nose or tree power?

[Dan Edwards]

I shouldnt be replying here but I'm a know it all so I'm gonna anyhow. If I were a cat hunter I would want the dogs that consistently catch or tree cats. I see no reason to get hung up on traits.

[Bobcat-Tim]

Hello
I have guided in the U.P of Michigan for bobcats and have found that you need a cold nose dog to get things going then you can feed in other dogs but many times the snow,humidity will change mid day and the hot nose dog cannot smell I have cold nose dogs that can tree and catch the problem is snow is it icy,deep powder then how big is the cat the smaller the cat the tougher the race they can stay on top we always like to train the dogs on small cats then hunt the big boys.

If the snow gets real deep and the cats start trenching and tracking is poor a cold nose dog can look really stupid because it just keeps going around in the same track while the cat jumped off a more experince cat dog will figure it out most times.

There are some many varibles in cat hunting that there is never a perfect dog for every race.

Then you throw in a large cat 40lbs to 50lb to the mix can the dog hold him .
..................Take care............

[cat and bear]

I'm a part time hunter so I've got limited days I can hunt. If a guy waits for good snow conditions in WI, he might be waiting awhile. I can't remember the last good snow winter we had in our country, maybe 8 years ago. Seems we get a good blast, then it rains, then drops below zero. All that good snow just got turned to concrete and is junk. Some of the "skiffs" we run on are more like pellatized ice than normal snow. This stuff holds very little scent, so that why I like the colder the better. But I agree, in good snow a guy can get a cat rolling with a little leg work.

Our other part is we don't have many cats. I usually can't give up on this one to go run the next. It's either not there or someone else has it. The days are real short in cat season too, so there isn't much time to try something else. Where our cats hang out can be A1 hell holes and not the places a guy wants to hang out after dark when it's below zero.

These are more of the reasons I want as cold of nosed dog as I can get.

Well Said Nolte, our cat season and hunting is much different then some folks, its nothing to go two or three days without a track, or try and work up a day old track, nose power, move it step for step, and when they can smell it, cover ground. a cold trailer is priceless here, for bobcats.

[david]

Which is more important to you as a bobcat hunter cold nosed tracking ability or treeing ability in your hound? I am talking as if you can just have ONE dog.

It is a great thread, started by a great question. I have enjoyed each answer. My answer would vary according to where I lived. But one thing I like about bobcat hunting is catching bobcats. I absolutely love a great cold tracker. One that does not make mistakes will take a very, very difficult sport of very hard work and turn it into a relaxing morning of lazy fun.

But, and it is a BIG BUT: I gotta have something that will CATCH a bobcat. Not tree, but catch, stop him on the ground. The rules of the game was ONE dog. I am going to have one that can stop a bobcat on the ground. These dogs, in my limited experience, do not usually have the patience to pound out a difficult track. there may be tracks I must pass up, there may be others I will have to walk up myself if there is snow to do it, If there is no snow and no tracks, I may have to walk into the areas I know of potential bobcat bedrooms, but when we finally do get a cat jumped, I know the dogs' chances are at least as good as the cats' chances in that particular game. And my chances of taking that cat home with me are pretty good, should that be my goal for that day.

The dogs I have seen that could do this just happened to be decent to excelent tree dogs also, but I never saw them in difficult locating situations. They either saw the cat climb, and instantly went to hard treeing, or they easily spotted the cat because it was swayiing back and forth like a heavy lolipop on a flimsy stick. Those cats do not get to choose big trees. They climb now, or face off.

I know this was not the question, but if I had to choose between a strong tree dog that seldom if ever stopped a bobcat on the ground, and an absolute non-tree dog that very consistently stopped them on the ground, I would take the non-tree dog. I take him because I will catch more cats with him than the tree dog. This has been proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt in the areas I have been stuck in for the last 25 years. It might not be so true in other areas.


Philosophically speaking, I have an awful lot in common with this fellow here:


Dan Edwards Post subject: Re: nose or tree power?Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:50 pm

" If I were a cat hunter I would want the dogs that consistently catch or tree cats. I see no reason to get hung up on traits."

makes me laugh, and it is so simple and so true. The one trait we want "he catches bobcats"

thanks for making us think a little Twist.

[ferjr]

just my opinion, not that it matters much but you have to have a good nose in order to have something to tree!

[david]

ferjr, I do have a good nose!

I have cold tracked and jumped many a bobcat (in snow) with nothing but an idiot pup who could do nothing but run a red hot track. I have also walked into areas that road hunters will never see, and jumped red hot cats. Twist, please do not limit me to one dog, I am just too old for that much hard work any more Let me take that star cold tracker in there with my cat catcher

I myself have never owned or seen a super fine cold nosed dog that could consistently, if ever, stop a bobcat on the ground, (unless it had the "catching snow" where nearly any broke coon hound could catch a bobcat). I am not saying there are none, just saying I have never hunted with one that could prove it to me.

There are some pretty knowledgeable houndsmen I have been with who had it wrong about " 'ol so and so", because they are not in there with the dogs to see "young such and such" who actually is the one who shut up and caught up to the cat and forced it to stop a couple seconds ahead of 'ol cold nosed so and so, who NEVER would have actually forced that cat to stop without that kind of genetic magic out ahead of him.

[twist]

just my opinion, not that it matters much but you have to have a good nose in order to have something to tree!

