Montana Bobcat Hunt

[tman308]

Well I took the hounds out this morning to see if we couldn’t find a bobcat or lion track. The weatherman said that the area I was headed to was supposed to get a light snow overnight and that the temperature wasn’t going to be below zero. I loaded up at o-dark-thirty and headed down to the mountains where I like to hunt.

The weatherman was right for once. As I turned off the highway onto the forest service road I saw that there was an inch of fresh snow on the ground. I looked at my thermometer and it indicated 15 above. Man was I excited. I had hunted this area for the past month and a half and every time it was so cold I couldn’t even see my hounds footprints much less anything else.

I dropped the tailgate and started collaring up hounds. Let them blow off a little steam and then loaded back up to scout out this road. What I had been doing was just parking and hiking the canyons and saddles looking for sign. Today however I was going to give this driving roads thing a chance. About a mile down the road I found a bobcat track crossing the road to the north. I walked it out a good distance and it looked to be made after the snow had stopped. At first I only let out my two more experienced dogs. Neither of them had been on a snow bobcat so I just wanted to see what would happen. Well neither of them took to it real serious so I went back to the truck and let the other three out. I hiked along the track for about a mile when my Rock dog started showing some interest in the track. I collared up the other dogs and let him work while I walked the others along on leash. Well we lost the track up on this little rocky ledge and I couldn’t keep my feet underneath me on the ice so we headed back down to the truck. I didn’t want to waste such a good day on an older track, there just has to be a big ol lion track around the corner.

After getting back to the truck and loading up I started back down the road. Just over 400 yards down the road another bobcat track crossed to the south. This time I only let Rock and Sunny out. We worked up the mountain and then started trailing laterally across it. It was really neat for me to be right there with my hounds helping hammer out the tracks. There were several spots where the bobcat had crouched down looking towards a tree that had squirrel tracks around the base. I kept leap frogging the dogs ahead as I worked out the tracks and when we would come to a bare spot the dogs would work through it to the other side. Well my excitement got going when just as we were dropping into this little canyon the dogs really started opening up. They were off and I couldn’t even hear them anymore. I thought for sure we had jumped it. I just kept following their tracks down to the bottom of the canyon. I found where the bobcat had attempted a stalk on a snow shoe hare and missed. I found my dogs tracks right on top of the bobcat tracks in the bottom of the canyon. Looking at my Astro it showed that my Rock dog was back up on top and I didn’t have signal on Sunny. I climbed up out of the canyon and started working towards him.

After getting back to the top of the mountain I found where the bobcat had circled back through the area where his previous tracks were. I tried to help Rock straighten the tracks out but he just wasn’t opening up much anymore. I still didn’t have a signal on my Sunny dog and so I was cussing her under my breath. Rock and I tried to work it out but I kept thinking man I sure would like to drive more of the road to see if there was a fresher track. After about an hour I pulled Rock off the track and headed back to the truck. With all the dogs accounted for I headed down the road again.

Just on the other side of the finger we were working was a bobcat track headed north across the road. Now I knew this was a fresher track since it was on top of a vehicle track that I had seen drive by about 2 hours ago. Not knowing what Sunny had been doing I decided to let out a different dog with Rock. We moved this track pretty fast up and away from the road. Rock was going along at a pretty good clip and I was struggling to stay up with him. He made a little lose on this frozen over section that was just a sheet of ice. I helped him straighten the track out. We kept trailing until we got almost up to this rocky ledge. The track went right through a herd of deer. Well there were so many tracks everywhere that I couldn’t figure out which way the bobcat went. I was very impressed that I didn’t have a trash race since Rock sometimes likes to chase deer and elk.

All in all it was an excellent hunt. I was able to peer into the life of a hunting bobcat by following its tracks and I was able to see my dogs really work out a track. After downloading the collars I realized that my Sunny dog did a lot better than I gave her credit for and in the future it will be her and Rock getting turned loose on bobcats.

For my hounds this is all a new experience getting accustomed to hunting in the snow. They are used to chasing lions and bears in Arizona so I am very pleased with the way they have adjusted to the Montana style of hunting. Rock impressed me with his tenacity and determination to hammer out the track. My buddy Coop and I have had more than 1 trash race with hoofed animals with him. We always thought he was more of a hot nosed dog but after today I don’t know. As Coop said “sometimes desire is what it takes”, Rock obviously had the desire to work out that track and try to find the owner of it.

After looking at the map of the area we were in I believe that all of the bobcat tracks were made by the same cat. It was hunting and just kept wandering around trying to find something to eat. I learned a lesson about snow hunting and that is to drive down the road further first and come back to the track if you don’t find something else. Oh well I wouldn’t have learned so much about this bobcat if I had just started on the freshest track.

Thanks for reading.