Taken from Hagenbeck's Lynx
Next morning I unleashed the hounds while having my coffee and wandered a little way into the forest with them. With little arousing their interest I left them loose and returned to the fire and breakfast. The Karelian and I had barely started our meal when the bitch hound gave out a great howl – the hunt was on!
I grabbed my gun, but my friend halted me. ‘Nobody should go to work on an empty stomach.'
‘Hunting isn't exactly work to me,' and I grabbed a cold grouse and was off.
The hunt was playing out within hearing distance. I was sure it involved a hare and took a position close to where the lynx had been shot. The hunt came close but the hare remained in thick cover, not showing itself once. I changed position and held my new post for a while, but the hunt had moved further to the east, still following a typical hare-style pattern.
I moved again, finding a good hare run on the edge of a birch-covered hillock. At one point the hunt passed me within a hundred metres, but with the pursuit following a gully thickly covered on both sides by small firs, I saw nothing. I went to the gully and stayed put.
The hunt now came right at me, drawing closer and closer. Then total astonishment: the tones coming through the forest signalled that the hounds had forced their quarry to take refuge in a tree – which of course made nonsense of my hare theory.
I ran for all I was worth, homing in on the dog hound; from the bitch there wasn't a sound. There's nothing more exciting than knowing your hounds have treed game, especially when that game might be a lynx. But was he in a tree or had he decided to stand his ground on a stump or boulder? No, he had to be in a tree or the hound would have sounded far more excited.
Finally I was on the scene. The dog hound was sitting under a thick pine, while the bitch hurried back and forth, whining and repeatedly casting glances at the tree. And there was the lynx, right above them and seemingly unperturbed by it all. As it saw me, it climbed higher, going almost to the top where it sat tight against the trunk. I leashed both hounds so they wouldn't run in on the lynx when I shot it: often such an animal has enough life left in it to cause a great deal of damage.
In the low light of autumn, the lynx made a wonderful sight, its gleaming coat competing fiercely with the amber-red cones of the pine. I raised my gun but was abruptly stopped by the Karelian who had come up unnoticed.
‘A rabid fox must have bitten you; there won't be any shooting here. At least not at the lynx! I'll bring this prize down alive.'
‘And just how are you going to do that with your stump?' I inquired, a bit amused by the thought.
‘Never you mind. I am taking him alive. Release the hounds again.'
With that, he produced two leather straps, each having a snare at one end. He threw down his jacket, took one of the straps in his mouth and began to climb. As he neared the lynx it climbed higher, but running out of tree it soon had to stop. I don't know how he managed it, but somehow the Karelian held himself in the tree with his stump arm and slowly put the snare around the lynx's back leg and pulled it tight. The lynx erupted, made a massive leap wrenching my companion from the tree, and the two of them came crashing down through the thick branches. As they landed – the Karelian falling on top of the lynx – there was a tearing, ripping commotion and within seconds the lynx was racing through the timber, the hounds in pursuit.
My companion rose quickly. He was in good spirit but a sorry state! His chest was severely scratched and cut about and his clothes were in tatters. He removed his shirt, which was hanging loose like some old rag, turned it around and pulled it back on, the back now facing front, and knotted the rest of his clothing together as best he could, all the time screaming frightful obscenities but grinning happily!