Bobcats

budzmike · Post by **budzmike** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:19 pm

why would a bobcat rather fight the dogs on the ground to the death than jump up in a tree?? doesn't make sense

Budd Denny · Post by **Budd Denny** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:31 pm

I have been wandering that for a long time. Here where I live 8 out of 10 bobs would rather battle it out on the ground. I always thought if a lion had the attitude of a bobcat there would be a lot more lion hounds killed.

Dan Edwards · Post by **Dan Edwards** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:46 pm

Once it gets caught cause it was being stupid it really has a hard time climbing cause when it turns to climb it gets nipped on the rear end and jerked back down. This happens enough and it figures out that it is safer to face the bay cause most of them hounds wont commit. Thats what I believe to be happening.

twist · Post by **twist** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 2:15 am

hunted bobcats for alot of years and never cought any on the ground. must need to get some faster dogs. they just like the trees in this state'

Cat track · Post by **Cat track** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:00 am

I'm here in MN with budd, and thats true some years we do catch alot of stubb tails on the ground. This year was different, we treed most and only cought 3 on the ground. I think alot of it has to do with the snow conditons were we are.

Jordan

wingpatch · Post by **wingpatch** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 9:34 am

i'am with you twist, cought a few sick cats in my day, only 2 i recall that were cought on the ground had a little jewelry on there leg...

Spanky · Post by **Spanky** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:04 am

I believe it is either more terrain oriented or heretitary myself. I too have never caught or bayed one on the ground here in montana. Maybe its a lack of defensive behavior the female does not teach the kits.

TomJr · Post by **TomJr** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:31 am

Most tree here also but we only hunt in the forested areas. The only one I caught on the ground was a split race 4 dogs ran off after one and the other stayed with me sniffing around where we had jumped the first one. I thought he was being an idiot cause he was a young dog at that time but I was watching him work.

Buddy is a black lab mix(not sure what the mix is) anyhow he rounded a bush about 5 feet in front of me and the bobcat jumped on his back. The bobcat was bitting the top of Buddy's head and riding him for about 2 seconds and then Buddy twisted somehow and got the cat by the middle of its body and just tore it off his back and started shaking. When I called Buddy off of the cat it was predy much dead but still breathing abit.

I looked Buddys wounds over and realy could not see much just small puncture wounds on the back of his head. Three days later I noticed him acting abit strange and took him to the vet. He was running a fever so vet gave me some anti-botics and that fixed him right up. Guess cats have dirty mouths... The thought crossed my mind that cat could have been rabid too, sorta strange a 25lb cat trying to kill a 90lb dog.

budzmike · Post by **budzmike** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 11:45 am

[quote="Budd Denny"]I have been wandering that for a long time. Here where I live 8 out of 10 bobs would rather battle it out on the ground. I always thought if a lion had the attitude of a bobcat there would be a lot more lion hounds killed.[/quote]

with the amount of coyotes in michigan where we cat hunt there are a ton of coyotes, my theory is that the yotes are harassing the cats soo much, running them off kills that the cats are used to fighting with dogs, not treeing like they did years ago??

Mike Leonard · Post by **Mike Leonard** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:47 pm

I think different terrain may have some to do with it, and also the attitude factor towards pesky coyotes may as well. I have on several occasions found where a group of coyotes have treed a cat and held him there for a bit.
Bobcats have an extreemly bad attitude when harassed and they are sort of like a Jack Russell they never met anything they thought could really whip them.

Out here we have such broken terrain scattered trees of any size, but rocks galore and we put a whole lot more in rock holes in bluff and boulders than we catch on the outside in trees or on the ground.

Back years a go when hunting a lot of cat in eastern Montana we caught 90% on the ground, and a few others would climb a cottonwood on the creeks but that was very seldom.

cecil j. · Post by **cecil j.** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:36 pm

Dan Edwards wrote:Once it gets caught cause it was being stupid it really has a hard time climbing cause when it turns to climb it gets nipped on the rear end and jerked back down. This happens enough and it figures out that it is safer to face the bay cause most of them hounds wont commit. Thats what I believe to be happening.

