Harvesting Cats {Catch & Release}

[Chamacat]

Yep, I will start this thread just to see how many of you trappers turn loose all your bobcat catches other than tom's..I hear this conversation all the time....I personally do not release any cats..ALL cats go on stretchers...period....WHY...Because the land I trap today may not be there tommorrow.....The land I trap today may have to be shared with someone tommorrow..the land I trap today may be sold next year.....the land I trap today may be trapped by realitives next year...I make my living in the winter trapping cats...So I must harvest ALL cats....expences for me this year are up considerably from years before....ie gasoline....I know for a fact that taken ALL cats does not hurt the population of cats...Joel and I have mentioned this before..There are places where a cat trapper just won't trap cause of terrian and time to make sets and checks...You western trapper's know this....Nature will fill It's void's ..That's why FUR is a renewable resource...I have trapped cats for many year's and YES some years are better than other's but I look at the avg of multiple year's is about the same....If I thought for one minute that I was takin all the females and kittens and was going to cost me in the end believe me I would let em go quick...It does me no good to check empty cat set''s....

[Chamacat]

Yep...One more thought I might be DEAD tommorrow...look at what almost happen to Lynxie...lol

[BrandonH]

I agree 110% with everything 10500 posted... I harvest every cat I catch. Having said that, everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their catch. I hope that all my competition turns loose all their kttens and sows, I'll gladly harvest them if they end up in my traps later on.

[Yancy]

but lynxie is a different catrapper he lets the toms go so they can help the reproduction process. lhe said without the Toms you don't need to worry about releasing the Kittens and Females, but that is just Lynxie Lol Yancy

[Chamacat]

Yep...One day the little lady started in on me about taking all the cats off the land.....I told her one more word about it and SHE would be on the Catch & Release Plan....

[Yancy]

[lynxcat]

THIS year...at THIS POINT IN TIME..I aint lettin CHIT go OK!!!! All I need to do is keep the FREAKIN YOTES outta my sets!!! Caught WAY over a dozen of them..stupid azz dogs... ;D

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

Those coyotes are harder on the cats than the trapper. I think next year I may just hang some snares in the trails next to my cat sets and take some of them out.

Lynx you still think the cats are there? Most everybody I talk to in the Western US says they are down.

Joel

Joel

[predatorman1]

I turn the females loose (sow bellies) when I can. The weather is a big factor, when it is but ugly cold this is harder to accomplish. When You are only allowed 6 You can be picky about what You take.

The catch is off this year, I know there are allot of cats out there, there is allot of rabbits, pack rats,chukars and so on for them to eat. They do not have to travel far to eat. If I was in a state that did not have a limit I might keep them all also.

Guys have criticized Me before about this but they fail to realize that You can catch all the kittens and females here in a week that You can keep for the year. When You look at the big picture You can farm Your cats. When You have females around You will have Toms around.

My first post!!!!!! Scott

[motrapperjohn]

Yes the toms and coyotes are hard on the cats (kittens). If you have been around the farm those that have already know that the toms will seak out and kill the kittens just to bring thefemale back into heat so he can breed again. That is the probly why you find these very small kittens late in the season. Toms will travel a long ways in search of females. so dont worry about those not getting bred. If you trap a area , the same area for 3 or 4 years running you will see what I mean. An area i trapped for 4 yrs running. I hit the cats hard, taking only 15 the first year, mainly because I didnt know the area. the next couple years about 30 each then a nose dive, 11, 7, 5, no decline in the food base , in fact rabbits , quail and turkey increased. the # of coyotes harvested stayed the same. I moved to a new area just 2 miles down the road that I havnt trapped and back into cats. Cats do not reproduce, or should I say, not as good of mothers as other predators. They might raise only half of the litter or less. And as someone just posted they are trying to avoid the coyotes at all cost.Thats fine your loss my gain. selling mine for 30$. Funny howonly a couple years ago every one was braging about getting 20$ for the coyotes and tickled to death for it. Now they are throwing them in the ditch, what a waste. The same way with the otter market. Some say that is what they do for a living (trap). I would like to say that is the way I make my living , but that wouldnt be true, not with the high prices of fuel. but it is what I do from Oct thru Feb. but even then you cant make a living doing it alone. a peson can get some good pay checks for a while. With high prices, means more trappers , and more competition, and that means fewer animals to go around. And I know there are those that cant afford to let any go , been there done that. I also Know of one that does (farm) his cats and his catch is steadly increasing every year by 10 to15% per year that should say somthing.

