The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

It was the perfect triad. Brad Lencioni had the dogs. Brad Moore had the will and the perfect Little Sharps Rifle to do the job and Chris Faber knew the location of a really huge mountain lion.

Moore said that he has known Lencioni for many years as he does all Moore's taxidermy work for him in Sand Coulee. Brad thinks that Lencioni has had hounds for many years.

Brad had told Lencioni that he would like to get a large mountain lion sometime. They had talked about it for years. Moore had a mountain lion tag. He says to buy it early so you have it when you need it.

Mountain lion hunting happens in short notice. Folks are out looking for tracks and when a large track is found, well, the hunt is on.

December 12 Brad got a call at 6:15am from Lencioni that some new tracks had been found. Lencioni said he would be up soon too pick Brad up. Quickly Brad went to his father-in-law's house and picked up a Little Sharps, nice light gun for the hunt.

"I didn't want to shoot with just a plain old gun," Brad related.

Later in the Bear Paw Mountains the two Brads met up with Chris Faber and a couple of other guys. They went to the tracks which were really large.

"We knew we were looking for something very large when we saw those tracks," Brad added.

They let the hounds out and quickly the dogs went into a steep canyon. They couldn't hear the dogs anymore and it was that way for over three hours. No barking. The hunters drove up and down narrow coulees while visions of the dogs chasing the lion to North Dakota danced through their heads. More and more driving. Lots of nerves during those three plus hours.

Finally the hunters heard them barking and knew they had something up a tree. That pine tree was at the top of a very steep, almost cliff face.

"The guys with Chris went up the face of that cliff easily. For me it was not as easy," said Brad. "And going through my mind all the time was we would get almost there and the lion would come out of the tree. That was my biggest worry."

"And I had to keep up. Those others were like mountain goats," said Brad.

Finally Brad got to the tree and found that the lion was a big tom in a pine tree only seven to eight yards from him. They tied the dogs up (very happy to see them again), Brad shot the lion out of the tree and he died about 200 yards away in a pile of rocks.

That was for Brad Moore, a day he will never forget, December 12, 2015.

"It was a record sized mountain lion," said Brad. "And suddenly I realized that one of my bucket list wishes had been used up."

And, strange as it seemed, another mountain lion about that same size was taken from that area the day before.

Brad's lion weighed 156 pounds. There were four hounds and Brad had one more thing to say.

"The mountain lion was shot with a special gun. How many people get a chance to go on a hunt for a large mountain lion with their father-in law's special Little Sharps?"

As to the mountain lion, it is in Brad Lencioni's taxidermy shop being turned into a full sized mount, something Brad Moore will be proud of for the rest of his life.