Cattail Bobcats

[TurTLe]

Seems that when bobcat prices go up, people get tight lipped and don't want to give to much information. Well here is a tid bit for some of the younger up and coming cat trappers.

Where I am they drop the lake it seems every year around October. All the back water cattail marshes become high and dry. These areas are hot spots for bobcats. They hold a tremendous amount of mice, birds and evicted muskrats. If you have these kind of areas on your lines, don't pass them up for cats.

Another thing to consider is getting out this time of year and finding the females and kittens. Mark these areas on your map, then connect the dots between family groups close together. Alot of these bee lines and travelways will be traveled by the big toms checking up on the females activities. Sets in these locations will pick off your best and biggest Toms.

Once you know where the cats are they are like taking candy from a baby. Cat trapping isn't rocket science, just takes some studying, walking, and learning. Everything is easy after that.

[FWS]

Of course there are no cattails in any of the catlands I trap in, no marshes, beaver dams or any of those other Midwestern/Eastern habitat features I see mentioned.

But there are other key plant communities I look for out here that are perennial cat producers.

And if I wasn't so tight lipped and secretive I'd tell you guys

[TurTLe]

You will notice I didn't talk about anywhere on my lines in Arizona. I'll just stick to giving Kansas secrets for now.LMBO

[trappnman]

talking to a lot of Kansas, NE, Iowa trappers- who believe the cats are following the turkeys- 15-20 years after turkeys "take over" an area, the cats have moved in. Thoughts on this?

[17HMR]

thats the way it seemed to work here, although I havent found any turkey kills by bobcats.

[TurTLe]

I've never really given much thought to the cats following turkey's Steve. When I first moved here in 1992, there was already a healthy well established turkey population, and a healthy bobcat population.

Interesting side note though. Everything I have read about bobcats suggests that they do not take well to heavy pressure, however it seems that even with more trapping pressure their numbers appear to be on the rise. At least in my area. I know six other trappers in my area(my lines crosses the line of 4 of them) that have all seen there cat take increase in the last couple of years. I've just been contributing it to a lower coyote population. We've had a herrendous case of mange going through the last several years. Don't know if this is the case or not.

Also read that you won't catch cats close to human activity, but I've caught cats 100 feet from my mother in laws house. Also have a trapping friend that catches on the average of 4 cats a year on his 5 acre property. Of course he raises geese and ducks, but still, that goes against the status quo.

[RShaw]

Cats following the turkeys is exactly what happened in my area of N. MO. Our turkey population became quite large about 15 years ago and still is. Cats starting showing up here about 4 years ago. In January and February, find the big flocks of turkeys and there will be a cat or two nearby.

Randy

[gunny]

Here is the biggest cat trapping secret of all time: Set a trap on a cat track! To catch them in numbers, find the family units, toilets, and tom travelways. If you are on top of them, they are as easy to catch as muskrats.

[ltd]

17 bobcat ,16 had eating turkeys,1 had eating cottontail all caught in jan and feb here in neb. The coyotes us to be thick, now thay are far and few between mange and K9 distemper I think. Gunny you are right set on tracks.

[bobwendt]

gunny, got that one right!

[Corey]

Thats about the way it is in SE Nebraska also, 20 years ago we had very few turkey's, very few red fox, and very few bobcats...lots of coyotes. 15 years ago mange hit us hard, it has cut our coyote population by 3/4, the turkeys have exploded (i'll see flocks of 150-200 birds in late winter)...bobcats are as high in numbers as i'll ever see them, we have cats on every draw, creek, drainage....and fox have come back to a lesser extent 2 years ago I snagged 14 reds as accidents. I suppose someday it will swing the other way, I hope it never does but it will. Probably my greatest tool in catching cats here in the midwest would be going to www.terraserver-usa.com and looking at the air photo's of my trapping areas. Its a pretty simple way to find the core area's of the kittens and females, once a guy does that all you need to do is find the narrow fingers that the toms will run to check on them. I catch quite a few cats right on the edge of the town I work in also, in fact I have a creek thats about 250 yards from the desk i'm sitting in right now, last year I snared 4 cats off of it checking on my morning break. Hey Bob, will my coyotes ever come back to their levels of 20 years ago?? Corey

[Danny Clifton]

I don't think turkey reintroduction had anything to do with bobcats here in Kansas. I've heard people say they "apeared" about the time deer numbers started getting huntable again in the mid 70's, about the time the turkey introduction began, about the time the fur boom began. Here in Kansas coyote hunting was real big pre fur-boom. Whole sections would be surrounded. Often by a rural church membership or other small communitys. "Wolf drives" were to produce revenue in the form of a two dollar bounty on coyote ears. Cats are such shy well camoflaged animals you do'nt often see them. They didnt drive cat habitat either for a lot of reasons. I think a viable population was here just not recognized by very many. When the boom hit people went after coyotes in earnest. Bobcats started showing up in coyote traps. Trappers took notice along with everyone else. Even though there is a high population of cats here where I live, in the last year I've only seen one run across the road. Numbers may have come up as animal populations often flux, but bobcats didnt appear cause of anything like turkey reintroduction. Like the deer there has always been a population of cats. Bobcats just were not harvested or pursued.

