is it true?

[az_hunter]

Is it true that if you have a hound that will tree bobcats good that they will run lions too? I was thinking of starting my dogs on bobs then once treeing put them on lions also. Any help will great thanks

[houndnhorse]

Any good bobcat dog will smoke a lion track, except maybe on those long cold trails that a travelling tom lays down. But, I can't be considered an expert, bobcats are hard to catch for me, and if I do it's a fluke.

[az_hunter]

I agree lol they are to carch. My dogs are just getting put on them and have trailed two but nothing. I also haven't really worked with sent though just put them on the freshest track I could find

[Big Mike]

I sure dont see how chasing bobcats can hurt

But I dont think you can say that for sure. A few bobcats hunters i know fron TX tell me there bobcat dogs dont work well on lions here. I think that is just because of the style they hunt. A lot of of hot rigging and and runing type chases from what they tell me.

Now i think if your cold trailing them and teaching the dogs to cold trail(which is what most of lion hunting is) it can only help your dogs when it comes time to chase a long tail

[az_hunter]

Well I don't rig my dogs just find tracks and put them on it and see what happens but when I catch one my dogs will do a lot better. Which usually happens anyways its just s matter of me getting lucky and hitting that hot track for now just so they get that excitement in them.

[houndnhorse]

Cold trailing a bobcat and catching one once it is up and running are two different animals also. I've heard one dog, two dogs, and even ten dogs to catch a bob. I don't know cause I can't catch them. But, I have had some good races where the dogs jumped one out and were above me, below me , behind and about every direction before. It's fun as hel*, but I'm just a lion guy I guess. I will say it does get the young dogs jacked up, and that's all the matters don't it? Have fun.

[az_hunter]

Haha that's right just can't wait untill that time comes for my dogs and I.

[Mike Leonard]

I have found that if you have a dog that is good on bobcat he will generally do very well on lion in the same general area. But don't just think you can buy a jam up bobcat dogs from South Texas, or pacific Northwest and then take him off to the Arizona desert and gather lions up like Easter Eggs it just doesn't work that way. I have had fellows come to my area with very good bobcat dogs from Michigan and they were catching a lot of cats and still not do worth a hoot on a 12 hour old lion track. I have had guys come from parts if Califonia with top cats dogs and not do very good on cats here unless they were pretty fresh. But I am sure if you took a bobcat dog from here and put him their areas he might not do much good either.

When I am horseback hunting for lions I don't let my dogs mess with bobcats or gray fox if I can help it. Usually I can once I know the dogs. If I want to go catch a bobcat I generally take two dogs at most and I put them on the tracks as most of the bobcat hunting I do is up high in the snow. Down in the dirt hunting lions you just fret away a lot of you lion hunting time by having them messing around with colder cat tracks. Dang few bobcats are caught in the dirt around here. Heck for that matter dang few lions are caught here in the dirt either. LOL!

[az_hunter]

It all makes a ton of sense lol the reason I was going to start on bobcats is that I live in show low and have a mountain like 5 minutes away with them on it so it gives me something to do when I want to get out of the house. I really want to run lions though just seems like so much fun

[TomJr]

Yes if a dog can catch a bobcat then it can tree a lion. Most lions don't seem to run as hard as the bobcats once jumped and will generaly tree faster. I would bet that there are lions on that mtn close to your home as well as bobcats

Good luck out there!

[houndnem]

I agree 100% with what mike said. I also think you are gona have some good dogs some day.It don't matter what your huntin, it's just that the more you hunt the better they will be. Where I'm at, bobcat is about as hard to catch as it comes. if you can catch bobbers you'll be able to nail lions. that's not the case everywhere like mike said, oregon, texas, anywhere back east bobbers are not hard to catch at least from what I hear. I started my dogs on coons and then lion and bobcat came next, then bear. some dogs do one better than they do the other, but a good dog will catch whatever you tell it too.

[TomJr]

My best dog started himself on grey fox at 6 months and treed bear with my older dogs. For some reason he was not messing with bobcat or lion so I used Mike Leonard's trail laying method to show him I wanted cats as well. I bought both lion and bobcat scent but never got around to using the lion scent because he just took off on bobcats and I was having too much fun. Anyhow after treeing dozens of bobcats and grey fox one day I found him barking at a lion instead.

In my area there are tons of grey fox and lots of bobcats and a decent lion population. But I would say judging from scat and what we treed that for every bobcat there are 5 fox and for every lion there are 10 bobcats maybe more. So if I had gone after strictly lions I don't think he would have learned as fast and I would have missed alot of trees. Plus my bobcats averaged $100 each this year and lions just cost $ if you decide to take one

[az_hunter]

I was going to start my dogs on coons but then i heard it was hard to get the dogs away from them. Do I stopped cuz I didn't want to be running looks then jump coons. What's your guys take on starting lion dogs on coons then putting them on lion sent

[Benny G]

For what it's worth, my experience has been that when the dogs were cold trailing in the bottom of a canyon and just barely moving along, they would switch to a hotter coon track. I got rid of all of my coon dogs years ago and just focused on lions. Maybe others haven't had this problem, but in my early learning years I did. Benny

[houndnem]

My best lion dogs are coon huntin fools, but there are no coons where I hunt lions so maybe thats why it don't screw me up.