bobcat dogs northeastern vs western

[rbsmith9]

hey all, I hunt bobcats in NE US virtually all on snow and majority of time is in thick spruce/fir swamps, basically rabbit (hare) cover that you can't see two feet in front of your face. Jumped cats normally run to the dense cover immediately and will circle sometimes within an area as small as 6 or 8 acres in size, usually somewhat bigger but constant tight circles. I am relatively new to cat hunting and struggle with dogs that can handle these type circles- cold trailing and jumping cat is easy in virtually all snow conditions, catching which is almost always bayed is not for my mutts. Any suggestions on what to look for in a dog- i know in some areas bobcats don't circle but i think in other areas like Pacific NW the bare ground cats circle in dense thickets and dog that blows a corner is worthless. my dogs can really pressure them for a few circles but when the circles get tight and consistently smaller its mostly over. Just interested in comparing other regions to the conditions we face in the northeast and what to look for- for most part senting conditions are pretty good normally pretty fresh snow with high humidity and somewhat moderate temps.

[kickemall]

How old are your dogs?

[rbsmith9]

Got a two year old out of line bobcat hounds from maine and a 5 year old Duncan black and tan

[kickemall]

Not young dogs then. Cat dogs don’t need to be fast although it helps. Have to be able to hold a track and push the wind out of them. Dogs that age should be able to catch a decent percentage of tracks jumped. You hunt with anybody?

[catdog360]

Get faster dogs that are actually trying to catch the cat. In the pnw when a cat runs like that he’ll get scooped up real quick

[Beebout-it]

I don't have any experience in either places, but if your dogs won't pick their heads up and haul some ass here in montana your not going to tree many. We don't have the thick brush like your talking about but when they get into a densely covered area they will do like what your talking about and stay in a 5 to 10 acre area. More often its the rocks and cliffs that whip the dogs here. They have to be pressuring them hard and have the brains to go around rocks they can't follow the cat through to pick it back up on the other side.

[rbsmith9]

They do pick up there heads and are fast dogs-the issue i believe comes down to is too many
long losses, which i would guess has a lot to do with brains. Interesting to hear about how they run in pnw and montana, quite similar I would say a good dog their probably would be a good dog here in the thick spruce/fir swamps.

[Twopipe]

You hit the nail right square on the head when you said”i believe comes down to is too many
long losses,”.
Keeping losses short is what puts pressure on the game to either make it tree or to make it stop. Every dog moving a track faster than a walk is going to overrun when the game turns then it’s all about how fast they pick it back up. When I was hunting bobcat in south Texas last fall the dogs made a loss and after about 30 seconds the guy I was hunting with said,”clock’s ticking!”
I have seen some dogs that were just wizards as far as picking up losses and keeping the track moving but they are few and far between. What is easier, but not easy ,to come by is a pack of dogs that can work together and by working together I mean that when a loss is made they shut up until they find an uncovered part of the track and then all the rest honor in to that dog. When a dog barks out of place it will slow everything down sometimes to the point you’re back to cold trailing. To me barking out of place is worse than trashing. I can correct trashiness but barking out of place is usually genetic and culling is the only cure for that.
The tighter the circles get the more excited I get because it usually means they’re about to catch but it takes dogs that work together. People say that in the snow you can’t run but a few dogs or it gets all tracked up. Well if it’s getting too tracked up they’re not moving the track forward. This last season in Minnesota on snow we treed a bobcat with 13 dogs in the jumped race so it can be done. I have caught bobcat with one dog and so have many others but in theory 6 dogs that work good together should be able to pick up a loss 3 times faster than 2 dogs.

[Beebout-it]

I was taught when it came to Bobcats that 1 dog sometimes wasn't enough but 2 is 2 many...I went with the thought of hunting 1 dog when I ran bobbers and it was and is my best bobcat dog. She runs silent on track and not many get away from her. But your not teaching the rest to run them and I've grown to enjoy listening to a good race and not caring about killing any. Now I will turn out from 2 to 6 and sit back and listen and love it! Having a few bringing up the rear has been the cause of quite a few cats being treed after the lead dogs make a short loss and the cat running face first into a wave of pups trying to catch up!

