Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Bobcat

Have a Bobcat on trail cam that looks about like a small mountain lion with a short tail, very large lone male coyote too, what kind of call do you guys like? electronic?, remote control off/on? mechanical flailing dying prey?

Thanks in advance.

For bobcats I use an electronic call set out 50 yards or so from my position, along with a decoy. I switch up the calls a lot, going from rabbit in distress to bird calls, maybe even a kitten in distress. If I'm targeting bobcats specifically, I call a lot, but not loudly, and sit for as long as I can because it sometimes takes a cat a while to come in.

The same setup works for coyotes, only I don't call as often or stay as long. Hope that helps.

Killed a big male yesterday, Vole, B-B cotton tail, Bird sounds. work for me. Rio7

Patience is the main thing IME. I’ve almost never had a cat charge the call like a coyote or fox will do. They like to sneak in and look things over. I had a staring match with a big Tom for 20 minutes last year and he never moved a muscle the entire time.

I’ve called more cats with Kerry Carvers swift call than anything else. Including electronic.

Haven’t ever used a decoy so can’t comment there. Always felt it was just something else to pack.

Gunner...what others have said...patience is a virtue. A stand should be 45 minutes or so. Electronic with small rodent sounds or bird sounds for the cat. Watch closely, they often hang up at a distance and its easy to miss them if you dont see them move.

+1 on the bird or small rodent sounds. If I’m somewhere I know there’s a cat around I’ll roll the band way down on my CritRcall PeeWee for a real high pitch squeak.

I really like a decoy when targeting bobcats. I've seen them walk within a few yards of me, never taking their eyes off the decoy. Decoys on coyotes have worked just so-so, but work great on cats.

Many Thanks for all that Men, guess I should have asked what 'brand' of electronic call should I buy? I can use mouth reed" calls, trying to run a damn turkey call 35 years ago tickles the roof of my mouth so bad I cant stay in the call.

Ingwe, can you see a pic on your cell yet?

I have a damn good spot to hide amongst some boulders up on the mountain, can most likely see about 60 yards up there, and yes, full camo and stone still.

My predator calling mentor told me that you only see about half the 'cats that come to your call, they just don't take the bait and back off without you ever seeing them. He also thought that you needed to let a good piece of 'cat cover rest at least a week between sets to avoid educating them too much.

I have my most success calling 'cats in tight cover where the is a creek running through the cover. That allows me to set up the decoy and caller on one side of the creek and hide myself on the other side. I think that the physical obstacle between me and the decoy makes the 'cats feel more comfortable. My primary 'cat calling rifle for tight cover is a Remington 597 in .22 MAG shooting 33 grain plastic tipped bullets. Good penetration in, but not out,, good expansion, and 100% energy dump inside the body.

I find that calling 'cats has a lot in common with turkey hunting.

Darn cats are sneaky - I would lay odds that people miss 60+ % of the ones that come in...

It helps ALOT if you have a motion decoy, that helps pull them into the edge of cover so you can spot them, so put it in a dip / depresssion so they have to come up far enough to see it, where you can see them.

Interesting how much people's experience varies on the same subject. I'll bet half the cats I call come on the run like a hard charging coyote.

I set up in a harvested corn field once, set my call out in front of me, maybe 80 yards away, and I was sitting in front of some corn stalks, all this in the middle of a field. I'd no more than turned the call on, when a bobcat came running by me, only a few yards away, and literally jumped on top of the call. I've had several come running in like that. I've also had several not show themselves until it was almost too dark to see them.

Excellent info on this thread, and compact enough to read it! Ditto to 45 minutes for bobcats for me. (I quit at 30 minutes one time and had the biggest bobcat with biggest tracks I've ever seen stroll up in an open snow lane at 32 minutes while I stuffed gear in my daypack.)

Higher pitched busy, frantic sounds seem to work better, and I like to do a minute of bobcat in heat every few minutes. Have called them with hand calls and electronics. An electronic lets you set up a two man ambush (caller and shooter some distance apart) when you are solo!

Bobcats want to SEE what is making the sound, and coyotes want to smell it. Set up accordingly. Use the target animal's instincts against him.

IME a majority sneak in and some run in, some of those within seconds of the first call sound. I watched one take 50 minutes to close from 350 yards to bow range at 25. Have had several run right up to me when hand calling, and had others trot and lope to within first sight of the sound source, and then start sneaking.

Re which call:
1. If you are fairly new to hand calls, a closed reed is super easy, virtually zero learning curve. With a higher pitched cottontail voice, good for bobcats, it also makes excellent bird distress if you trill your tongue. Many brands will work. Rainshadow makes custom beauties that perform. For over 20 years I only owned one predator call, a closed reed Weems that called more than 20 species.

2. Open reed calls are harder to master, though not really hard for most people. A middle of the road open reed can make a wide variety of sounds, from rodent whimpers to doe in heat to rabbit/fawn distress to coyote vocals to elk cow talk and bugles. I have one around my neck all the time when outdoors.

3. Remote controlled electronics are the drag racers of predator calling, from jalopies to sci fi machines. FoxPro dominates the market with lots of good options, kind of like Macdonald's. I just bought an Icotec and am trying it, and my grandsons love the Lucky Duck. It would be nice if you could hunt with a friend who has an electronic before you buy.

Got it dude...but you know that by now.


I'm packing my schitt and gassing up the car to come help you kill him!

Plus one on the PeeWee

Great tips above. We hunt here in snow so it’s easy to check aftermath. I feel just like coyote hunting a huge factor is how quietly you get in and get set up.
Once you bump them, they are not coming back for a while.
Bird noises, small rodent sounds. I’ve watched them come in all thru the open west and even tho your offering a free wounded steak dinner the darn cats will be distracted by every silly movement along their path. Patience.

Osky

Have you ever messed with a house cat with sounds ? Notice when the sound stops the cat stops? I think the same is true with bobcats. Keep the sound going often with smaller lapses in pauses. And I think the bobcat will come much more quickly. All of mine I have been well under 20 minutes. Course these are just the cats that I did see.