Mountain Lion Scouting Video – Scent Station Behavior
For mountain lion callers, scent marking areas are key to successful cougar locating.
Dave Martens and I have placed trail cameras in dozens of locations that have rendered great photos & videos of mountain lions. It wasn’t always as easy as it is today for Dave to locate a lion hot spot to place a camera. Dave’s many hours in the field and the experience that’s come with it, allow him to quickly size up a long ridge or hardpan wash bottom and hang a camera that will produce lions nearly 100% of the time.
Some guys will say, “hey, I’ve taken lots of pictures of lions on my deer cameras on such & such waterhole”. That’s great and we love to get pictures of lions anywhere, but keep in mind we rarely put cameras on waterholes. We’ve had much of our success calling lions well away from waterholes and we’re more interested in how lions travel in their territories and where they go to lay-up after they’ve been to water.
There is, however, a feature that we always look for when scouting for lions. When we find it, our success in finding lions travelling through the area has been 100%. That feature is scent marking areas, or as well call them, scent stations. There are times when we locate a small area that is literally covered in a wide variety predator poo — and poo from many other critters as well. The spot that you’ll see in the video is one such place. Since finding this location we have taken still photos and videos of several lions, fox, bears, and other predators. This location, which unfortunately is well off the beaten path, if called frequently will eventually produce a lion.
Have a look at the first video of a fox, bear, and coati, using the scent station:
Then, have a look at this female lion (we’ve taken many pictures of her) and the way she behaves on the scent station:
Just like humans, where there are ladies the guys seem to just show up. We’ve taken a few photos of lions much larger than this female that we hope to someday call. We have worked diligently in the area to find the best places to call from and be able to see lots of open areas and tight cover. Now it’s a matter of getting the stars to align and be there calling when one or more of the mountain lions are home.
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Thank you all for reading and good hunting,
Mark Healy
Absolutely amazing! I’m very interested in this type of behavior, it can only make me a better hunter and outdoorsman. I thank you for your contribution to my education.
Curt,
Thank you for stopping in and contributing your thoughts & comments.
We have some additional blogs forthcoming about this scouting topic.
The major point of this video – this female lion is committed to the area. We have several pictures of her in this and other spots on the same travel path/area. She is a big draw for the male lions – we have pics of them too. Identifying the travel path that they use again and again is key to calling succesfully. If you get a pic of a lion once and then camera goes cold, you have not identified the major travel area, thus calling there will likely be a waste of your calling & field time.
We’ve trailed lion tracks into an area we thought would produce great pics of lions, only to find the lion was just passing through and no photos were ever taken and we never found tracks there again. Calling there would have been a waste of time with the small exception of the day a random lion passed through – how do you predict that?
It’s always better to call where territorial lions are committed to the area.
All the best,
Mark Healy