This cougar was treed on Dec. 1 in Mackinac Co. by John Rickley’s hounds. DNR wildlife biologist Brian Roell from the Marquette office confirmed that information via email. The cougar is believed to be a male weighing close to 125 pounds. John Rickley photo
After years of more than 100 trail camera photos of cougars in the U.P., one of the big cats was finally treed by hounds on December 1, 2024, in Mackinac County. The hounds that treed the mountain lion are owned by John Rickley from St. Ignace. He put his hounds on the track of a bobcat and the dogs ended up switching to the fresher trail of the lion.
The day the lion was treed was the first day Rickley started chasing bobcats with his dogs for the winter. Although it is not legal for state-licensed hunters to shoot bobcats until January 1, it is legal to train hounds on bobcats from July 8 until April 15. Bobcat hunting seasons start earlier for tribal members, and John is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Indians.
“December 1 is when I start running bobcats with my dogs,” the houndman said. “I wait until (firearm) deer season is over. We had a couple of inches of snow during late November that got crusted. By the first, there was a quarter inch of fresh snow on top of the older snow.
“I found a bobcat track crossing a road into a small block. I usually don’t run a cat unless it’s at least 30 pounds and the track I found fits the bill.”
John released four hounds to follow the bobcat.
“They jumped it right away, and I thought something was not right. The cat track I put them on was older than that. They should have cold trailed the bobcat a while before jumping it.”
When John investigated, he discovered the dogs jumped the cougar that had been on the carcass of a 3-point buck it had killed that wasn’t far from the road.
“The lion went about a mile before it treed,” Rickley explained. “The big cat made a couple of circles like they sometimes do before it climbed a spruce tree. Three of the four dogs that treed that cougar had been on lions out west.”
John said he routinely hunts lions in the western U.S., where they are more abundant and can be hunted. Cougars are protected in Michigan. The hounds he hunts with look like bloodhounds but are mixed breeds with some redbone, bluetick and black and tan blood.
“I was surprised at the size of the lion,” Rickley commented. “He was all of 125 pounds, maybe 130. That’s about the size of the lions we see out west.”
He said the lion was a male, which most, if not all, of the cougars are that have been seen and photographed in the U.P. Most of the mountain lions that end up in the U.P. are dispersing males from populations in the Black Hills of North and South Dakota and Nebraska. Hunting seasons for mountain lions have been established in all three states.
“That lion my hounds treed had been around for a while,” John said. “A friend of mine got a trail camera photo of him 8 ½ miles from where my dogs treed it. Somebody else had seen it before that.
“The lion covered 40 miles in 2 ½ days. I backtracked it 13 ½ miles.”
After taking some still photos and video of the cougar to confirm its identity, John called his dogs off and left the area. A week later, he took DNR wildlife biologist David Jentoft to the tree the cougar climbed to document the event for the state agency. The spruce tree the cat climbed was a half mile from the road, but John was able to find it again.
“There’s a group from Rapid River that claims that they caught a lion with their hounds in the U.P.,” Rickley said, “but there’s no documentation of that.”
DNR wildlife biologist Brian Roell from the Marquette office confirmed that information via email.
“A few years ago, we heard a report from Delta County of a cougar being treed, but nothing could be confirmed.”
In Wisconsin, there have been at least five documented cases of hounds that were being used to hunt bobcats, and treeing lions. The most recent case of that happening occurred on January 19, 2024, in Sawyer County. A hound hunter from Dunn County, who had just returned from a trip to Montana where his dogs treed seven lions, did the same thing on the Sawyer County cat.
Cougars were also treed by hounds in Langlade County on December 27, 2022, and in Bayfield County near Washburn on December 14, 2020. Dogs owned by Bill and Jill Wagner from Malone treed a lion in Sawyer County near Seeley on December 26, 2020 that might have been the same cat treed earlier that month in Bayfield County. The first lion treed by hounds in Wisconsin was in early March of 2009.
Although John was bobcat hunting in the U.P. on December 1 when he crossed paths with the lion, he explained that he now does most of his bobcat hunting in the Lower Peninsula because of another predator…wolves. Wolves are so abundant in the U.P., and they are known to kill hounds, that Rickley does not want to risk losing one or more of his valuable hounds to the big canines.
