Question for experienced bobcat hunters

[merlo_105]

Oneguy828, No doubt more game more tracks more caught game more trees equals better chances a dog will perform potentially on a faster note. But it seems like some crosses just start treeing later 2 years old. But no matter how much game you tree or how little game you tree it seems the mental switch is the 2 year point. I think there is a huge difference in a dog that can locate and one that can come in way behind and locate.

[macedonia mule man]

Taylor, to find out what you are working with from the get go,hunt the pup by himself. Have him handle broke and start him in the woods around 10 months old. If you put him in game that you want to hunt he should strike a track, run the track to a tree and set down and tree all by himself. If he starts and runs 10-12 pieces of tree game and not tree, you probably don’t have much. The key is to have just you and him in the woods, anything will cause a pup to lose his concentration. One good balanced tree dog is all you need to catch game. Anything else usually gets in the way

[oneguy828]

Mule man, I have seen one dog wrecking crews too. That’s all fine and dandy as long as you KNOW that one dog will turn out. Fact of the matter is when you start a pup there is no way of knowing whether or not he is going to be worth anything... so wasting a year and a half trying to start one dog by itself can put you a long ways back!

Having one nice dog and a young dog or even two is nice because that dog will put those young dogs in positions it never may have been exposed to without them. It will put them in position to take the front in a jump, pickup loses, or make a locate. Old dogs don’t necessarily train young dogs they just put them in a position to learn. That’s worth something.

[ridgerunners]

Lots of good information on here as always. Having a good locate Dog it seems it takes a little luck . To me a good locate dog cannot be trained to do this other than putting him in the woods and keeping game in front of him .I think it’s in his blood to be able to do this. And for what I’ve seen it takes at least three years .I have a few good locate dogs in my pack and if i don’t bring them my odds of seeing a cat in the tree Diminish..I also believe that running them on coons lions and bears when they are young helps in the treeing and locate department . It’s just much easier for them to understand more scent and definitely better visual . Bobcats in the dry west are hard to see and smell!! Hope you guys with good hounds appreciate what you have and you know how hard it is to get there ..... Timothy Morgan

[merlo_105]

If its luck a person is getting a good locate dog then maybe a person should look somewhere else for dogs. A dog can smell a old track 100 yards above and below a road so why wouldn't they be able to smell a hot one sitting in a tree?

[oneguy828]

You think they locate the cat in the tree itself? Or the end of the track? Both?

[merlo_105]

Both have treed plenty where the dogs sat back off a couple trees and sat there wind treeing treed plenty the dogs could smell at the base of a tree and have treed plenty more where the track probably told the story. And probably treed plenty where they seen it go up.

[Foxhuntercrazy]

[perk]

Foxhuntercrazy, what part of NC are you in? I live in Va but hunt all the way down to NC border with some friends. And if you dont mind me asking who/where you getting those old running bobcat dogs from? I was unaware of anyone in NC that kept strictly bobcat dogs instead of fox/cat dogs. Happy hunting. Good luck with them anyways!

[Silvaticus]

I grew up with running walkers. Nothing but registered running walkers. Running fox, mostly greys and Bobcats. They learn to tree. Because that grey will tree when the heat is on. If he can. The better or harder tree dogs always had a locate of some sort. Now some were clearly just going with the flow and doing what everybody else did. They were still good dogs but not above average. We definitely had dogs that shined on cats. These dogs were the ones that just shine. Like the post above genetics is a key player. We raised most of these from pups. So I saw what the littermates did. And how repeat crosses worked. Nowadays I have blueticks. I have a 4 yr old Cameron male. That runs a track. He doesn't care what everybody else does. He runs the track. He will do 2 or 3 circles 60 yd or so in each direction of that tree. When hes sure that cat didnt go anywhere else. Hell let out a 3 to 5 second locate and lock down and tree. I've got a Cameron female that just knows the cat is there. Shell get on her hind legs 5 times smelling in a 30 yd circle around that tree go to that tree and start treeing. Her locate is about 2 seconds tops.

[Nolte]

Ive got some experience cat hunting, mostly bad. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES] Not sure what I can add to this thread except it's such an interesting read to the varied experiences across the country. In our unknown snow belt country there is getting to be darn few cat chasers left. Ya never know if you'll get snow, takes forever to get a tag and dealing with wolves sucks the fun out if it. Not to mention, walking your butt off to fall in some questionable ice conditions someplace to freeze your nads off. Such fun. In any case, the best cat recipe I've seen here is a super cold dog that can figure out the loops and trail walking to warm up the the track so that another dog who can cut the corners in a cat mess can take over to seal the deal. Seems like a bear hunter has the first dog that's his cold trailer and a coon hunter the second which is his locator. Rarely seen a 1 dog show that works, 2 is just right and 3 is too many. Locate just seems to be in them and not too darn many, most are just barely good enough.

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