The Mystery is Solved.

ilovesprig

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Aug 3, 2012
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Escondido
A couple years back I got a call from a landowner about an issue he was having with a big male lion (scaring the grow irrigation guy)...Then a big buck dead was discovered in the same area as the lion reports...The ranch manager put one of my cameras on the kill...Sure enough the big cat shows back up to finish his meal and he got some good pix of him.

I was on my way home from Montana...But as soon as I got home, the manager and I went to go see the buck in person...No buck...A short distance away though, I find drag marks...We follow these down into a canyon and eventually find a buck...But, it's not the big guy, just a forky and a fairly fresh kill.

Fast forward a year later (2019), a big fire blows through and clears a lot of brush...Sure enough, I find a skeleton of deer not far from the original big buck kill site...But again, no sign of the head or antlers...Bones were all over...So, I assumed the head was carried off by coyotes or something.

Well today, I went up to try and figure out where all the turkeys had gone...Only saw 2 of those, but as I walked through a avocado grove, I see what appears to be a head and antlers...Sure enough, it's him...21" wide, heavy, 4x4, and eye guards...It appears the head was cut off, but the grovers have mostly gone these days with the grove no longer being used.

Want to give this old guy his proper place....Dang lions.

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Can anyone tell me why mountain lions don't like lead or solid copper???? LMAO Here kitty, kitty....
 
Lion was hit on Int. 15 and Gopher Cyn. 2 days ago (just up the freeway from me)...Heard he was a big boy.
 
Lion was hit on Int. 15 and Gopher Cyn. 2 days ago (just up the freeway from me)...Heard he was a big boy.
What a shame...prolly just out trying to feed his family... why Ca had to go and build an interstate out there is maddening....wish they would have put more thought into the livley hood of the mountain lion...damn..hoping for a wildlife bridge soon! Shouldnt cost the tax payer that much.
 
Have you thought about how you’re going the display them? It would look awesome if you mounted the antlers with the cape off your next buck.
 
Damn kitties.. last few years I noticed a sharp dropoff in deer at my go-to spots, which also coincided with several lion encounters, including a close one at 30 yards where I pulled my sidearm just in case. No surprise, I doubt those two pieces of info are coincidental at all. I hunted the same spot on turkey opening weekend, with no gobblers of course, and on the way back there were lion tracks on top of my tracks in that I didn't notice on the way in...
 
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