Northern California Bobcats and Foxes?

[livetohunt]

I have been trying to run a bobcat or fox. Has anyone been having any luck where the snow is not too deep?

[Dan Edwards]

I got a buddy that lives out there that road hunts his dogs and has had some success catchin quite a few fox and some cats.

[Jeff Eberle]

Get out of the snow. go just below it. in the brush country

[Everlast]

I agree with Jeff.......most of your foxes will be below the snow in the brush with some cats...........there should be cats in the snow, as it does not bother them like it does fox...

[bency]

Just out of curiousity.. when running foxes what is their pattern of running when the dogs jump them, how far do they run, and will they jump trees like a bobcat??

[TomJr]

From my experiance grey foxes run the same as bobcats. Most runs are not more than 1/4 mile once jumped... some may go a 1/2 mile. They will jump to another tree and try to sneak away if they think they can get away with it just like those sneaky bobcats.

[bency]

When ive had dogs trash on them in the past, it always seemed that foxes like to run up or down steam beds. Is that the case for you guys that hunt them?

[TomJr]

Most of the foxes are started in the canyon bottems near streams but they don't stay along the stream when run. The canyons I hunt in have very steep sides covered with brush, mostly manzanita with oak and pine mixed in and that is where they head. Most of the trees on the hill sides are 20-30 feet tall so its usualy hard for a cat or fox to sneak off once its up. Don't stop them from trying though and I have seen them jump between tree tops trying to lose the dogs.

[bency]

Do you think sometimes after the foxes are treed and jump tree, they run and hold tight or do you think they just keep bookin it.

Because ive had dogs get slick tree'd but then they pick up the track again after awhile and jump the critter and run aways before they're treed for the second time or so.

[TomJr]

Ah yea seen that a few times where the fox lost the dogs and is sneaking at a fast quiet walk away from the area, with dogs still looking up in the trees and circleing wider and wider to pick it up again. I have also seen it where the fox or cat is up tree a hunderd yards from where my idiot dogs are looking, not often but it happens. They also sneak away and end up in a den in the rocks, had that happen alot last year. I run the same critters over and over and they do seem to learn but then so do the dogs so its all good

[bency]

How oftern would you say that your dogs catch a fox after they jump'em? And which is easier a bob or grey?

[TomJr]

Well if I use just the last 2 months the catch percent is real high caught 16 grey foxes and 6 bobcats in around 25-30 runs. Thing is its hard to be sure what they are on until I see it but from the speed and where they are headed I can usualy tell its either a fox or cat. This ground here will not take tracks too well, dry and rocky or leaf litter and we have not had much snow this winter. Now if you asked me that question last year. I would have had to say low catch percentage and alot ended up in the rocks, could not even be sure what was in the den on those...

Right now its my new pup Jake (lab/walker 2years old) doing most of the work, my old dogs are too slow now 11, 13 and 16. I do have one 6 year old but he never ran cats hard enough to catch consistantly, he is crazy on bears though. Jake was doing super in the 2007/2008 winter catching around 70% but he only caught foxes that year. Then we ran the bears in summer and when fall rolled around for 2008 he was trying but just not getting it done. Likly around 30% catch for Sept-Dec on foxes. Something clicked and in late Dec 2008 he caught his first bobcat and has been doing super this year. My older dogs are out there in the woods still but they are mostly just backing him up once its treed now.

I would say they are about the same... but there are alot more foxes around than bobcats so more foxes get treed. Guess we highjacked this tread cause its supposed to be for Northern california ops!

[bency]

Yea i would say so, but the subject is still on foxes and cats lol

so the majority of your catching is on dry ground...Do you noticed if your dogs cold trail very much on those foxes, but then again i dont know if labs will cold trail, but then again he is part hound.

[Mike Leonard]

Tom Jr.

Don't sell Jake he is going to be famous. I had a field trial super lab bitch that accidently got bred to a registered walker out of Van Johnsons's old Butch dogs. Holy smokes! He acted a little slow at first but once he caught on to the game this guy would flat leave them on a jump track and I saw him take a grey fox out of a stream bed as you say one evening and this fox went right up a leaning cottonwood over a sandstone rock ledge and this black pup with white feet and a big white star on his chest went right up there with him and off and in twenty seconds had him bayed in a rock hole. Terrible mouth but he was the real deal.

Sometimes our older fox tracks act like a cold lion trail and you will swear they are cold trailing a lion till you see them tracks. They seem to circle when jumped. My northern Californai freinds tell me the same thing.

[TomJr]

Don't worry I never sell any of my dogs! I don't think he will cold trail, about the coldest that I know for sure was an hour.

I was out early doing morning chores and all the dogs keyed on something outside the fence but I didn't let them out until after the chores were done. I found a super fresh bobcat scat on the trail near where the dogs had been carrying on at the fence. Jake took off on the trail with his head down and moving at a fast trot, I could barly keep up. About a mile later he did his yippy bark and turned it on. He left the trail and was treed in just a few hunderd yards up the hill side. Just a little female don't think she was more than 10lbs so left her there.

Saw her tracks a few days later in the snow, or one her size. Just a little bigger than a fox lol. It was still snowing and the track was super fresh but for some reason Jake had trouble running it and he lost it after she went back into the orchard and then back out Jake got hung up on the fence and by the time I got there to let him back out the snow had blown over the tracks on the ridge, was real windy that day.