On a cool morning Feb. 4, a rifle report echoed through the forest near Ashley Lake, followed by the snapping and splintering of branches as a large mountain lion crashed to the ground.

After making the shot, Aspen Rush, a 13-year-old student at West Valley Elementary School, stood holding the pink .243 Winchester rifle she received for Christmas as the 121-pound tom curled up into its final resting position. 

Weighing in at about half the size of her quarry, Aspen had just bagged her first mountain lion.

“I felt so excited that I got one,” she recounted. “I shot it in the armpit and when we got it down I was really excited about it. I got to drag it a hundred yards, then my dad dragged it the rest of the way.”

Aspen, 13, and her twin sister, Jaden, had certainly put in their time. On most weekends they were waking up at 5 a.m. to get ready, then riding with their father from their home between Kalispell and Kila to spend the day following lion tracks through the snow with an outfitter and his five dogs.

Their mother, Dawn Rush, said the sisters are inseparable. This is their second season hunting, but they were shooting well before that.

“Her twin sister, Jaden, was with her every step of the way,” she said. “They’re both really good shots — they both filled their deer tags this season.”

Jaden added: “We do mostly everything together. We saw full-sized mountain lions before, but that was the first time I saw a mountain lion this year.”

Late last summer her sister had literally won the lottery, receiving one of only about a dozen tags awarded to more than a hundred applicants for the late winter mountain lion season in the western two-thirds of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region One.

Regional Wildlife Manager Neil Anderson didn’t have this season’s statistics yet, but said the odds are usually one in 10 of being drawn for a special mountain lion license.

“Female [mountain lions] typically run 70 to 80 pounds, and males average around 100 pounds,” Anderson added. “She [Aspen] should be very proud of herself; 121 pounds is a good, mature animal.”

After several unsuccessful attempts to fill the tag, Dawn said, the girls had gotten permission from school for a rare weekday hunting trip Feb. 4 since their father had the day off from work. Aspen said they started by hiking two miles up, then two miles down before their guide spotted a set of fresh tracks and loosed the dogs.

“We saw the tracks, so we let go of all five dogs and maybe a half hour later we saw the dogs stop,” she said. “We saw the mountain lion and I took the shot.”

According to her mother, it was a nearly perfect one, catching the cat behind the shoulder and keeping the back straps intact. She added that the girls are used to eating game year-round and got to enjoy the fried steaks later that week.

And after the obligatory trip to the game warden, the girls headed to West Valley School to cash in on some well-deserved bragging rights.

“We showed it to the rest of our class and a bunch of our teachers. They were really proud of me,” Aspen said. “One of my friends wanted to touch the paws. Her brother was freaking out and he was pretty proud, too.”

Jaden also had a blast showing off their prize kill at school.

“They didn’t want to touch it at first, but when Aspen showed them the teeth they all wanted to touch the teeth,” she said. “When Aspen would squeeze the paw, the claws would come out and everyone would freak out.”

With their classmates sufficiently freaked out, they then took the mountain lion — resting in the bed of their father’s pickup truck — to where Dawn works at a local dentist’s office.

“My mom’s work was pretty excited, too,” Aspen said. “One of them wanted to touch the head and see the teeth.”

Asked what she hopes to have in her crosshairs next, Aspen didn’t hesitate.

“I’m going to try to get a big elk.”

For now, however, they’re still focused on the big cat: getting the rest of its meat cured into jerky and the hide made into a rug, which the girls plan to display prominently on the wall of their room. Despite the long odds of winning the tags again, Aspen was undeterred.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to try again next year,” she said.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com