BigGameHoundsmen.com

Dairy Farmer,

I Saw your thread looking for a bobcat tag.
I cant beleive you have to try and find someone with a tag just so you can hunt bobcat this year! This gets me so angry. I know how much it means to you and others like you.

There are those of us who think of and dream of bobcat hunting every single day, and wait with great anticipation for the days that we can actually do it. We put all kinds of time and money into our dogs, equipment, liscenses, planning and prepairation for those wonderful days in the woods. I know that is how it is for you, and it kills me that now you have no tag for hunting bobcat this year.

I wish so bad that the DNR of states that need to be careful of bobcat populations could understand something about the sport of hunting bobcats with dogs. All their stats are very clear: at least 75% of the bobcat kill is with traps. And then one of the nations greatest, cleanest, most challenging of all outdoor sports is eliminated by something that, in my opinion, is not really a sport at all: Trapping. (If catching Salmon with a huge net is a sport, then, I would say Trapping is a sport along the same lines. ) If furs were worth absolutely Zero, that is about the number of trappers that would be out. Really, it is more of a comercial endeavor.

Dont get me wrong. I love trapping. I trapped since I was 8 years old. If I hunt everyday the rest of my life, I will never catch as many animals as I have in traps. And I have trapped enough to know that bobcats are the easiest of all predators to trap. The skill needed to trap a bobcat is similar to the skill needed to trap a muskrat, except that there are more muskrats. Bobcats also provide one of the greatest challenges to sporting locating tree dogs immaginable. This is a gross injustice.

Imagine this: let's open up all the trout streams to fish traps and netting with gill nets across the stream, and drive the fish into them. Then lets put a quota on all trout caught. Then lets include all flyfishermen in that quota. The percentage caught by artificial flys would be a tiny fraction.
And there would be an outrage among flyfishermen so loud that the state would be forced to respond to it and make regulations that would allow fly fishermen a little bit of fairness.

Bobcat hunting with dogs is every bit as sporting and clean and noble and challenging and intriguing as fly fishing for trout. I want our DNR's to realize this and do something right for the sport of bobcat hunting with dogs.

The fact that you can not hunt bobcat this year because no one in your party drew a tag is an absolute outrage.

The State records are estimating the Wisconsin bobcat population at over 3,000 animals, up from 1,500 a few years back.

Get some of those smart houndmen in your state to come up with a workable plan to present to the DNR as a suggestion for promoting and maintaining this great sport of bobcat hunting with dogs.

Ask that the dog men get a chance at 1/2 of the bobcats harvested, and bobcat HUNTING tags be issued freely to anyone HUNTING bobcats until that estimated 1/2 way point is reached. Then subject the hunters to the same drawing the trappers have to use. All carcasses are turned in to the state, and all furs/carcasses examined for the evidence of trap/connibear/or snare. Any questionable markings elimminates the bobcat from the HUNTING quota, and puts it in the TRAPPING quota and gives the trapper posing as a houndman a hefty fine.

They wont listen unless it means more money for the dept. but SELL the HUNTING tags freely, and SELL as many as they want, because the bobcat population will be safe if the bobcats are not OVER TRAPPED.

The best way to do it is to have a statewide quota system. When x amount of bobcats are taken, then the season is over.

The problem with that is the quota will be filled at least 75% by trapped bobcats. And the sportsmen who wait all year for this, loose out on what could have been a nice long season for them and their high maintanance, expensive dogs.

If it were like lions that can not be trapped, yes I see it.

I am not advocating that bobcats not be trapped at all. I am just saying lets make it fair.

Trappers have a dozen or more animals they can have fun with. For a die-hard bobcat hunter, there is only one animal.

Which brings up another point: how come it is illegal to hunt fisher with dogs. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. They will run and tree when trailed by dogs. And again, I would be very certain the percentage of fisher killed by hunting would be a small fraction of those killed by trapping.

David,

Ease back on the throttle there bud, in 2007 421 cats were shot in WI with 304 taken by houndsman. Or at least said were taken by hounds. In our neck of the woods I know a lot more hound guys than trappers, and the majority of trappers are hound guys.

Besides, you can still hunt for cats without a tag you just can't kill them. It takes a little bit of the luster away when you've got a pop can size track and not tag in your pocket, but at least you can still let the dogs run.

One thing that irks me is that you can't shoot a fisher to tag it. I realize it's because you can't hunt them with dogs (which is pretty dumb if you ask me). But I don't think many guys are going to hunt them because it will become a problem in all other critters you try to hound hunt. It's a royal PITA to try and dispatch a fisher when you've got a tag in your pocket and a fisher in a live trap. Eventually you are going to lose one, unless you want to hump it around to water every time.

welcome to bobcat hunting in MT, we have a three county wide trapping district with a bobcat quota of 250 and a personal limit of 4 bobcats each. Thats for hunters and trappers alike, so if you really want to kill a bobcat under your dogs you got to get out there and pound the roads, snow or no snow because the trappers have thier steel in the woods 24/7. You can only hunt them a half hour before sunrise till a half hour after sunset when the Mtn lion district your hunting in is still open, if that Mtn lion district closes bobcat hunting is open two hours before sunrise to half hour after sunset, the bobcat quota is usally reached well before that happens though and/or a Mtn lion district rarely closes.

so the short bus is always loaded and ready to roll at a moments notice

In Idaho bobcat season is open for two months, for trappers and doggers. We can no longer hunt them at night, but for some reason Trappers can leave their traps set during the night. Considering we have 9 hours of daylight to hunt, the trappers get almost triple the amount of time to get a cat as we do. I have never seen the fairness in it and never will. Most like to brag on the amount of cats they catch, even though they keep all of them, but have them let females and little ones go, and let us doggers hunt 24-7 like we used to, and then we'll tally it up.

