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Three years ago, Brandon Williams decided that he wanted to try to hunt for bobcats. What started out as trying to trap bobcats ended up leading Williams to become successful in hunting mountain lions. On January 19, 2025, the male mountain lion that Williams had been tracking for the past two years walked by his trail camera. Williams began tracking the cat and was able to tree the seven-year-old, 154-pound mountain lion before taking the kill shot. Even though after seeing the mountain lion on his trail camera, taking casts of its feet and tracking the cat for two years (as he was able to identify the tom from a dimple/scar on his nose), Williams cannot help but feel sad that the animal is gone. Over the years the mountain lion and Williams had developed a relationship of both predator and prey between them. There were times that Williams had sat in places on his property only to then find out that the mountain lion had come to the exact spot that Williams had been sitting just to mark its territory. Williams actually felt like that mountain lion was stalking and tracking him at times. For Williams, it is not only about the hunt; he also enjoys getting to learn more about mountain lions and studying their behavior. He would like to see South Dakota implement the same type of collar study that Nebraska is using when a mountain lion is caught in a trap. He has incredible respect for mountain lions, but knows that the population has to be kept in check otherwise there will be an even scarcer deer population and livestock will start to be targeted. When Williams began hunting mountain lions, he would originally travel to the Black Hills which has a good-sized mountain lion population. Williams eventually found that he no longer needed to go to the Black Hills to hunt a mountain lion as there were plenty in Bon Homme county. It is important to realize that the mountain lions are not just migrating to this part of the state; there is a breeding population in the area. There is no specific hunting season in the state of South Dakota with the exception of the Black Hills. Due to the population in the Black Hills, there is a specific season when they can be hunted which runs from December 26th until April 30th, with the exception that the season may end early if the harvest limit is reached. Besides obtaining a license prior to hunting, one of the big rules when it does come to mountain lions is that traps cannot be used. If a mountain lion is found to have become ensnared in a trap, it is important to notify the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks department immediately in order for the animal to be safely released. There are more mountain lions in Bon Homme and CharlesMix counties than most people know. There is a population of between 6-8 mountain lions that roam from Charles-Mix county to Yankton County. People should be aware and need to be educated on what to do if they were to ever encounter a mountain lion. Even though the Bon Homme area lost a large tom cat, it has already been replaced. Williams believes that there are already two more toms that are vying for control of the territory. Hunting a mountain lion takes a lot of patience, time and awareness of the environment. Mountain lions are dangerous and unpredictable, which is exactly why Williams said, it is like “hunting a ghost” when he described what it is like to actually hunt and track a mountain lion. The mountain lion that Williams killed was a very big cat weighing 154 pounds and 85 inches long from nose to tail. With the possibility of it being a record size, Williams intends to have the mountain lion scored on the Boone and Crockett Club scale which scores based on mass and symmetry of the animal’s skull.