What makes a Bobcat climb a Tree or turn to Bay?

[Warner5]

Radar. what I have learned from this site in the last few months is most hunters have their own styles of hunting that produce cat tree's for them. That is what makes bobcat hunting so great. Even if I dont agree with anothers ways, I do my best to stay open minded show a little respect and maybe learn from them. ofcoarse I didnt start out this way,for me to make the most out of this site and take something from it, I had to change my mind set. Not everyone has a gps system(I dont). also I would be willing to bet that most everyone that has posted above learned their style of bobcat hunting without the use of a gps system. I hope this helps, I do not want to offend you or anyone else. I have made plenty of my own mistakes with dogs and people over the years, I guess thats just a part of life. all we can do is learn from them and try not to repeat. Thanks guy's this has been a great topic. John Warner.

[Mel White]

i find that those areas that get dogged to death like george mentioned, you catch a lot more on the ground. the cats get trained to just keep running and they will not get caught. until someone with some cat dogs comes in anyways. also a lot of it is the dogs track style. i have a dog that when jumped real tight will shut up, i beleive the cats dont know hes there then its all over on the ground before the other dogs even get there. take that same cat with dogs barking every breath on track that cat might have picked a tree instead because it knew where those dogs were. just my opinions.

[radar]

Sorry didn't think i was being disrespectful

Are your dogs voiceful when they start a track? and know every hunt is different but in general?

[Va cat hunter]

Mr Clay, Here is my 2 cents, I think that the hounds that we are running are alot faster than what we use to hunt and the dogs are putting the pressure on him where he is not comfortable and you never know but you might have a dog swing out wide and run up on the thing and make him shoot right up. I think another thing is that in certain places the cats are being run by deer dogs are and have become wise to this and they have figured out that they are safe up. One more thing that I think has something to do with it, location and hereditary genes that are passed into offspring. Some places that you hunt, you cant make a cat go up for nothing, you will catch his but on the ground in a hurry and then you might go in another state or even on the far side of the county and everyone you jump shoots up a tree in 5 min. This has happened to me numerous times! Just my thoughts.

[mondomuttruner]

maybe off subject but any thoughts on bobcats and wolves? I've seen tracks where cat and wolves (wolf) fought. (lots of wolf hair around) Seems like the last 5 or 6 years when the wolf pop. got up there the cats are acting a little different. not only are cats learning from hounds, their learning from wolves all year long. We only get a tag every 5 years or so, so there's a lot of training going on.

[lion chasers]

WHAT MAKES A BEAR TREE OR TURN AND BAY?

[Warner5]

radar. thankyou, I kinda put you on the spot, I was probably the one being disrespectful. as far as your question, I have 8 dogs but I only hunt about 3 to 5 at once, about 1/2 of the dogs are I guess the term would be fully open on a cold track. then the other half are semi silent. My old dog has got more tight mouthed this last year or so, but to answer your question I mix and match or adjust, if I am going to a nasty spot or an area with trained cats, I might take the more silent dogs, most of the time it dosent matter. I do like to listen to a good race. but race's need to produce tree's for me to think their good, unless a young dog does something exceptional or the cat puts the dogs in a bad spot that the dogs just cant seem to get the upper hand on, then I can see the good in a race. Where we live here in this brush hole, the cats that get caught on the ground are the one's caught off roadway's that get alot of pressure. during season this area gets hunted almost everyday. Some cats hunt & choose to stay in 8 to 15 year old repod stands. It seems more end on the ground in these area's also. thankyou. John Warner.

[radar]

10-4

Theres some pretty interesting therory's here on why cats get cought on the ground.How often in a season does this happend?

Trees always sound good but man you sure hear it in there voices when its bayed up and it don't matter what the game is.
Love it.Unless its a 3x4 with the look of help me in his eyes!That can be fusterating

[dwalton]

This last kill season out of 64 caught cats 5 were caught that I know of three got away from the lead dogs and treed, two were killed on the ground. Those two was killed in less than a 400 hundred yard race from start to finish. I did not know they had caught them until they came back scratched up. I them went in and found the cat. There was no baying. Normally I only catch one or two a season on the ground that I know of after a hard race. When Washington had a season, in areas you seemed to catch a high percent on the ground. There seems to be a big difference with a strait pack of cat dogs with this than dogs that are hunted on multiple game. Dewey

[George Streepy]

I usually catch around 30 cats a year with 6 to 8 of them on the ground. The most I ever caught on the ground was 11 out of 31 cats. 7 of them were run down and 4 were caught in culverts. Most of the cats that season were caught in NW Oregon. There were a couple more that I was sure they caught but I do not count it if I can't find it.

Most of the time my dogs would catch one on the ground was after a very long race. It was usually the medium sized females. Most of the time I think those females just like to run, and occasionally my pessimistic side takes over and I start thinking my dogs just can't carry the track good enough to put enough pressure on it, so the races drag on. I do wonder if those females run that much harder or if the toms leave that much more scent making them easier to catch. Maybe it is a little of both.

