What is the difference between hunting bob cat lynx and or mountain loin

[al baldwin]

Mark, I don't really know the answer to that as a lot of my cold trails are probably more like 2 to 5 minute stretches of no loses. In my country a cold trail that goes 30 minutes with out a lose will most likely be jumped pretty soon. I can't ever recall a 5 minute cold trail lose going directly to a jump. I agree with you that lots of cover like you have on the coast is what a bobcat needs for maximum effectiveness. I just can't see in my country a bobcat passing between 2 dogs only feet apart, we just don't have enough brush for that. The closest I have ever seen a bobcat in front of my dogs was 30 feet and that was a running cat that almost ran over me on the road and grabbed a tree 100 yards below the road.

, Duane we have lots of cover here. I was very lucky to witness that cat tiptoe between & within a few feet of those dogs, in a very small open spot. At that time dogs had been working a good half hour or so and only one dog was barking very little here and there. Most would have assumed the cat had a good lead, i was thinking that cat is not very far ahead of those dogs. Had just seen three dogs move thru that small open, those three had no sooner enter the brush when cat tiptoes back out where the dogs are just disappeared. The two young dogs had just entered that open when the cat tiptoed between . Yes Mark can recall my mentor, Tom Barnett,numerous times say that may be the lose before the jump. He knew where the most likely spots the cats would be jumped. At that time he was very good at knowing the dogs location when they barked. Al

[mark]

Yup Al you know what im talking about! Do you recall if he had a reason or theory for it?

[al baldwin]

Yup Al you know what im talking about! Do you recall if he had a reason or theory for it?

Mark, just recall Tom saying he could not tell me why, but he would like to know why. Al

[dhostetler]

Or when you see one cross the road and dogs dont open until they are off the road 50 yards or so. I dont know but i have thought about it a lot over time.

I have noticed too on road crossings how dogs shut up till they are across. I wonder if that doesn't come from on a good track the dogs are kind of zoned out and are in a rythem running this track and all of a sudden hit an open road and the scent cone completely changes and it just takes them till they are off the road a ways before they get there shit together again. Some guys claim a bobcat can throw there scent by crossing a road, I just don't agree with that I just think some dogs with enough experience can handle a sudden change in scent conditions better than others.

[mark]

I was talking when you see a cat cross the road in front of you and you get the dogs out of the box and put them on it. Sometimes you have to get em off the road quite a ways before they open and go.

[mondomuttruner]

Mark, an opinion from a lowly bear and coyote hunter that runs cats is, (this is in snow) I've seen quite a few times the dogs seem to have a couple minute lose to go right to jumped. I've walked out countless tracks to beds, either to start a dog or to find out what the dogs did just for piece of mind. Many times there's a maze of tracks around a bed, whether a 30 yd circle or could be a 10 acre tag swamp it hunted in before bedding. By a maze of tracks, I mean a track crossing every 2 to 10 feet, all over. I think the loss is just being overwelmed with all the tracks and just takes a little time to get it sorted out. Speaking for my dogs, they don't open in a situation like that and may seem to be a lose but they gained too many tracks..lol Speaking of loses, friend on mine years ago was following a track that disappeared by a running deer track, turns out the cat jumped on the deer and rode it for a hundred yds before jumping off, must not have been able to get a good hold for a kill. If you would have walked in to the wrong spot you would have shocked your dog for running a deer..

[al baldwin]

Interesting observation Mondo, snow is good for some things. too cold for me in your country. Al

[mark]

Me too Al. This afternoon was my kind of weather! 62 degrees

[mondomuttruner]

It's 60 here and it's depressing, should be in the 30's. We need to freeze the woods up. With record rainfall this summer, you can get wet feet walking on top of a ridge, wet up to the knees anywhere else.
Snow is a bad thing for guys that like to make up a story on what the dogs did, I walk in and find out what they really did, be it a good thing or bad thing. Good excersise either way. Although this old body is starting to tell me not to..

[chilcotin hillbilly]

I was talking when you see a cat cross the road in front of you and you get the dogs out of the box and put them on it. Sometimes you have to get em off the road quite a ways before they open and go.

Interesting Mark. I ran a loop on my sled a few years back it took about 30 minutes. A big tom lynx had crossed behind me, so a smoker track. I dropped 3 dogs on it and they went to smelling every snowball track they could find. They didn't appear to smell any different then the hot lynx track. I was confused and insisted on catching that cat one way or another. I walked the dogs in 30 yards pointing out the track every step of the way all at once the dogs opened and where gone. The cat was no more than 200 yards away the whole time. This happened in what I would call perfect snow conditions, 12 inches of semi wet snow in temperatures around 25 degrees.
But what do I know about good conditions.

[mark]

Snow around here is like sex. You never know how much youre going to get or how long it will last.