Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping bobcats

What is the easiest way to trap bobcats? Easiest for a novice.

What do you mean by easy? Footholds are my prefered method, but they weigh more than snares. And less than live-traps......

Cats are easy. Hang a rabbit up about 3 feet from the trunk of a tree. Place 2 traps at a 45 degree angle about a foot away from the rabbit. Cover traps lightly, or not. Place a "flag" out on a limb of this tree. This can be a feather, chicken wing, even a piece of tinsel,as high as you can reach. Cats see any movement well, and this will atract them.

I don't know what your regulations are, here we cant have exposed bait within 30 feet because of the birds and we cant use any part of a game animal for bait. Be sure you're legal before you use some methods.
Like watch4bear said, cats seem to notice movement or anything different or out of the ordenary. I have caught them mostly in dirt hole sets with a foot hold trap. I've use flags from flagging tape, fake fur and even opened up beer can hanging under a tree where the wind will move it. I use about a #3 coil spring.

What does an about #3 look like?

I say an "about a #3" because that is what I have most of, but I do have some #2's that work good too. I mostly have Bridger traps, but that isn't the only brand that will work well. The #3 coil spring has an advertised jaw spread of 6 1/2 inches outside to outside. The #2 is 5 7/8 inches. Here is a link to them, just click on the traps.
http://www.montgomeryfur.com/index1.htm
I know that some states limit the jaw spread of their legal land traps so take that into account.

I was just being a smart ass. Do you sell your fur to Terry also?

I have sold quite a bit of fur to Terry. I found him to be fair and honest. When I first started trapping about 20 some years ago, Terry was a big help when I ran into problems. He and his wife are both very nice people in my opinion. Since then I've moved a little too far away to see him very often. I did talk with him last year at the ITA fur sale.

Ya he is one of the better fur buyer's I've dealt with. A few of his mounts in his store are from my catches. His only full size bobcat mount was a catch of mine also..and thats a pretty good compliment, he has a lot of fur to pick from!

Long ago when I trapped I used two #2 victor double long spring traps and used a beaver carcass for bait. Cats just can't pass up a nice fresh beaver carcass. Drive down a dead in logging road, look for a nice big stump, stick the carcasee back in a hole at the bottom of the stump, put a stick down through the belly so the cat can't drag the carcass off and then make a trail back to the bait and stager your traps so in case the cat misses one he is sure to hit the other, hook your traps up to an 8 foot drag, like a small alder tree, you don't want the cat to get a solid pull, not that he is going to put up much fight as they don't like pain. That gets them everytime. Good luck.
Chuck

A live small white chicken in a staked wire basket covered with brush on all sides and top except the route where you set the trap.

Some of us are restricted in the legal methods we can use when trapping bobcats. Here in AZ we can only cage trap, unless we are in private property. I recently purchase a set of cage traps from Briarpatch cages. These are 5 drop door cages 42" long, and each one fit into the other so make a 5 cluster set. The builder makes the best cages in the US I have decided.

Who is this terry feller that you all sell your for to????

Terry is/was owner of Montgomery Fur Co. in Utah. Link to site was given above in a post.

If that is wrong, please correct me.