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At the risk of sounding like im talking down to people. Kordog stated a hunter in Maine caught 26 cats in 6 weeks. That averages out to 4.3 cats a week. If they had a 6 month season as we do in Oregon that would add up to 111 cats. If they hunted year round it would add up to 223 cats. I would call that a pretty good population myself.

I don't think the math would quite work out that way if extended for a full year. Said hunter would lack the snow it takes in low density areas to find cats for much of the year. He'd also run out of green stuff in his wallet to fill the tank it takes to find Mr stubby.

I'm assuming that Maine is similar to MN WI or MI when it comes to cats. Quite a bit of road time to find a track, and you best not pass it up too many or you'll run out of daylight. And hopefully you've got a dog in the truck that can take that track or you better be willing to lace em up and walk them up. Then sometimes they are all over and you can't ever get straightened out on a single cat. The next time the cat trees or catches in 10 minutes while the next dozen races make you look like a rookie. Just the way it goes with cats.

The only thing I know about cats is they piss me off to no end and make no sense. It's not even the same effort to catch one in sections on opposite sides of the road so I can only imagine how different, difficult or easy it could be hundreds or thousands of miles away. The only real way to know is load up the mutts and give it a whirl, it might be just what you thought or completely different. I only know what I've seen.

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Always love to hear from South Texas. I sure wish I had the cat populations that he has but what bobcats we had five years ago are gone. I have heard that the die off was because of feline distemper, I am not sure but I know that the population was affected across he Hill Country and into the Trans Pecos and as far north as Snyder. I have two buddies that have sold all their cat dogs because they have nothing to run. I have not seen a cat track or scat on any of the ranches I hunt in Menard County in over two years. I am sure that they will return but cats don't bounce back like the coyotes do.
I will continue to hunt coons to keep the dogs in shape and train young dogs. One thing about hunting coons, when I go out west to lion country, I rarely find a coon track.
I am headed to Justiceburg on Sunday to hunt with Riley Miller for a couple of mornings. He can't go to the dogs but wants to hear them go. I know it will be a blessing and can't wait to hear his stories.
My good friend, J. Martin Bassinger was in a car wreck a couple of weeks ago. He broke his neck and had surgery. I talked with him yesterday and he is doing pretty good. He is wearing a neck brace and is taking therapy to regain full mobility of his arms. I am planning to check on him when I am up at Riley's.
Adios,
Gary

south texan...please see your pm

Gary, sorry to hear about your cats. Wow, when Mother Nature goes cat hunting she has no mercy.

Sounds like your friends are blessed with a faithful Freind.

Gary Roberson wrote:My good friend, J. Martin Bassinger was in a car wreck a couple of weeks ago. He broke his neck and had surgery. I talked with him yesterday and he is doing pretty good. He is wearing a neck brace and is taking therapy to regain full mobility of his arms. I am planning to check on him when I am up at Riley's.
Adios,
Gary

Gary

Please tell J Martin greetings from Oregon along with thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery! What a nice man to talk too!

Thanks!
Mike Martell

I saw where barometric pressure was mentioned earlier about affecting trailing conditions, can some one who has some knowledge on this elaborate more about it. I'm asking out of curiosity and know about it.

Just got off the phone with Riley Miller and he got a nice rain yesterday. Said it is going to be too wet for a couple of days so I postponed my trip until Tuesday.
I will run by and visit with J. Martin while I am up there. I know he is going to be ready to visit as he has not been out since the wreck.
Adios,
Gary

Goose wrote:I saw where barometric pressure was mentioned earlier about affecting trailing conditions, can some one who has some knowledge on this elaborate more about it. I'm asking out of curiosity and know about it.

So, atmospheric pressure does have an effect on how fast a scent leaves an area or dissipates to nothing if you will. When a cat or any critter for that matter wanders through an area a certain amount of molecules that hold a cats scent are sloughing off with every step. Now there's a few things that effect how long those floating cat scented molecules will hang around and pressure is one of them. As the air becomes more and more dense, or becomes a higher pressure, the ability of that scent to float up and away lessens. There were some days I would be rigging up my dogs and look at my smoke stack coming off my house. On the real high pressure days with out any wind the smoke would bellow out of the chimney and sink to the ground and roll out over the hills. I knew on them days that if it was above freezing we could; one pick up older then usual trails and two move hotter trails faster. Think of it this way, atmospheric pressure is the resistance to the smoke floating away. As that smoke is pushing, trying to float up into the clouds and disappear the atmosphere is pushing right back. If you notice hanging clothes on the line and there time spent drying can also be affected by pressure. On the high pressure days (with out wind involved) they wont dry as fast. On high pressure days layup dogs can do some of there best work because scent is being pushed down out of the trees where the game is located. Pressure differential is a complex but interesting thing that can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on when and where. One of my first year college chemistry professors once told me that temperature and pressure effects everything, I'm still finding that out to this day, Hope that helps I kind of rambled.

So, does that mean on days when smoke is not pushed to the ground, the colder nose dogs have the same tracking ability as the hotter nosed dogs????? Al

That's a good question and I guess I don't have an answer for you. I feel like pressure or the lack there of is completely situational as to whether or not it helps or hurts a dogs ability to move a track. Also there's about 15 to 20 other variables that effect scenting conditions and what that pressure can do. I guess all this to me is a time thing and effecting how long before a trail dries up. So on a low pressure day above say 60 degrees there's going to be a lot of scent dissipating out of the ground. So the amount of molecules available for the dog to track is going to be a huge amount. The down side to this is that the trail only has so much scent to offer and once its gone its done. Those types of trails have a lot to offer but disappear fast. This I think is why on hot dry low pressure days we can watch a bobcat cross the road, call the dogs overs and watch them not even know there was a cat there. The scent dried up so fast that it completely disappeared in a few minutes. On the other hand a person can maybe find some decent slower scent releasing sub straight or vegetation down off the road for the same cat and his dogs can pick the trail back up. It's all where, when, and how the scent was laid down depicts how long before it gets up and leaves.

Tanner Peyton wrote:One of my first year college chemistry professors once told me that temperature and pressure effects everything,

You just couldn't wait for me to ask my question could ya? HAHA!

I was gonna ask you so what's your thoughts on how scent is affected by the dissipation of heat? Day late and a dollar short. Story of my dog gone life.

Tanner, great job explaining pressure. Makes a lot of sense. I never thought of it in that context.

Are you sure that you are not talking about an inversion? I have been paying close attention to the barometric pressure for a couple years now and my observations are that the lower the BP is the better the trailing is and the running. 30.30 and above seems to be where the dogs have a harder time with both. When it gets below 30.00 things really get good. Inversions usually occur in high pressure situations and when i see the smoke coming straight down i will try to gain enough elevation to get up to where the air is moving and not stagnant. Game can be caught in both scenarios but my races and trailing sure sound alot better when the pressure is lower.

Inversion that/s a word I remember from about 9th grade general science class, explained by Mr. Hill the science teacher. Good job Mark, blows some of the stale air out of my head. Thanks Al