Ghost bobcats

[mike martell]

Copy that Mr Jim....... I was expecting that any time.....

Here is what I know for sure....I bet it is hotter than the devil down south in your neck of the woods....Take Care,

Mike

[South Texan]

Mark
Remembering back, I cant recall a cat doing his scent holding here where there is heavy underbrush. Maybe that is why, to much to brush on & can't get it done.

The times I have witnessed this is in cover sparce enough that the cat didn't have to rub on any brush to get through & bare ground. Even though tuff ground cover the cat can be run after being jumped.

This is something you don't see in all cats. I'll guess & say I might see this 1 in 30 to 40 cats. There is no way to prove this but after you have seen it will lead you to believe a cat has this ability.
Robbie

[al baldwin]

Good question Mark, had to think a little. I don/t believe being in the brush here, makes a sufficient difference when dogs are trailing on a sneaking, tip toeing cat. I say that because I have witnessed many times as dogs trailed thru some brushy terrain, have the cat hit an small opening where I seen the cat, then back into the brush, did not seem to change the speed the dogs trailed. My very first mentor, had the opinion the dogs could trail about the same speed cat traveled, until the cat got spooked. I talked with a hunter who was running coyotes in the pens, he told me those coyote got wise and became as difficult to trail as those type cats. I have little experience with grey fox, however, years ago one hung close to my house. I would let the hounds loose in the evenings, they would go to a big brier patch near the creek get that fox going, before the summer was over all they did for the most part was trail. I seen the little critter several times and had I not would have swore they were trailing an educated cat. Those were great evenings, that little critter was so predictable all I needed to do was stand on a crossing and call the dogs off at dark. I actually would do maintenance around the place and listen to the hounds, does not get much better. Al

[Old dog]

ever see fog in layers? im thinkin scent doesthisalso. had a dog named ben that I got from jc when he was like ten years old , he was a sure enough allaround dog. seen times when the fog was layerd that he would strike red hot and not be able to handle the track. also seen this with numerous lesser dogs...jmo

[dwalton]

Their are a lot of factors about scent conditions fog, ,cold, to wet, hot all affect cat trailing. When I first started out Roland told me if the cat is walking the dogs will have to cold trail him. I believe this in many cases. Dogs not being able to smell a bobcat that you have seen is a totally different thing for me. I know it is scientifically impossible for a bobcat to with hold its scent. That does not change the fact that I have seen it happen several times a cat that I saw and the dogs could not smell it in good scent conditions. Hound men are great about the stories I want the facts, what happen, what caused it and what are the result. Bobcats holding their scent is one thing that I have never been able to figure out even though I have seen it. Dewey

[LarryBeggs]

I agree that a cat seems to put off more scent when they are running. But is the cat really putting off more scent or just not being as careful what it bumps into and leaves scent on? Or are the dogs just running the scent in the air the cat gave off that hasn't dissipated yet ?

A couple winters ago my son was running a cat with a friend. It was jumped and then a big loose. Twenty minutes later dogs were still looking for it in same spot. Thinking it was up and was a hard locate they walked in to dogs who were still looking. Not finding anything they headed for truck and left dogs to look. Almost to the truck they spotted the cat sneaking up the hill beside them. Twenty minutes after that four of the dogs came trailing through. Cat got away. Couple days later some of the same dogs treed what I am pretty sure was same cat. Did cat hold scent one day and not the other?

One of the few times I ever hunted on the east side. I was trailing a cat. Dogs had just crossed a mainline. No tire tracks in it. Few minutes later another hound guy comes along. we talk for a while and he leaves. Race is starting to sound pretty good. About ready to jump. Cat hits the road and runs down other hunters tire track. Seems to just disappear. Hunter left about fifteen minutes earlier. About an hour later find the cat track crossing a little spur near where I had lost it. Put on it and about three hours later , several thinned out lodge pole patches, several more roads(none of which had tire tracks in them)and they finally jumped and treed it. Did cat hold its scent on one road and not the other? Or was one little thing like a set of tire tracks the problem. I think little things like a couple degrees temperature, a surface the cat is stepping on, how much effort my dogs are giving, humidity, brush etc. etc. make a big difference in how much scent gets into my dogs nose. Just my thoughts, Larry

[twist]

Guys I have no doubt that something must be going on when this happens but do you suppose its the trailing conditions of some type rather than scent holding. We will never know for sure about holding scent as its just a theory. Mark very good point. Like IT said if they can hold their scent from being scared drive were the cat crossed and come back in a few minutes you may be amazed to see the dogs run it with ease jmo. Andy

[Big N' Blue]

Mark says,
I have given up on trying to figure out what happens in the ghost cat scenario. I dont know what happens but sometimes it does and sometimes it doesnt.[/quote]

