Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire It's bobcat season!

I've had the same thing happen at my trap sites. Seen Coyote trax headed down the trail that turned off when they winded my lure then do an about face about ten feet from my set.
Guys that target Coyotes have a chore on their hands keeping their sets scent free.

I still catch one once in a while but it sure ain't because I was trying to.



Some of em are almost as dumb as a Cat.

^^^This^^^

I added to my ignore list from this thread! To the OP good shooting!

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Here he sitting next to my house near my neighbors fence.

An update;

I was talking to the neighbor today and he mentioned that he used to raise chickens. But something got inside his fence and kill them all. His daughter liked the chickens so he got some more. They all got killed too.

As I was leaving he thanked me for taking out the bobcats, he still has two sheep.

Chute'em -- don't ever go anywhere without a rifle -especially the backyard .

I just heard two, maybe three, coyotes yodeling on the hillside behind my house. They were actually below my neighbors house. So I'm getting ready to take them out, during the daytime that is.

Whatcha shootin leonten?

How big do bobcats get? I killed one in Coleman county that weighed 40 pounds. He was big. Missed one a few years ago that looked bigger than that.

I googled that. It said 48 lbs in 1984.

I'm shooting a 257 Roberts Ackley improved. Ruger M77 RL ultralight.

As far as size mattering - it's not uncommon for folks around here to lose a horse to a mountain lion. Bobcats will take deer - especially fawns, and I'm sure they account for a few antelope fawns (those that the coyotes don't get).
While I don't know of ever losing a calf to a bobcat, we seem to lose at least one a year that we can't account for due to rough country - some years more. While some loss is due to sickness, I'd bet some is due to predation. I've seen bobcats on deer kills - some fair sized deer.

At 9am this morning a coyote was walking across my back yard lawn. My gun is ready. However, he was heading in a direction that is unsafe to shoot. So I'm just waiting for him to come back.

In my living room corner.

Very few taxidermists can do a good Bobcat mount.

Leonten - Your guy did a great job. Many can't get the eyes to look right.

kill em all.....

nice looking cat!

I've got no problem with shooting bobcats, I shot many back in the day, and several since. The last one a couple of years ago. In the mid 80s and before, when coyotes were $80-$100, coons were $40 - $50, and Bobcats were $350 - $400. In Wyoming you could hunt these critters all year, but we didn't. In order to get the kind of prices above pelts needed to be "prime" winter coats. We would start shooting a few samples around Thanksgiving just to get a better look at the fur. Usually, it was closer to Christmas before things started to bring top dollar. Around March the fur starts "pulling" (shedding has begun) and once this happens fur bearers were nearly worthless. Northern Rocky Mountain fur (WY, MT, ID, and Canada) was the best of the best fur, followed by Alaska then Great Lakes. Even with coons being the lowest of the prices that I listed, that is where we made most of our money. It wasn't that tuff to get a lot of them. I shot 14 $45 coons out of one tree in about 5 mins once. Coyotes were next for payoffs. Bobkitties that got in our traps or sights were sweet, a very welcome bonus, but they are harder to hunt and trap. I think on our best years we only got 5 or 6 in prime season. The OP getting 5 in a week would of been quite a prize in a different time and place!

As far as predators killing game, especially birds, goes, I don't really mind if the bobcats get a few, at least they are supposed to be here. I would be many times more concerned with what the feral cats are doing -- there are billions of those SOBs and I shoot every one I can any day of the year.

See no kitties here . . .

Leonten,

I like how the mount came out. And I think you did a good thing as far as helping rid your neighborhood of excessive predators that had lost their fear of humans.

One of the additional videos linked to one of the videos earlier in this thread showed security footage of a bobcat attacking a Yorky terrier in a homeowners backyard.
It reminded me of how heartbroken some friends of ours were when they let their Yorky out at their weekend cabin and an eagle swooped down and took it. Many people don't realize that 100 years ago eagles were considered unwanted predators and were shot as quickly as a coyote would be. Now eagles are honored and protected, but they are still powerful predators.

When predators of any kind, including feral cats, start brazenly cruising people's backyards, they need to be eliminated by one means or another. A small-farm neighbor calls me for help when coyotes start getting his chickens during the daytime. The chickens are cooped up at night. He tried having four ducks, but based on tracks, a bobcat got them at night.

Thanks for sharing your experience with these bobcats.