BigGameHoundsmen.com

Sugargliders. Dirt lion is a real challenge for a hound. bobcats are Always challenging. The honest answer is in some incidences all game is hard on hounds. Which is why we use hounds with the exception of bear its generally the only effective means aside from trapping.

I think mean bears are a challenge. Finding dogs that can catch Lynx, cougar and bear with enough consistancy to make a living at it can be a challenge occationally.

I have only run one lynx and that was by mistake and I pulled the dogs before they crossed into a restricted hunting area, so I don't know how tough they can be. I did notice that the dogs switched from a pretty good bobcat track over onto this lynx and I beleive it's track was a bit older. The lynx has amazingly large feet for an animals that is really no bigger than a bobcat just built different. Before I looked into this snow track I thought the dogs had taken a female lion's track and then I saw those little bitty toes. Anyway I don't know about lynx but I will take the word of the hunters who are hunting them them.

I think being consistant on each of the species mentioned under a variety of situations and conditions each holds a great challenge, and that is what keeps the sport interesting. One day you will feel like you got this thing figured out and the next day leaves you sratching your head and believing in ghosts. LOL!

Mike Leonard wrote:I think being consistant on each of the species mentioned under a variety of situations and conditions each holds a great challenge, and that is what keeps the sport interesting. One day you will feel like you got this thing figured out and the next day leaves you sratching your head and believing in ghosts. LOL!

That sums it up pretty well Mike...

Another question,
is there a difference in bobcat and lynx , if you were running the same conditions for each

My experience in Africa is that it takes real good hounds and a good , patient , smart handler to consistently catch our Caracal / Lynx and even the smaller African Wild cat.

Our hounds catch most leopard they set to trailing. When it comes to caracal I'd say from strike to catch it drops to 50% or lower. With both animals that is regardless of trailing conditions. We use the same hounds for both of these cats and the same pack structure. I do not get discouraged by the lower success on caracal as this animal is integral to my training and breeding programme. They help add value to my hounds.

I place a lot of emphasis on creating opportunity for my hounds to work caracal. The loses they make do not discourage me as working these tough trails makes their and my job so much easier when we are working leopard.

Hunting caracal gives me opportuntity to observe my hounds under practical and realistic hunting conditions hereby I make my choices on culling undesirable traits and what hounds are worthy to consider to breed from.

HUNT or Catch?????
There is a huge difference.
I have been fortuniate that I have had the chance to hunt several of the cats with hounds from South American to Africa...and have seen things that for sure will make you wear a bald spot on the top of your skull scratcnig it trying to figure them out.

Throw on a set of snowshoes and hit the rugged canyon country where game calls winter range and do a lion hunt on foot.
Saddle a good mule and work the rimrock,bluffs and canyons with miles of ledge that you or the hounds can not get off.

Get into a Land Cruiser in Zimbabwe with roads ,radios and several trackers to handle the hounds...
What is harder to hunt ?

I do know if your in the right place at the right time the hunt can be over with a cat treed before you get your gloves on...

I have seen leopard tree less than 5 minutes from the time the first hound is put on the track, and not off a bait.
The same goes for cougar,lynx,caracal and the other cats as well.

The first time I saw the Garmin GPS unit on hounds we did a lynx hunt in BC with some guys AND hounds that can flat out catch lynx.
When the cat was finaly "TREED" it had made a total of 35 km in the 5 hour chase and never went outside of a 1000 yard block of timber...it was a very easy hunt but a tough cat to get treed.

The GPS showed the data or I would have thought someone was getting a little wreckless with the facts..that cat was a runner and did not want to tree.
I have had lynx go up in less than 10 minutes...and I do not have hounds that I feel can catch a lynx!!!!!
Each animal is an individual and in my opinion there is no real way to say one is harder than the other...conditions, weather, terrain, equipment, hound experience and that of the one running the hounds... the list goes on... they all play a big roll.

Brent you nailed it you explained to a t.

Assuming you have an experienced houndsman and a good team of hounds able to trail well and willing to bay up hard and relentlessly , I still believe your averages of successful hunts are going to be higher on the bigger cats than the smaller cats if the hunts take place in the same terrain and scenting conditions.

Hunting the pre- Namib desert canyons is about as close to what Mr. Sinclair describes here to the rim rocks and high bluffs you have in regions of North America. Those leopard hunts we do there are the toughest most demanding I have undertaken. Some trails are started before sun up and end at nightfall yet the averages still remain in favour of the hounds in terms of successful hunts. We have never hunted in snow in those places it is dry and barren.

