go into caves to recover battered dogs that got too close to the business end of a lion. “I don’t like going into a cave with an ornery mountain lion, but you have to get your dogs back,” he said matter of factly. He’s had cats “make track across his back” in cave escapes. He told me about the awe-inspiring power and ferocity with which two Toms fight over territory, or for the favor of a lioness. He’s seen several fights and admits he never wants to be in the middle of one of those. As he recounted his most riveting mountain lion stories, I noticed that he got most emotional when he was talking about his dogs. He loves and admires them for what they do. On a cat hunt last year, his dogs had followed a big lion’s track out of a valley and up a rocky mountainside. Scent doesn’t linger as much on rock, and the dogs kept losing the track. JB watched from below as his dogs, nearly ¾ mile away, worked that rock face. In JB’s words: “They’d fan out from that last mark and work until they found something else. Then one dog would find scent and bawl, and the others would come running and fan out from that spot. It’s the most amazing thing in the world to watch good dogs work a cat. I love it more than doing anything else.” JB is a true-blue American hunting guide, and I’m glad I met him. Even though he’s getting up there in years, his enthusiasm is youthfully vibrant. Downright infectious. Which is why I suddenly can’t stop thinking about going hunting for lions and bears. Thanks JB for keeping the hunting passion alive. And please, be careful in those caves.   Good Hunting! Babe Winkelman