I decided to box him and Emma and drive down the road and see if he would strike it again, and he did. I decided to let him and Emma work some more. ShotGun headed up the ridge moving the track, but Emma headed down the ridge barking hard. Ok, I thought this was easy to figure out. ShotGun has a super cold nose and he was running it backwards, and Emma was moving it straight with her medium nose. I decided to let Emma go and just focus on Shotgun. As soon as I could try to call him back, he just blew up the ridge and was out of hearing range.
I decided to let him go and focus on Emma. She was striking the track as hard as I have ever heard her moving a track. I thought that she had to have something jumped. I started walking an old skid trail where she blew up trailing, and saw a very nice track in a mud puddle. At this point, I pulled up the Garmin to see that Shotgun was 800 yards right above me, and moving back towards me in a hurry, and he was chopping jumped. Now I could hear Emma hammering down treed. I'm thinking what is Shotgun doing now? He overran a smoking Tom track by a quarter mile, unacceptable.
He started screaming about 250 yards below where Emma was treed. I was really confused at this point. Where in the hell is Shotgun going?
Well, as soon as I could get up to better place to hear, Shotgun barked treed, but why 200 yards away from Emma.
I headed in to get Emma, and she sure was treed. Turned out to be a 34 pound Tom Bobcat. I decided I better leave her at the tree, and go after Shotgun, and figure out what was going on at his tree. He was treed on a small female about 15 pounds and was very proud of himself. I rewarded him with a hotdog, and left that little female alone in the tree to live and reproduce. I decided to encourage Shotgun to get over and tree up with Emma. I headed for the truck to get my 22mag and my young pup, and get down to the tree. Made it back to the tree in about an hour with Sis, and harvested a dandy cat.
Great hunt, learned alot, first split tree on two bobats within a quarter mile of each other. Have to love the breeding season, and trust your dogs. They know alot more about what they are doing then you think sometimes. And don't go into tree without a gun, just in case you have a nice Tom treed.
In conclusion, I harvested the Tom, and left the reproducing female alone. I gained alot more trust in Emma, and Shotgun proved his worth to me by sticking with that harder track and getting it treed.
Hope you like the pictures of this Big Old TomCat and the potlickers that got them treed.......
Emma- Red Headed Walker
Shotgun-Black Headed Walker
Sis-White Eared Walker
