New to Bobcat Hunting help?

[houndogger]

[fallriverwalker1]

david has been brutily honest with you // if you cant stand the heat don't get into the fire/// truthly if you are still on here talking dogs ten yrs from now you may make it / most don't last three

[al baldwin]

I f you are still seeking advice, get yourself one well bred pup from a bobcat hunter who has a proven line of bobcat dogs. Sounds like you have a reliable dog to start trail & tree coon & run bobcat. You have a decent start, hunt that pup with that coon hound and get him on all the coon & cat you can. If that young dog has it in him, correct track style that & etc. needed to become a bobcat dog & you can keep him in bobcat country, you just might tree your first bobcat. Don/t expect that youngster to tree every bobcat, some cats are a real challenge for a good pact of bobcat dogs. It may take a couple years for any success, bobcat hunting is very challenging, however you & that dog will learn together & you will feel good about any success you have. Just remember you can purchase a pup from the best of cat dogs & it may not become a cat dog, some just don/t make it. I recall a young man who contacted me several years ago determined to be a cat hunter, as Jim told you I thought he would give up in a year or so. Not so, he got a dog I had given to another hunter, because the dog was too tight on track for me. He hunted that dog most every night, caught a few bobcat, fox & a ton of coon. He bred that male to a female someone gave him. From that cross be trained a male pup that turned in to a very nice dog, he & that dog make it much harder to find a bobcat tract in some of my hunting ground. Stay with and good luck. I don/t believe one must be wealthy to enjoy success bobcat hunting. Al

[twist]

Rember not all tree bred dogs can tree and not all running dogs can trail. Its in the (breeding) you get the right one and that dog can catch you a lot of cats. If it takes two dogs to equal ones ability something is wrong! Good luck in your quest. Andy

[LarryBeggs]

All good advice. Just like most things the more effort you put in the more rewarding when your successful. Also the more ethical you are about the way you do things the more rewarding to you and the longer we can all keep doing what we love. Hope you find the right dog and make the time to hunt the dog enough to turn it into something your happy with . Like Al said you don't have to be rich to be successful at this . And I will add you don't have to catch a hundred cats a year to be successful. You only need to enjoy what your doing. I guess I only said all that because it is easy to get discouraged when your learning and not catching cats. Good luck to you, Larry

[Guest]

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth about one thing that hasn't been mentioned.

I remember back when I was in high school I had a few good teachers. That just knew how to explain something to get it across to you. It was easy to learn from them.

Then I had some teachers that didn't have any business teaching. They couldn't teach anybody anything!

Now....I have seen some dog men like this. Some that has hunted all their lives and don't have a clue what is going on out in the woods when they're hunting their dogs. Other dog men might catch on real fast to what their dog might be doing wrong and get it corrected before that little habit becomes a fault with their dog. So....in a nut shell what I'm saying is when your out in the woods hunting that new pup, pay attention to what's going on. You can't just set back and relax and listen to the hound music and not pay attention! Then when a loose is made your scratching your head wondering what happened. You better be able to go in there and help your dogs recover from a loose if they can't figure it out on their own.

I had a red flag go up in one of your opening comments. You said "I have coon hounds and I have tried to run cats with them unsuccessfully just don't run it fast enough." Now it doesn't take a real fast dog to catch a cat. You can break a cat down pretty fast if you can keep steady pressure on him. They are not a long winded animal. So....I thing something else might be happening when your trying to run cats with your coon dogs. Try to figure it out. Help'em all you can. Cat hunting is awful challenging to you and the dogs. Good luck! Hope it all works out for ya! Keep us posted.
Robbie

[South Texan]

I'll throw in my 2 cents worth about one thing that hasn't been mentioned.

I remember back when I was in high school I had a few good teachers. That just knew how to explain something to get it across to you. It was easy to learn from them.

Then I had some teachers that didn't have any business teaching. They couldn't teach anybody anything!

Now....I have seen some dog men like this. Some that has hunted all their lives and don't have a clue what is going on out in the woods when they're hunting their dogs. Other dog men might catch on real fast to what their dog might be doing wrong and get it corrected before that little habit becomes a fault with their dog. So....in a nut shell what I'm saying is when your out in the woods hunting that new pup, pay attention to what's going on. You can't just set back and relax and listen to the hound music and not pay attention! Then when a loose is made your scratching your head wondering what happened. You better be able to go in there and help your dogs recover from a loose if they can't figure it out on their own.

I had a red flag go up in one of your opening comments. You said "I have coon hounds and I have tried to run cats with them unsuccessfully just don't run it fast enough." Now it doesn't take a real fast dog to catch a cat. You can break a cat down pretty fast if you can keep steady pressure on him. They are not a long winded animal. So....I thing something else might be happening when your trying to run cats with your coon dogs. Try to figure it out. Help'em all you can. Cat hunting is awful challenging to you and the dogs. Good luck! Hope it all works out for ya! Keep us posted.
Robbie

[Gary Roberson]

Rob, I can't imagine that ALL the teachers at Dilley were not excellent educators....
Adios,
Gary

[david]

Some good advice being given.

As you can see. There is more than one way to skin a cat!

[eskinner45]

So then should i break my bobcat dogs from running coons or not because where I hunt bobcats there's con so it seems like i can't get a cat track started cuz they hit a coon track first unless i have snow.

[david]

If you want to get serious about bobcat without snow and the cats are in coon country, you will need a start dog for sure that is broke off coon. And if your other dogs are not broke off coon they will leave a cold cat track or a bad loss and switch to hot coon. It depends on how much of that kind of frustration you want, and how badly you want bobcats.

A lot of bobcats have been caught with dogs that would run coon. But a lot of frustration because of switching off.

[david]

Until you get your dog broke off coon, do your hunting in the day time and especially in the afternoon when most morning coon tracks will have some age on them. Cats sometimes will move in daylight hours when it is fairly rare to hit a hot coon. Watch a moon phase hunting calendar like the garmins have and hunt those daylight hours.

[david]

If you do hunt in the afternoons and your coon dogs hit a coon, scold all of them. Treat it like off game. Let them know this is not acceptable when we are bobcat hunting in the daylight.

[david]

[al baldwin]

You have been given good advice from experience hunters who are trying to help you. You ask should I break my dog from running coon? Hopefully, a time will arrive when you will need to break them off coon, if you wish to hunt cat only. My thinking is that young dog needs to see some races end with critters in a tree, at this point sounds like that will not happen if you break them off coon at this time. You will have to decide when that young dog has proven himself and coon has become thing of the past. I suspect you will need to be patient, bobcat hunting takes time & struggles for most poor folks to own a pack of cat dogs. I have found most dogs have been rather easy to break off coon when that time arrives. Good luck & enjoy. Al