[Warner5]

Very few end on the ground for me. I used only 2 finished dogs and a pup for many years, tree'd around 30 cats a season for quite a few years. during that time with those dogs I dont remember ever catching a cat on the ground, I was 20 something and was behind them all the time. 2 ended on the ground this season, I only seen about 20 tree's also. But this season I ran 5 dogs, I would say a less quality or younger cat dogs than I had in the past. But when conditions were right and the dogs had everything going their way they could move a track very well. I guess just looking at it from a simple point I would say the extra dogs are what made the difference this season getting a couple on the ground, but who knows maybe one of my dogs are doing something different that I havent realized yet? the one race was a very high paced 3.5 hour race and the other was a screaming 25 minute race. the first race the cat tried every trick in the book and just messed up and got caught, but the other race I think the cat just tried to flat out run the dogs trying to get to a bluffy sh*t hole and didnt quite make it. both were seasoned lanky femails. I dont like them to end that way, my favorite part of the race is when the cats went up and the dogs are looking trying to locate and tree, you ask yourself is this a lose or is the cat up? I find that part of cat hunting very fun. if all or most of the races ended on the ground, I wouldnt find bobcat hunting so appealing, but thats just me I like the tree portion of the race. also that first cat that got caught on the ground was one that had helped train many cat dogs, I had probably run it 10-15 times a season for years near my folks ranch, if it would have climbed a tree it would have lived. ough well another one will move in. thankyou. john

[radar]

Thanks for all your guys posts, sorry to go kinda off topic CJC is much respected.

[George Streepy]

As for the statement fast dogs should always be able to catch a jumped cat in most terrian is correct but as I said (rocks, cedar treed hill sides) the cat gets his head start and like CJC said once a cat starts to trot you are in for a long day of disapointment if you arent willing to help your dog or dogs. I dont care what anyone says a dog can not phsically manuver in them areas like a cat no matter what anyone wants to think. Andy

It has been a few years back now but I remember a race that lasted 3 1/2 hours before the little female treed in a fir that would fit in most peoples living room. The cat worked areas that were recently thinned and could move out across those thinnings at a pace that no dog could ever keep up with. The dogs would gain ground in the good areas and loose ground in the bad. There were three of us hunting together with well bred dogs that came from all over the country. It was in September and was pushing 80 degrees. We would pick up dogs, give them water and turn them back in. As we walked in the dogs had the tree shaking and the cat jumped (one of the only times I have had one jump out of a tree). That cat went across the pile of christmas trees laying on the ground like a bullet. It was absolutely spectacular how fast that critter could move. The horribly brushy ground the cat covered in about two seconds as it disappeared out of sight took the dogs probably 30 seconds. We ran that cat for several more hours seeing it in the road a couple times, but we didn't get it caught again.

I get what people are saying about admitting a loss for the day but if the dogs are willing to keep trying, we let them go. And to be honest I doubt there is a dog that has ever lived that could run that cat down in those conditions without getting a rest and some water.

We ran that same cat a couple months later, with better conditions and in just over an hour the dogs had it caught on the ground. I think that cat learned it could outrun dogs if it tried hard enough.

[Dads dogboy]

Well Fellows,

This thread gave me the push to do what I have wanted to do for a while and never took the time to do. Yesterday I went through and studied Dad’s and Mr. Scott’s (he hunted twice a week with Dad for over 25 years) log books.

What I found was is that up through the 1980s Cats seldom treed. Dad's best year was 1972. He finished 284 Races that year in Central TX, South TX, East TX, South East TX, South LA, North East LA, and Mississippi. (All are different regions as to vegetation and rainfall).

Of these only 14 treed and 6 went into Dozier Piles, under old barns, or road culverts. 223 were weighed with the balance being unrecoverable.

His Pack during this period was made up of Running Walker Grey Fox bred, Several Hudspedth Hounds, and the first of his Ch. Mark S. Bred Hounds. I wish Dad had made notes as to what kind of Races these were however all he kept for records was the location, the Sex, the weight, length of Race, and in most cases the stomach contents of the Cat.

Dad’s recollections are that this Pack was very good on the Strategic Pressure, which was needed as his strike Dogs were VERY COLD nosed, much more so than now. This required much more trailing than we have to do today. Therefore the Hard Tactical Pressure was applied much later in the Races when Dad feels like the Cat was already "ADDLED" thereby getting caught rather than treeing. These Races averaged over an Hour and a Half in length….the Shortest being a 5 minute Tree….the longest being a 4 & a half hour catch. Very few of these Cat had ever had a Hound after them until they heard Dad's Pack after them.

The records show that in the late 90s the ratio of Treed Bobcats began to climb. Was this do to Dad hunting the same country more, not going to as many new places….was it because his Hounds had become faster…..the Hounds not having the COLD nose of the Hounds of yesteryear? This is a question that Dad just can not answer definitively…he thinks that all of the above possibilities may come into play.

Over the last 5 years we have Treed between half and a third of the Cats Jumped…yet you can see by this last Florida trip that that number was skewed by only catching 2 and Treeing or holing 26.

The best conclusion is that a Bobcat is the only one who knows WHY and WHAT a Bobcat will do!

C. John Clay
Dads dogboy

[dwalton]

CJC: Good post. It is nice to see someone that has kept records, I have not until recently. In areas that only I have hunted and not killed any the cat get easier to tree. Areas that that cat are hunted and not treed they get harder. I have the easiest area for cats to tree not getting many races jumped over 20 minutes. Races in areas that are hunted hard by people not treeing the cats they will run much longer up to several hours, but they have breaks where the dogs have to pick up short looses. If no looses they will catch it in an hour. We don't have as many cats and big timber so I breed for dogs that will take a cold track and move it and will locate a tree. In days of hunting I may only hit 1 to 4 tracks in hunting all day. I caught my first 4 in a day this year, two of those were on the ground. Not many people tree 4 a day here. I will get out there to see dogs work that have a area with lots of cats. Dewey