[coyotewhisperer]

So........how old of a tom kills kittens? a one year old or is it two or three etc?

Honestly I think more cats are poached in KS by bird hunters and farmers than are harvested by licensed furharvesters.

In my area completley impossible to farm your cats!

September is the really bad month for it moms on the move with kittens and every idiot in town is now in the country "hunting" doves and they kill alot of cats.

Maybe if I actually ever saw a game warden some of that would stop.

Jeff

[gbt]

Me and my dad release all kittens and some grown females and tested the differance in numbers from three years ago when within 20 miles of are house could take about 5-10 cats a year and now that we farm them we can consistantly take 20 cats a year in the same area. South central NM

[motrapperjohn]

A adult tom ,breeding age is the ones that will do the killing. GBt where in NM are you from?

[JWarren]

predatorman1 said:

When You are only allowed 6 You can be picky about what You take.

If I was only allowed six I would only keep the top lot ones ;D as it is now if I release a cat everybody in the country is gunning for it including several people on this post

[bobwendt]

cats are getting scarce in ks. it appears to be statewide from talking to folks here and there. it will be interesting to see the harvest figures this year vs last. I worked cats 3 times as hard this year to get the same. most guys worked the same to get 1/3. I know one guy that went from 19 to 4. know another right on top of me that took 15 early and he killed off several litters and sows. thinks he is hot now. so they definitly can get hurt by trapping. heck, it`s all about the money. so much for the " I just hobby trap" crap. I hear the nevada ely sale went from 4,000 cats in `06 to 2,000 in `07 to only 200 head this last week. chew on that one awhile. now tell me money doesn`t matter. uh huh.

[cameron2]

Bob, I don't know where you got your Ely, Nevada sales figures, but they're all wrong. Nevada has two sales: the Ely sale and the Fallon sale. Last year they didn't have an Ely sale, so there couldn't have been sales numbers from 2007. However, the gist of what you're saying -- the harvest across the west is down significantly --- appears to be true (might have been some spider venom interferred with your memory or hearing).

I talked to Jim Curran, the Nevada Fur Sale chairman, and he said he expects slightly less than 50% of the cats they got last year for Fallon. Typically the Fallon sale is the biggest sale in the state.

[bobwendt]

50% is huge. I think the chickens have come home to roost. then tell me the ely figures for what years you have. and to think all this time the nevada trappers were afraid of non residents and daily ck times. why heck the golden goose is dieing!

[td]

Cat catch for everybody in my area is down.

Could be the weather, as we had rain, ice, mud, snow and constant freeze/thaw since first week of december...........but don't see as many tracks after a snow as usual.

[cameron2]

Bob:

I don't know the numbers for the Ely sale. Joel Blakeslee could point you in the right direction, but my point is that since there was no Ely sale last year, presumably all the cats that would have otherwise been sold at Ely came to Fallon. So the Fallon sale had a lot more cats than it typically does. As a result, it's a little misleading to say the number of cats at Fallon this year will be down 50% from what they were last year -- last year was really a combined Ely-Fallon sale, if you will.

I'm not arguing that the cat harvest is down, or what the cause is (I have my own theories), I'm just suggesting that the number of cats sold at Fallon this year, and those sold at Ely this year, bear some analysis in order to see the true picture.

[trappnman]

(I have my own theories),

I'd like to hear them.....