As usual this is a good thread.
It is kinda funny that these situations always seem to happen when you have a newby with you and he really gets impressed by your potlickers. LOL
This is one of the conversations that Robbie and I had this weekend and I was telling him about a cat I saw cross the road and roaded up to him and they could smell him going backwards but could'nd smell him going forward. Well I cut them off and turned em around and walked em out and all they could do was cold trail and the cat had not been gone 10 minutes.
Broke that coon hunter that was with me that morning!! LOL

[mike martell]

David

I have seen your situation before, dogs that could do better backwards than forwards....Explain that? I Had a similar situation two years ago in the dry September training season...Going in to an area, bobcat jumps the road...No gps collars on the dogs...Waiting to find a satellite took about three long minutes with dogs that can trail as good as any I have owned. Here is what many of our bobcats do here when they hear a dog, they pull out like they are jumped, most don't just go out a few yards and go back to walking, some of these bobcats are run to death and are only there because of that attribute....

Nothing could trail this track! Walked them out and the dogs ended up back at the truck and like a typical hound hunter unwilling to accept this situation, decided to make a huge loop and try finding the out bound track...Sure enough about 30 minutes later the dogs could trail it out, never got it treed but they did move it good...Here is what I had going....The cat was a flash just yards ahead of the truck and was able to make positive ID, so it wasn't trash....Once we pulled off the big timber where the track crossed originally, we were in light reprod, good under brush and briars with a tiny bit of dew on the ground and it was at night....We had a race from there out until we hit the big timber and like a snow track that you all have seen out west that drops out of the snow onto bare ground and your track was sketchy trailing in the snow, it just died....You would think if you can move a track from point A to point B than you should be able to go the distance....I call it cat hunting and trailing, here is another observation, snow can mess with you as well...Central and Eastern Oregon Sometimes it is a dry snow or wet snow and I have also seen dogs trail a day old track in ideal conditions and stand on there head with an hour old track or less....

Dewey
If your mentor was Rolland, you did well....I spent a lot of time some thirty plus years ago hunting lions down off the Hwy 58 corridor towards Oakridge and always bumped into Rolland....Hunting lion dogs in those days that treed every lion but couldn't catch a bobcat unless it jumped in the truck with you..... I would spot a bobcat track and report into the Master bobcat man....I would get my map out and pin point the location and Rolland would ask if the track was still up on the snow....Next time I seen Rolland, I would ask him how those tracks played out and he would reply, caught em all.... Rolland Wilson was another bobcat legend .......

Mike

[al baldwin]

Guys I have no doubt that something must be going on when this happens but do you suppose its the trailing conditions of some type rather than scent holding. We will never know for sure about holding scent as its just a theory. Mark very good point. Like IT said if they can hold their scent from being scared drive were the cat crossed and come back in a few minutes you may be amazed to see the dogs run it with ease jmo. Andy

Well Andy, for sure no one can prove why some cats are difficult to trail. However, there are cats in some areas here that the locals have trailed numerous times, to the point the cats get referred to as pets, runners & etc. Surely it can/t be bad trailing conditions every time a pack trails those. Eventually they do get caught, most time on the ground. Is it possible, those tracks the hounds can work backwards, much better than forward is because the cat was hunting into the wind/ Al

[Unreal_tk]

Even with the aid of snow I've seen this happen, in what I call trace snow(skiff) just enough to make tracks but not enough to hold a lot of scent or when its been really cold and no fresh snow. I had a cat in a reprod thicket last year going circles on me, came back on my track and sure enough the lil bugger had stepped in my own track. Dogs still couldn't smell it, I just tallied as a win for the bobcat.

[twist]

some times its the dogs that shine sometimes its the cat that shines that's why we all hunt the little buggers. Andy

[tedsmith]

I believe pheromones and adrenaline are the major contributors on the cats part as to how much scent he or she puts out it can probably be withheld to an extent humidity and barometric pressure are also factors I think but who really knows for sure. Sorry dogs is what I atribute it to makes more sense and they don't dispute it.

[mark]

I think sometimes the cat can project an image of itself up or down the road up to fifty yards from its actual track. So i try to get the dogs to cover more area than where i saw the cat leave the road. This is still in my theory stage and i cant really prove it yet but im getting close i think. What i really need is a govt. grant to keep going forward.

[dwalton]

Mark that grant thing is a great idea. Let me know if I can help. Free money, don't or can't prove anything, get to do all the time what we can't prove any of the time. This sounds like the perfect government job. Just like our politicians make a lot of money do nothing, blame the other guy and not be responsible for their actions. Sign me up before the money runs out. Hey it does cost us anything. The government pays for it. Dewey