Small Game, Predator and TrappingFrom shooting squirrels in your backyard to calling coyotes in Arizona. This forum now contains trapping information..
Had some luck opening weekend of deer season here in Washington. No bucks but did score a nice kitty and a doggie on Sat. and Sun. My first bobcat, should make a nice addition to our home decorations.
Saturday I shot a nice tom bobcat that walked into the clearing wheremy wifeand I hunt. I had been playing with a new fawn-bleat-in-a-can that morning and I suspect I might have called him in with that. I've read that bobcats can take up to an hour to come to a call and this one had come about 30-45 minutes after the last call with the can. I've never seen a bobcat up there before and this is my first one I've ever harvested.
A lesson from my mistake, if you want to have it full-body mounted make sure to take the cat in whole so the taxidermist can get measurements from it. I had only planned on making a nice pelt out of it so I wasn't too worried but if you are doing a full body you actually cut it down the back, not the belly like I did. Live and learn I guess...
Sunday morning we heard some song dogs howling close by so I got the can out again and called in a nice 'yote, which dropped within about 10 yards of where I shot the cat the day before. I thinkmy wifewas frustrated with me for doing all the shooting that weekend when we were 'trying to deer hunt'.
2 more days of deer hunting up North and I saw a lot of deer including a little spike muley but nothing I could shoot. Hopefully this weekend I can get out again and try to fill my tag.
I was deer hunting as I stated with my 7mm Rem Mag and handloaded 160g Nosler Accubonds at just a tic over 3000 fps. The coyote took the hit as I expected, shot one last year running with the same load and it just rolled end over end and stopped dead. The bobcat was another story. You can see in the skinned out picture my bullet entered behind the left front shoulder and exited the rear right side. It was quartering toward me at about 73 yards away at a slow walk when I shot. What was really interesting is the thing had 'stuff' coming out both holes, it really wrecked that cat something fierce. Never seen a hit from this setup do that before, usually just a tiny hole on the entrance and big hole out the back. Both holes in the cat were golf-ball size or larger.
Any experts out there know how big that cat seems? The head is easily twice as big as my 20# housecat I have. Talking to a taxidermist he said a really big one is 25-28#'s.
Bobcat and coyote (pics)
