I know nobody ever posts actual outdoor content anymore but I'll give it another try. I will probably have to post this story in installments.
At the end of January my friends and I headed north and ran our big trapline. Coyotes were our main target but this country grows some awesome bobcat and I also had a lead on a lion from back in the deer season.
The first day setting traps I drove to where I had found the big lion traps back in deer season. In the dry creekbed was a 4-5 day old female lion track. I set two traps about 30 yards apart in the creek bed and moved on.
We got a lot of traps plugged in the first day and I was excited about our future. First check was more exciting than I expected. When I walked up to the first lion set the trap was gone and I could see lion tracks everywhere. I retrieved a weapon and started tracking.
It wasn't the female track I had found the day before but instead a tom.
And then my heart was stomped on. I found the trap about 75 yards away and the big fella had pulled out. I couldn't believe it. The amount of damage to the trap and the drag was significant. I have never before seen that amount of force exerted upon a leg hold trap. It really is impressive how powerful those big cats are. I took up his tracks and followed him a few hundred yards. It appears he was only held by his 2 middle toes on his front left foot . Maybe next year I will have another go at him.
I was setting new areas on this ranch and finding the sign I needed was tough. A big snowstorm had just melted off right before we arrived so the wet ground was freezing hard as stone at night. It was hard to find any dry dust where our furry friends would let us nknow their travel paths.
A lot of our sets were just best guesses at places that looked hopeful. One day while traveling to another spot I drove down a new road. Most of it was wide open but it choked down to a narrow spot in a bottom full of mesquite and blown in tumbleweed. It sure looked like a spot cats would hunt. Soon I found a small trail leaving the road and snaking into some foot hills. It screamed bobcat and after searching for a few minutes I found a very faint bobcat track. I started following it in and came across something I have never seen before.
It was a big tom bobcat scratch.
I immediately placed a set 2 feet away from the scratch.
The next day we came back and checked this set and the trap was gone. Because it was so brushy in this area it took us awhile to locate the cat but when we did WHAT A DANDY!
Really big with great spots and a fantastic belly.
A couple of days later we go check a coyote set in the bottom of a deep wash. It took a little while to sort the track out but finally we noticed the drag chain disappeared into a dirt hole.
We climbed above it and sure enough one grouchy kitty was in there.
Now getting him dispatched and out of the hole was going to be a rodeo.
I slowly started pulling chain out of the bottom entrance with a pistol ready in my left hand. Right when I could just start to see a hind foot my friend, who was safely 20 feet above me told me to "Stop!"
"What the hell for?"
" I need to have my phone ready".
For a moment I thought I was about to be unintentionally internet famous for all the wrong reasons. Luckily I finally got enough of the cat pulled out of the hole and could see his vitals. Game over and another nice cat in the buggy.
Well as the days rolled on we were stacking up plenty of coyotes. One day I'm headed to check a coyotes set. Way out in the middle of coyote country I see a giant hand print on the road. It looked like a monkey foot walking down the road but it was actually a coon.
We followed it a half mile all the way to my coyote set. Sure enough the biggest coon I've ever seen is stuck in my coyote trap. Looked like a bear cub.
You using blind/trail sets or using scent, since your catching bobcats and coon in your coyote sets. Just looking at different ways to be more species specific for sets.
You using blind/trail sets or using scent, since your catching bobcats and coon in your coyote sets. Just looking at different ways to be more species specific for sets.
On this ranch I do use a lot of walk through trail sets. Most of those are specifically set for coyotes.
On any of my sets specifically for bobcat I do a variation of a dirthole.
The coon was caught in a coyote set. It was a mouse hole type set. It had a little bait in the hole with a lure called Dakota breaks. Coyote urine was also distributed to the side of the mouse hole.
The mountain lion was a rub / walk through set.
No one set is a perfect set just for a single species but you can sure narrow them down.
I wish there was a type of set than coons will not mess with but I have about given up on that dream.
Well things were going well now but that was ready to change.
The temperature started plunging and slept and snow started.
We woke up to a white landscape and a truck that wouldn't run. We drove to town and bought new batteries and ran back to run the line. On about trap set 6 the buggy started acting sluggish. We limped through the entire day. The next morning we drove back to town. Spoke to a guy that repairs buggies but wouldn't be able to get on it himself for 2 weeks. He sold us the parts and there in his parking lot, while it was snowing, we stripped it apart swapped the parts and got her humming. We were back in business and the mechanic offered me a job when the trap line was over.?
Things had definitely slowed up with the bad weather but we kept pushing anyway.
A few days later we were making our rounds and we had another whopper of a bobcat tom in a trap. This was an interesting spot where a trailclimbed up out of a creek bottom and ran along a rock rim. 10 yards away there was an easier trail to come out of the bottom but this trail had spots that held small animals. One thing I have learned about bobcats is they will pick a little more difficult trail to walk if there is hunting possibilities while they travel. Although I had not seen any bobcat sign on this trail I could tell it was highly likely it was a bobcat trail. Sure enough it paid off with a spotted up dandy.
Well we finally made it to the last day. Overall, despite the challenges we did pretty good.
We had been told by one of the cowboys that on multiple occasions he had run into a big bobcat at a windmill up in some wide open country. It didn't look like cat country but I trust him for good intel and we put a bobcat set there. On the very last day after 8 checks and not one bit of interest he finally hit, and what a tom he was.
Great belly on this big fella and wonderful way to end the line.
In the end we killed 59 coyotes and 12 bobcat. Can't wait until next winter.