I mostly agree with ya about a bobcat not wanting too get niped in he butt/ but ya know a bobcat over 32 lbs sometimes just thinks enoughf is enoughf by a presuient hound ! also; a lynxx cat (an there are at least 3-4 in the usa varitties of lynxx cat/ they rock-up or stand-up an fight dogs but I don`t recall em treeing-up for at least 6-9 hrs of bayen/walken on and rebayen up ! I think they had too get exhusted an then went up ? an bigb bobcat an lynxx cat run better with far less dogs getten killed or mangled-up with but 2 dogs on em not more dogs on-em .

jack

Scott O Rosson · Post by **Scott O Rosson** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 1:13 pm

Had a few battles on the ground but they treed most of the time or go hole up in something! Most here climb and get treed.

Kevin D · Post by **Kevin D** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 3:25 pm

I've caught a few bobcat on the ground, but only in places where they didn't have a tall enough tree to climb. I dunno, but it seems like a regional thing to me. I've heard that cats in the upper midwest rarely tree, but most of the bobcats we catch around here are in trees. The rest are in ledges or holes.

david · Post by **david** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 4:49 pm

Scott, are you getting some bobcats in Illinois now? I talked to another man who had treed one in Northern Ill. That's awsome. I know they have 'em in parts of Iowa now. I know an Illinois man that really wants to run em, so hopefully they are moving his way. Some one said they are following the turkeys. I hope so, cause if that is true, we are going to see a lot more cats in a lot more places.

I have lived in two different bobcat regions. Both regions the cat would run by hundreds and hundreds of trees. One region, about 95% of the cats would climb rather than face the dogs on the ground. The few I ever caught on the ground, I beleive got surprised and didn't really realize what was about to happen.

In the other region, my experience has been the same as Bud Denny. By actual statistics of my own experience, 80% of caught cats were caught on the ground. I beleive there are areas within this same region where the percentage of cats that will climb is higher than this. I agree with who ever theorized that it is a genetic difference.

That has been my theory #1: it is a genetic trait, comperable to the trait in dogs for barking up a tree or not barking up a tree. I have seen dogs that can not even look up. If something leaves the ground, it has left the face of the earth. For these dogs, looking up or barking up is not even an option. They would never even think of it. That is seriously how these cats appear to me. They just dont even think of it.

Why that would be a genetic trait in cats, I dont know, and obviously, this is just a theory I will never be able to prove.

Here is one thought that is pretty far fetched, and I dont really even beleive it myself, but admit to having the thought when puzzling over this question: You have ten cats in a certain area, male and female. Eight cats get killed, shot out of trees. Two cats survive: male and female. (You know where I am going.) Yep the two cats that did not climb a tree when pursued, live to breed, the climbing cats did not: Natural Selection as pretty as a picture. "Culling" in dog breeder terminology. You cull all the dogs that bark treed, like the foxhound folks did, and pretty soon you got a breed of dogs that wont tree, or even look up. You cull all the cats that climb and pretty soon...

Others theorize that it is a learned behavior. I can go along with that to a certain degree, but we who train dogs know that some things are just a lot easier to learn if the animal has a genetic pre-disposition for learning it. I doubt very much that the cats of the Western coastal regions will ever learn this behavior, because they do not have a genetic pre-disposition for it.

uncle Brisco · Post by **uncle Brisco** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:47 pm

i have chased these ghostes in 7 states and all were difrent,heck you can drive 100 miles and they act difrent,i kant for the life of me see how folks run them at night,but 200 from my farmin MO thats how they do it,they just tree at night in south Kansas,or in easten SD or Minn like Buddy says they tend to feel quite a bit more salty and wanna fight,out here in Western SD you can tree about every cat you dump on but they wont stay until they have been treed a few times,and than you better come in a creeping and dang quiet,in Montana the buggers were a little tougher to put up but a gun would hardly make them jump,thats why its so dang hard to buy a finished dog from a difrent location,it can look like a $3000 dog at yer place and more times than not look like a cull at mine because its not used to how the cats act,i seen one caught on the ground,a guy called it in and winged it,dumped out 4 hours latter,run it for about 45min and bang,solo 11month old bitch catches a 28lb tom on the ground,almost got messy,more so when i had to wade in with a 4 cell mag light and harvest the dang thing before he helped her out of her coat lol,anyway this is the toughest subject to know anything about,a fella my know his loacal but other areas create a difrent efect all to gether,so its a tough question

Bobcats

Bobcats

stupidity and something else

yep

coyotes?

Re: stupidity and something else