Lions and Bobcats

[t23]

Hi everyone. just getting ready to pick up my first hound pup and have a few questions. how many dogs are recomended to hunt bobcat? Mountain lion? and is it common to loose a dog to a lion? thanks for your help...

[Huntintony]

Three for me. One old 8 yr old and two 9 month olds. Works good

[sonofabeach]

At least two just to help if the lion comes down out of the tree, and you are not there to help out. Had a dog tree a lion by him self late one afternoon<could not get there dark so went back in the moring dog was ate by the lion nothing but his head and tail left there by his collars, so I always run two or three.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

One works just fine until you get a lion that would rather fight then tree. I usually use 2 or 3. usually 1 or 2 are pups. I did loose one hound to a lion and have tried to learn from that.

[sdred]

I've heard that more than 2 dogs on bobcats is a mistake and I've heard more than one is a mistake, but I tried 3 to 4 numerous times and I can for sure tell you here where we hunt more than 2 is a mistake. One dog maybe not but trailing might not be fast enough. The best luck I have had is by using a good cold nosed speeder strike dog and let it get the track going good and let one other fast pack dog out to keep the race rolling and not give the bobcat a chance to use it's bag of tricks. It just seems that more than one pack dog gets everything messed up. Or turning 2 dogs out at the same time never really gets the track warm but rather blows alot of races because the dogs are competing. Never hunted lions so no comment on that.

[Mike Leonard]

It is true that more than 2 dogs on a lot of mountain west bobcats is a mistake. It is generally a cold trail even if it is only a few hours old and too many dogs disturb the scent and tracks at times. However down it some country like south Texas, or even the Piney Woods area of east Texas and such you would be hard pressed to ever put enough pressure on a cat to tree him with one or two dogs. I am not familiar with this type of hunting but guys like Big N Blue, Dad's dogboy and Shorty can certainly give us information with experience behind it.

[Everlast]

Hi guys,

Well here in Central Cali most guys be it bear hunters or fox/bobcat hunters usually hunt 3-5 dogs. Conditions here are probably allot better than that dry ground. I got tons of respect for the dry ground hunters......

[arizonabeagle]

t23
theres not really a magic number
i'd say it all depends on the dog(s)
whatever gets it done for you, whether it be 1 dog or 15 dogs

[t23]

Thanks to everyone who replied. You helped out alot.