[bobwendt]

corey, yes, unfortunately the coyotes will come back some day and then you can kiss the reds bye bye and your cat catch will go in the toilet too. Lets hope the mange stays at least a few more years. With no mange I`d get my hundred live coyotes and have to go home from ks in 3-4 days. That wouldn`t be any fun. Now at least I have to work for my coyotes and can snag a nice cat catch in the time it takes to load up on coyotes.

[Corey]

The lack of coyotes here just blows my mind Bob, we group coyote hunted when I was growing up, every sunday the same 25 sections would get run, 20 years ago it was nothing to see 3-4 coyotes per SECTION, the last time we went probably 4 years ago we ran the same sections, first weekend we pushed 2 coyotes out of those sections, the second weekend we pushed 1 out of them....I saw in another thread, you all were talking of groundhogs, they were pretty rare here til about 10 years ago, now its nothing to see one, its odd how things have turned over in the last 10-15 years. Does CRP have anything to do with any of this? One other observation, when I was in High school 20 years ago we had muskrats, not alot but every pond/creek/ditch had rats in it....then poof they were gone, until last year, it seemed last year they were back in numbers I hadn't seen in 20 years? Seemed odd to me that they came back like that. I'm done rambling now..LOL Hey Bob, how does a coyote pop. recover from the mange, it would seem to me that its always gonna be here, is it not that way, are some coyotes resistant to it?

[bobwendt]

technically they would have to go to ground zero, extinction, and then gradually new clean coyotes migrate in from far off, maybe 500 miles- not hat much in "coyote miles". But we know that never happens (total extinction). We know mange has been here for eons and yet still areas of clean coyotes and areas with all mange or none. so who knows. but no , no immunity known, no recovery known. and we know they will recover (populations) eventually. so, your answer, I dunno.

[Corey]

I've always been amazed at how tough those coyotes are, barely a hair on them, and they are able to make it through 3 weeks of zero temps and foot deep snow, amazing animal. I just hate skinning the stinking SOB"s...LOL

[rionueces]

We notice a big increase in cat populations down here on the ranches where we have thinned the coyotes down. However, the increases may also be attributed to the wet springs and summers we have had for the previous 3 to 5 years. Rabbits, rats and other prey species have been abundant up till this year. This years drought may change things.....

[rk660]

T'man, I dont buy it about the cats following the turkeys. They have always been cats right on NE/KS border. very few up here 60 miles to the north. It more typical cat country down there with more deep valleys, cedar pastures, less ag ground. We caught cats up here in 86 and they where rare. No turkeys to speak of then and not piles of them now either. Go south and there are piles of turkeys. The cats where in their preferred habitat then and just didnt have that much of a population overspill to drift out. More trapping pressure too back then to knock off what few stragglers came north. They slowly began to fill in the better sections of river where there was dense cover. what really kicked off the cat population I believe was KS have huge coyote die offs after 86 when prices dropped and coyote pressure was nil. Kansas and the border of NE had a cat pop explosion of sorts because the main predator, the coyote, was down in numbers. The ground can support so many predators and when one is down, another grows rapidly to fill the void. So now you had plenty of cats, not alot of coyote interference, and the population just expanded into less preferred habitat. Now they have a good foothold on major creek and rivers, small 5-10 sq mile areas of rough ground, and they spill out from that to most waterways such as grassy ditches and small feeder creeks. Dont think the turkeys had much to do with it. What it is, is around here, turkeys and cat both like the marginal farmground, heavy cover, creek and river systems. Find good turkey ground and more than likey its good cat ground, they just have similar habitat requirments. I dont see that many turkeys kills from cat. Sure they get some but the preferred prey is rabbits. Another thing is last two years we had a cottontail boom. That helps the cats out more than anything. Plus a very low coyote population. Those two things together have probibly the biggest impact on cat populations than anything else. Now coyotes are on the rise and if they get thick enough again, mark my words, every cat trapper in NE is going wonder where all the cats went. They wont disapear, but they wont maintain current numbers. Lots guys are catching 15-30 and a few busting over 50 and life is good. Let coyotes get thick and everyone will be scratching their head wondering why they cant get 10. If you talk to the old hands, Pederson, Corr, that where around in the 50-60's, the highest cat populations ever seen where in the 1080 days, coyotes at all time lows and cat pop skyrocketed. We've had a similar situation with coyote pops but not on near the degree as what happened out west.

[Mike N.]

When our coyotes here in NE do come back and the harvest of cats starts going down, do you suppose the Game & Parks is going to implement a limit on cats? Any thoughts?

[trappnman]

RK- I could have sworn you were the first to mention the turkey/cat thing when you came up that time. Obviously not...memory must be going.

Our rabbit population here is pretty much gone except for town and around farm buildings. We used to shoot hundreds and hundreds a year- some years as many as 6-700, all in front of hounds, year after year and no, we didn't shoot them all out LOL

with the change in farming- cheaper to clear patches of brush, treess than to keep trimmed back and the resulting brushpiles- all the little spots have houses and lawn, cleaned up the blowdowns, etc.

Can it perhaps be that a strong turkey population substains the cats and they turn to turkeys as their #1 prey- when bunnies aren't around?

So that areas that do not have a good bunny base, the cats can survice and multiply?

look at the black hills- not a lot of rabbits out there- very, very few in fact- yet a good cat population. Also lots of turkeys.