[Mack0120]

I agree w Beebout-it; silent is awesome but the rest (younger) aren’t learning as much as quick. Also, gotta have brains to go around what a bobber can and hound can’t. Maybe in the end too is what it the goal - dogs learning, growing, and getting better or just a caught cat. I love catching game in a tree, cave, whatever, but I like to watch them learn. I have a year old pup that has seen 10 lions and 4 bobcats and she is more amazing to me than my two older hounds because of watching her grow. It’s like she gets mad when she doesn’t catch something but it too young to figure it all out still. We live in WY w huge rock bluffs and outcrops that bobbers get away. She’s still learning when a lion jumps ten feet up and the scent is mia.. I’m learning w bobcats the difference between hound-preservation and caught game (lions). Catching is always the end goal, those dogs are rewarded the second you show up to the tree but if they’re that dedicated it’s not worth them going over a cliff to catch in my opinion. In heavy brush I would expect a little grace still on hounds and patience w the hunter. Them hounds want to catch as bad or more than the hunter. One of my mentors once said (I mostly run lions and bobcats when we cross a track), “how many lions you caught without your hounds?” Good ones want it. The more you lose and let your hounds learn, I think the good ones figure it out from their last lose. Good ones want it bad, too. Time and patience for me are good friends and have made me hounds I’m content with.

[al baldwin]

Well treeing bobcat here in Southwestern Oregon has been a real challenge at times no matter whose dogs I hunted with. There are cats in most areas that get hunted hard that are alive because they have learned to escape the best dogs around. However, if one gets enough chances they eventually are going to get caught. I used to take pride in catching such cats, thinking dogs did a great job, could be that cat was just having a bad day. Also I heard of dogs that caught numerous cats here that got sold to southern states & never were able to catch cats there. Only made it to the woods with hounds a few times this year & looks like it may be first time in years have not got to a tree with a cat in it. Last time out got to listen to parts of a good race that finished with a cat in a hole. Few hunts before dogs ran a cat for over an hour, after a good trail job. They jumped about half mile away and brought the cat right back very near and never got out of hearing for the next hour plus. We stood in same location until I could no longer control urge to see what for sure they were running, cat or grey fox. Eased to where knew they were crossing a road, and soon saw a decent size bobcat. I was about 50 yards away dog were not much over 100 feet behind the cat. However guess that cat also saw me and the dogs totally lost all ability to track that bobcat. Sorry dogs or smart cat, that is not the first time i have experienced that in 60 years hunting bobcats. Good hunting all & thanks for reading.

[1whitedog]

I'm not cat hunting expert my experience is limited to tagging along in the pine cut overs and swamps of the South East and mid Atlantic with running dogs.i do spend some time hunting big game in the NE in the ground you describe, the grounds are somewhat similar. South East is dry ground mostly starting tracks off sandy roads, cell phone camera or free casting. 6-10 dog packs. There are some definite difference in the tree dogs we use for big game hunting and the running type dogs used on cat and fox. A major advantage of the running dogs on cats is they are always casting forward, one of the dogs will find the track when you have that many running dogs casting out, the loss is quickly over come and the pack is making ground on the cat. There are trade offs, the running dogs typically don't tree well but we typically have a good road system and as things tighten up we usually can get in close and know the dogs good enough to locate the cat in small timber. I have some limited experience out west with more tree dog types on bobs. Im not sure how either would do if they swapped locations but would be interesting to see. We have recently made a cross that will result in quarter running dog three quarter treeing walker. All the tree dog stuff in this is trail grubbing machines. The running blood is real good, tuff, and grittier than most. Very interested in seeing what comes out of this. We did try something like this 15_20 years ago. The trailing styles are different but that could be a whole other topic. Like trail dogs there are a lot of running dogs out there but the good ones are harder to come by. Good luck, not sure my babbling added much.

[rbsmith9]

Thank you all for your lengthy response's and experiences trailing cats! Very good info!

[DerekE]

Two pipe wrote exactly what I thought of when I read your post. I’d say you should read his post twice.

[HighlandHounds]

Hey there, I'm eastern Canada and keep a line of versatile bobcat dogs. Feel free to message me, our dogs also do great out west. I'm on Facebook versatile Highland tree dogs
I love to talk dogs and bobcats
All the best