I have had a few what I would call medium nosed bobcat catching dog that were bang up locaters and great tree dogs. So I myself do not believe you have to have a cold nose to have a great tree dog just a SMART dog that wants to finish a track!


david great response I was starting to worry you werent going to chim in. That just (one) dog is the killer

[ferjr]

just my opinion, not that it matters much but you have to have a good nose in order to have something to tree!

I have had a few what I would call medium nosed bobcat catching dog that were bang up locaters and great tree dogs. So I myself do not believe you have to have a cold nose to have a great tree dog just a SMART dog that wants to finish a track!


david great response I was starting to worry you werent going to chim in. That just (one) dog is the killer

i have never hunted bobcat, was just stateing what i thought made since to me. you have to locate it in order to tree it, right?

[twist]

ferjr not meening anything against your post just stating that in my experiance with bobcat dogs you just dont need that old cold nosed dog to tree alot of cats just the real (smart) locaters that no how to put and end to the track.

[cobalt]

The best locate treedogs for bobcat I've seen were not cold nosed dogs. When they treed you were gonna see eyeballs. The colder nosed bobcat dogs I've seen often got hung up more times on a tap than a dog with less nose. But in the end I will take a cold nose dog(but not a straddler) because I want to run every track I find in good conditions and bad. Stay put tree dogs, whether their outstanding locaters or average are also a must.

[Nolte]

[there may be tracks I must pass up, there may be others I will have to walk up myself if there is snow to do it, If there is no snow and no tracks, I may have to walk into the areas I know of potential bobcat bedrooms.

David,

You were hunting the same turf I'm in, LONG before I ever dropped there. I'd about bet those bedrooms are still the same and will be LONG after I'm gone. It's kind of a double edged sword though. You bet you'll find a cat, but chances are along the way your'e going to bump into a nest of cats and good luck figuring out that mess. A 3 day old snow and a pile of cats pokin around make it about impossible to figure out which way is up. That's about the time I start to rely on plain old LUCK.

I don't know why, but in this country cats don't like to tree real often. Sure you'll put the up the occaisonal one to make you think you know what you're doing, but the odds aren't in your favor. So a bang-up locator isn't all that important, nice but not neccesary. A wicked fast track dog that doesn't make losses and cut's the right corners is MUCH more valuable. Now that I think about it, a locator is important here but not a conventional one that finds his critter in a tree. It's the dog that knows where to look for the cat that slunk out or his hiding spot after it screwed down. More cats are lost/ or track's blow up and that cat isn't 100 yards away from spot it got screwed up. But I still haven't figured out a surefire way to figure it out.

I've talked to quite a few guys who've hunted here vs other areas and they all tell me it's a tougher road in this neighborhood. Don't know why, but it just seems to be the popular opinion. I've had my crappy dogs get on a mini-roll in other areas to come back here when the snow got good and get my ass handed to me. I'm sure there are other areas of the world that are the same way. Hopefully I'll get a chance to give them a whirl some day.

[blackpaws]

i like the cold trailer that goes down the bare ice where damn near all of the cats end up around here anyways and be able to make the cat leave the ice. i have a dog here now that can cold trail pretty good and really put some good pressure on and seems to have some brains to figure things out but the idiot can't figure out that the cat went up a tree. saw him do it 3 times last year on the same cat. the cat would tree and he would blow right past. cat would come down and he would find it again. get it rolling again and gain ground to put it up. blow right past. he's only hunted on cats a couple times a year because we have 30 deer seasons here in wisconsin that go half way through december. add that to crap snow conditions and you got 1 one weekend in decmber to hunt. hopefully get a few more hunts in now that they changed the season dates. Anyhow, my answer to the question is i want a smart cold trailer that can figure out the cat went up the tree. locate it and tree.

[Lil Joes BigGame hounds]

I guess it really depends on where you are hunting and what you expect your dogs to do. When I turn out on a cat here in N.M. I want the dogs to run it and put it in the first tree the cat can climb. But Im not a very serious hunter of the short tail.

On the other hand I went to Arkansas to hunt with some real serious cat hunters and they would hate when a cat went up. They would measure the successes of a hunt in how long the dogs ran the cat at a high rate of speed. When they did put a cat up they would just call the dogs out and go find another track. It was so thick in that country who would even want to walk to a tree.

[david]

[ I'd about bet those bedrooms are still the same and will be LONG after I'm gone. .

Amen! That is why we dont burn up those bobcat hotels, or destroy the dens where they take refuge. And if we protect those sacred places, yes, they will be there long after we are gone.

[ Now that I think about it, a locator is important here but not a conventional one that finds his critter in a tree. It's the dog that knows where to look for the cat that slunk out or his hiding spot after it screwed down. More cats are lost/ or track's blow up and that cat isn't 100 yards away from spot it got screwed up. But I still haven't figured out a surefire way to figure it out.
.

For new bobcat hunters there is a gold coin Nolte just handed you. It was hard earned, and freely given. Put it in your pocket. Then on one of those hunts where you are trying to figure things out, take that coin out and look at it. It might give you some answers.

Nolte, Have you ever found that a shotgun blast or two in the area gets the cat moving out of there? I wont carry a cannon myself, the wheels keep getting hung up in the brush, but I have heard this has worked for a serious Michigan cat hunter I know.

[blackpaws]

Nolte, Have you ever found that a shotgun blast or two in the area gets the cat moving out of there?

works wonders. if you aren't carrying the cannon, a few loud hollars at the dog will get the cat lined out most of the time. like Nolte said, the cat is less than 100 yards away. most of the time when he gets line out off the cork screw that he is running, the dog can gain ground really quick. this will make the cat screw down again or go up. then the locating comes in.