That is another reason I moved out of Wisconsin! More game elsewhere.

Preston, you can hunt bobcats at night. You just can't use an artificial light while hunting them or shooting them.

In Idaho bobcat season is open for two months, for trappers and doggers. We can no longer hunt them at night, but for some reason Trappers can leave their traps set during the night.

Same thing in Montana. Really unfair in my opinion.

Nolte wrote:David,

Ease back on the throttle there bud, in 2007 421 cats were shot in WI with 304 taken by houndsman. Besides, you can still hunt for cats without a tag you just can't kill them. .

Holy smokes was I ever wrong about that!!! Now I gotta make a case for us poor trappers. Dang man, you dirty houndsmen are hogging all the bobcats. How would you like it if you were a trout netter and all the fly fishermen were catching 75% of the trout!!!??? lol.

I stand corrected. If that is really true, you guys need to get a little less efficient at gunning those running cats. Trade in your shotguns for .22 handguns. It's all you need anyway. Right Danny?

david

I know it's the exact opposite in MN with trappers taking the majority.

I looked in the regs now and I believe you need a cat tag in posession while hunting cats. But I've never heard of anyone getting a ticket for hunting them without one, when not trying to kill one.

I'm positive the big reason that trappers don't take more is that trappers don't get all fired up for it, since you can only get a tag once every 5 years. Hound guys can get away with that because they've got dogs to chase other critters and have a greater pool of people that could draw a tag. Plus like I said a lot of the trappers in our neck of the woods are also hound guys.

All I know is you better have your ducks in a row and catch those critters by the letter of the law. Cause Johnny Law in WI has a major hang up over ticky-tac tagging/transport laws dealing with small critters you need a tag for. If you don't believe me tell the CO at tag validation, that you couldn't put the tag in the critter in the woods and had to wait till it thawed out. r have a tag attached using a zip tie or piece of string. You'll have a ticket in your hand and your critter confiscated before you can blink.

I don't think this crow was cooked right!?! I was always under the same impression. Something stinks about those WI. numbers though. Most other states (including MN.) have statisics that are just the opposite. I wonder if having MN. right next door where you can get five cats on your small game license each and every year has anything to do with the numbers in Western WI. Or...I wonder if many people avoid paying for a traping lisence by saying that the cat they are turning in was taken under dogs. It would save you having to go to trapers education and also paying for a traping lisence. Hhmmmm? Otherwise, it's some very odd coincidence that most other states have almost exactly the opposite take numbers with respect to hunting versus traping. I could be wrong but I'll bet I'm not. I would like to devote a bunch of my time to making the cat tags more available to the dog guys but those numbers absolutely make it impossible to argue my point. Kinda sucks. the WI DNR are not my favorite bunch of folks to begin with. After having seen them monkey up the bear population analysis and now looking at the bobcat numbers...makes me want to move again.

Dan Drover, I read what you posted, and have heard that before from a friend that is an outfitter in the north. The main problem is the fight with the warden. He was told if you find a track in the headlights, you can't run it, and the sidelights on our rigs are illegal too. So there is some loop-holes that I haven't been willing to fight over like he has.
I wish it was just cut and dried, and we got the same amount of hunting time as the trappers.

In the yearbook for the WBHA it does state the kill is heavily in our favor,trappers taking a very small # of cats.

As both a trapper and a houndsmen i can see bothside of this. As usual the Fish and Wildlife Services completely screw up everything they so call manage. In Montana we have Quota System and last year all but one district stays open for a month or month and a half. This amount of time should give anyone with a real interest time to take a bobcat if they really put out any kind of real effort. With personal bag limits being 4-7 cats each this really lets the trappers take the majority of the bobcats. As in all hunting, bag limits set by the states should be 100% about manageing animal populations first and second about Opportunity of the general public. No 20-30 people should be allowed to take 90% of the bobcats from one district year after year or even one year. Dropping personal bag limits to one cat would help more people getting the opportunity to take a bobcat. But most would just buy tags for there wife ,uncles, aunts ect. With that said how many houndsman cut bobcat tracks and leave them to go find lion tracks maybe coming back to run a bob in the afternoon if they didnt find a lion to run. Seems there a never ending supply of things to bytch about. Im back to being hung up on having wolves shoved down our throats to complain about other things. Ever since gas prices have fell by almost 50% im gona have to find something else to complain about. jmo dgarrett

dgarrett you said it all Good job Lets bitch about wolves and anti's