how tough is a bobcat ? !!!!!!!!!

[tmalone]

i have been reading the old bobcat posts, alot of talk on what what kind of hound it takes to catch to catch one on the ground, but my question is how tough is he when caught? i hunt coyotes in NY , and when caught they can tear a hound up, with my hounds it can take 2 or 3 hounds to finish him, i have 1 hound that has done it by her self but she pays the price, my hounds are running walkers. how tough compared to a coyote?

[George Streepy]

I have bobcat dogs but a few times over the years they have trashed on me and caught coyotes. I am sure it will vary with different areas and such but the coyotes didn't leave a scratch. In my opinion a decent sized bobcat is a whole lot tougher than a coyote. It will also depend on where they catch at, bobcats like culverts and holes, it makes it harder on dogs to get in there. The coyotes that I have caught were in fairly open places.

[cat and bear]

A cat especially a big tom, will make any dog back up, they will grab on underneath their chest, and put a locking grip on a dog, or be on their head before the dog knows what happended, a caught coyote in my opinion isnt even close. cats are fast and tough, in a scrap.

[orbowhunter1971]

They can be very tough, due to their outstanding agility, speed, and ability to latch onto a dog. The worst thing is the infections they cause when they bite a dog. Most bobcat hunters keep meds with them if their dogs get bitten by a cat because the infection can spread very rapidly.

[Hipshooter]

I will have to differ on this subject.
A coyote is harder to kill
A coyote has to be chocked out finally
A good kill cat dog can kill a cat quick, lot quicker than a coyote.
A cat dog will get a few cuts but, a cat can,t stand to be bitten in the midsection.
A cat dog that is not afraid to get bit or scratched a little will grab the cat take the air right out of them.
Very few straight trail hounds can kill a coyote by them selves.
but a lot can kill a bobcat by them selves. This is on average coyote & average bobcat. 40 lb bobcat can be vrry tough & a 50 lb coyote can be tough. I caught a 62 lb coyote one time.
Just my 2 cents worth

[mtncurhunter]

When it comes to being tough I agree with Hipshooter. Coyotes can take a heck of a beating. But I believe that a bobcat is way harder on a dog. Coyotes only have teeth to fight with. Cats use all 4 feet and there teeth. They can rip a dog wide open if they don't get the job done quick.

[Hipshooter]

I am talking one on one
A pack can do it all in short order

[coastrangecathunting]

i think alot depends on the dog doing the killing ive seen some expepts and some that make it look like a monkey f ing a football. i dont know witch is harder but like orbowhunter said its the infection from the bob that is bad. especially when the dog is bit in the joint on the front leg. any time my dogs get in a fight with a cat i give them pinicillion for 5 days.

jc

[david]

I remember meeting a bobcat hunter in a breakfast cafe one morning, he was telling me how they have been doing etc, etc, and I was right with him until he told me how those bobcats will lay down and rip a dogs guts out with their hind feet. At that point, I hate to admit it, but I then doubted everything else he had said up to that point. I just have never seen it.

It seems logical, and I have sure had my forearm scratched by a house cat kitty doing that very thing, but I just have never had a dog badly injured by a bobcat. I have had my dogs kill a lot of bobcats on the ground, much to my dismay. Our cat season is snow season, and dont like to put down on a track that wont lead to at least 30 pounds of bobcat.

I cant comment on coyote, because I have never hunted them with dogs. But I will say this; our bobcats get big, but our coons actually can get just as big, and I would rather my dog fight a bobcat to the death, than to fight a coon of similar weight to the death. That dog MIGHT eventually beat the big coon, but the dog will be COMPLETELY exhausted. I have never seen that kind of hunt stopping exhaustion from a bobcat kill.

There is nothing I have hunted that seems as fragile as a bobcat. I wish they did not die so easily. And I wish I could find dogs that could hold a bobcat tightly bayed, but never ever kill it. They are valiant fighters and well equiped with cutting tools, but somehow, just not very tough in my opinion. I wish they were.

[briarpatch]

Hipshooter and David, you guys are certainly correct about the average bobcat being very easily killed by dogs that will FIGHT. Now if your dog just bays and nips he may never get the job done. When a dog gives a deep bite in the chest of the cat the fight is over. Just talking Texas cats now (25-30lbs.)

briarpatch

[Hipshooter]

I hunted coyotes with trail hounds for 40 years
only way a trail hound can kill a coyote alone
is to get the throte & finally choke him out.
Several dogs can streach him then get him in the chest
and make short work, but not one dog.
Lots of hog dogs can kill a coyote, but they are never at the catch.

[dwalton]

Cats are easy for a hound to kill, except if the cat is in a hole that the hounds can't get to him. A dog that will go in and grab a cat will kill it quickly. A lots of dogs just go in get slapped and back off, that will not kill a cat. I seen many cats killed that have never let a mark on a dog. The bites and cuts will get infected easily. I have caught more coyotes on the ground than I would like to emit to. If the dogs go in and work together they will kill then also. They seem to get hurt a lot more from a coyote. Dewey

[johnnyrick1981]

I dont know where most of you guy's are hunting your cat's but I'm guessing that the majority of you are talking about smaller cat's 10-25 lbs. A 35lb cat is a wrecking ball, at least here in michigan, we run cat's and coyotes and both mine and my buddies dog's catch and grab, whether its a coyote or a cat. A big cat 35-40+ will absolutely overwhelm a lone hound, the tougher the dog is just means he'll be beat up that much more at the end of the hunt. Maybe our cat's here in the U.P. are just plain mean.

[pegleg]

cats are individuals like every thing else. some get damn big and others are just big house cats . I've seen them get killed so quick the trail sounded like it just died out. i've come up on a few in the brush that had the dogs dripping. they are fast and when they have been bayed in a bush that the dogs can kinda get into but not real well that tips the scales in the cats favor some realize this and can't be pushed out no matter what. run through it like a squirrel and every time a hound reaches in they bounce off his head and move. I've run them on the plains and you never have a standoff like that as it gives the dogs room to get a hold. cats don't handle shock real well.
coyotes handle shock pretty good they are tough and will deal with pain better then a cat. they also average around twice the size of a average bobcat. coyotes are much thicker skinned then cats so you seldom get one peeled out of it's skin by the hounds. and again the size of the hounds and their skill play into how much of a chance the coyote has. so given the right circumstance they can both damage a hound pretty badly.

[dwalton]

I have caught bobcats in Or.,Wash., Cal., Nevada and Colorado. It does vary with where you are at and the cats are bigger in the Great Lakes area. They say they bay up more there and in the book Traveller by B.S. Jones [ I love the name of the author] he talks of dogs being killed by bobcats in Florida. Our big toms go 26 to 35 lbs here in Western Oregon. I have caught a 30lb tom that the dogs killed without leaving a mark on a dog. They can run themselves out to the point they can not fight. Dewey