The bigger cats here just leave more scent for the hounds to carry the line whatever the conditions.

Big cats, small cats ..Leopard, lion ,lynx there is no firm definition as to which one is harder to hunt or catch.

It's like saying what ball field is harder to play in..if your game did not start till 2:00 pm and you went into the 9th and the sun is shining in your eyes, and the next game you had a nice cloud cover and you could see everything clear as ever .....that is like asking which ball is easier to hit!!!!!!!it all depends on a number of different factors and in my opinion same goes for catching cats.
I could take my hounds to Africa to hunt leopard and I'm likely to come up empty as would some from the best packs hunting the dry ground lion country in the US.
Bring a dry ground lion hound or one that hunts leopard up here to Alberta with a 15 mph wind at -25 and 2 feet of snow and see how you make out.....There are way to many variables... areas, conditions, hound experience and I personally do not think there is an answer to that question.
If your going to stay area specific and ask that same question where you can run all three cats as well as bear like Chilcotin Hillbilly or Bart Lancaster do... then maybe you can say one is more difficult to catch under the same conditions, maybe I'm wrong !!!

[quote="Roy Sparks"]Assuming you have an experienced houndsman and a good team of hounds able to trail well and willing to bay up hard and relentlessly , I still believe your averages of successful hunts are going to be higher on the bigger cats than the smaller cats if the hunts take place in the same terrain and scenting conditions.

Bart Lancaster and his guides kill as many as 30 cats in a single month for his clients, they let some go as well so the catch success is higher.... he has done so consistantly for several years.
Two out of the 3 are small cats and his success rate is very high.
He runs the same hounds in the same area in the same conditions...at times they struggle catching lions and kill the small cats with ease. ?????

Yup you have dry spells here on big trophy sized leopard as well in areas. Thats mostly because they are not presently in the area you are hunting and not laying down any tracks for you to put hounds down yet the smaller cats are there to be caught.If you wish to try.

By smaller cats I include sub adult leopard and caracal , their home range is smaller and they are generally more localised.

If given the same conditions and same distance between point of strike to where the cat may be distance wise from the hounds ( comparing caracal to leopard ) your chances are far greater in having a successful ending on the leopard.

Assuming both cats have had hounds trailing them and are switched on to dogs from prior experience. Your chances are still far better of catching the leopard than the caracal.

A leopard generally is far easier to trail than a caracal. They bigger , heavier , less agile and I believe they leave more scent for the hounds to trail.

Thats a good analogy of cat chasing, Brent.
Myself the lions I hunt for the most part are in the snow and are usually a slam dunk. Any dryground I do is on problem lions. The going gets tough in those melted out conditions when 1/2 the ground is bare.
When those conditons are present the small cats can be easier as they don't tend to travel as far and a smart dog should go to the cat if they work the wind right.

A lynx may spend all night hunting a 10 acre thicket at times, you don't see a lion acting this way. Put deep snow with a little crust and you can almost kiss every lynx good bye as those snow shoes the lynx wear tips the scale in the lynx favor.
I finally had some dogs that could catch lynx consitantly after trying for a few years. i went into the season thinking I was pretty smart. I woke up one morning to about 3 feet of powder snow and I never treed a single lynx the rest of the season. Even though the dogs did jump every lynx I put them on they just could never close the deal.
Now where the dogs that bad, or the lynx that good, or did conditions win that winter?



www.skinnercreekhunts.com

We are going out in a week to recapture and remove collars as the study is complete. I found one female yesterday in the same area we tried to catch her in last summer, and from past experience I know it is a waste of time trying to catch her this time around, even though we have her signal on the reciever and within 400 yards of a road...
As I mentioned in a previous post terrain is a big factor in catching a lion and here is why we did not get her caught the last time we tried!!!
You can have the best hound in the country for what ever game you want to catch and your going to end up empty on this one.

Brent, glad to see someone else has some of the same conditions we have around here. I was foolish enough to turn out on a bobcat last year in country like your picture shows. Foolish is the appropriate term, if not ignorant. Needless to say it was a butt kicking from the get-go. In that country the cat will win every time, reguardless of the species. Our cats that live any where near an old burn will high tail it to the burn area as soon as they suspect pressure. They know how to tip the scales in their favor.

Scott