BigGameHoundsmen.com

dwalton touched on something in another thread that I found interesting. In my state trappers out catch both callers and houndmen put together. Just interested in what goes on in other states. Fur prices are high and alot of new people trap every year it seems the old trappers are even lying about the price they get for pelts to discourage over-harvesting an area. They are scared and so am I. I hope they just put a quota on them before they shut the season down.

In the desert part of Eastern Oregon the trappers out catch the houndmen. In Western Oregon where cats have 1\5 the value of the pale eastern cats the trappers don't go after them as hard. What I have seen over the years is a lot of trappers is areas with cats of high value. I think it will slow down when they realize with the high gas prices they are not making money. Dewey

In this state the trapper out does the hounds by large amounts. It is a sad deal as it doesnt take much of a trapper to catch cats and for the most part with snares they are eliminating every cat out there once the female is caught the kittens are shortly after. Ill be glad when the price drops again. jmo Andy

Here, trappers who put as much effort as a houndman will outcatch him, lucky me is most don't put forth the effort. I believe that's the main contribution is effort put in, will yield in time.

any half decent trapper will outcatch most houndsmen 95% of the time just because of the simple fact that a trap hunts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I don't know any guys with hounds that can do that. With as little snow as we had this winter, it would be pretty tough for a houndsman to keep up with a trapper, not impossible, but pretty tough. At least the dogs got in some dry ground hunting this year, kind of lets you know where your dogs are at on the hound dog totem pole!

Trappers take 80-90% of the total harvest here every year and our cats aren't worth much.

Another thing I forgot to mention. If your going by fish and game surveys, alot of those numbers are swayed. Not everyone will claim them to be hound hunted or trapped or called when they were harvested by another method. In our state a furtakers license is cheaper than trapping, I imagine a good many trappers will claim to call or hound hunt just to save a few bucks. This is just a observation.

Every cat taken here has to be checked in. Licenses are the same so there is no reason to lie. They changed the season this past year and let the trappers go before the hunters so I imagine the numbers will be even more in the trappers favor.

Thanks for the input I thought trappers have to out do hounds when trapped hard. I just wish some of the guys around here would not use snares, cross boundries that have been established for years and just not be so damn gready. I have heard of guys that life trap and still harvest females and kittens. Math would tell you that ole mama cat will make you more money left alive over time then dead. Hey while I'm thinking of it have anyone ever seen a three legged bob I doubt that you could leg hold an let go could ya I just don't know?

The cat that I got 2 years ago wasn't 3 legged but his right front foot was crushed. He couldn't climb so he gave us a good run. Dogs finally caught it in the rocks.

A friend shot a three legged bobcat out of his chicken coupe this winter. Big healthy tom.

Where I grew up trappers are the only thing around. The only houndsmen I know of are coyote hounds(and sight hounds at that) A guy with good dry ground dog could really clean up on the bobs.

Unreal_tk wrote:Here, trappers who put as much effort as a houndman will outcatch him, lucky me is most don't put forth the effort. I believe that's the main contribution is effort put in, will yield in time.

I agree but would take it a step further. I think a good hunter will out catch a mediocre trapper, and a good trapper will out catch a mediocre pack of dogs. Although cats will not refuse to put their foot in a trap, you still have to put the trap where the cat is gonna step. Cats will easily enter a trap, but cats are not that easy to find in some areas. In the areas of the upper midwest a good houndman will catch more cats, because he can just keep looking until he finds a track. A man up there could set a lot of traps trying to intersect that one cat. Plus, most of the trappers are not that good at cat because they can not get enough practice at it. I have had my dogs take several cold cat tracks right past set traps that the bobcat ignored and avoided. Of course, my dogs didn't. Luckily, I try to be with my dogs and was on those occasions. But the sets were sorry. I wanted to leave my phone number in the trap to have him call me for trapping instruction.

With a couple good coon hounds, we can out hunt most coon trappers up here. It is un-amazing for us to catch 150 coons each year with a decent coon dog. There are trappers who catch more, but not many of them. there is a man in Iowa that traps 1,000 coons each year. there is no way a man with his dogs could aproach that. But there are guys coon dogging Iowa that have taken 30 coon a night for the first couple nights of season. Again, not many trappers are that good, but an accomplished trapper like the one mentioned will finish his season with more coon than the good hunter.

It is an interesting question, and I like to read about the different regions.

I might add that the Wisconsin boys have told me most of their cats are caught with dogs. They are on a lottery and get about one tag every five years. Most of these end up with folks that will try to fill their tag using dogs. There are hundreds and hundreds of bear dogs in Wisconsin with absolutely nothing to do but chase bobcats or coyotes all winter. Evidently most trappers do not fool with the cats too much in that state. When I hunted there it was way too crowded for me to ever want to go back. Not much room to squeeze a trap in between all the dogs.