This is topic Cat Habitat in forum Cat forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by WhiteMtnCur (Member # 5) on February 11, 2003, 12:25 PM:
This always seems to get a good discussion going.
Everyone seems to look for different country when calling bobcats. Some people like rocks, boulders, canyons and rimrocks. Others want thick cedars, some people have even said that cats routinely check out guzzlers, and they make great spots for stands. Concentrations of cottontails or chukkars have been said to be good.
When targetting cats, what kind of country do you look for? Anything specific, that to you screams, "Cat,"?
I'll weigh in with my opinion a little later.
[ February 11, 2003, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: WhiteMtnCur ]
Posted by Lone Howl (Member # 29) on February 11, 2003, 01:11 PM:
In my areas its thick brushy canyons and rocky areas.The coastal range here is crawling with em.Ive even seen em around my coyote areas here which is mainly flat farm country full of cotton,corn and vegetables along with some virgin ground here and there.
Posted by Lone Howl (Member # 29) on February 11, 2003, 01:22 PM:
In my areas its thick brushy canyons and rocky areas.The coastal range here is crawling with em.Ive even seen em around my coyote areas here which is mainly flat farm country full of cotton,corn and vegetables along with some virgin ground here and there.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 11, 2003, 02:57 PM:
I'm dying to know. Y'all jump in, here? LB
Posted by Lone Howl (Member # 29) on February 11, 2003, 06:03 PM:
How did I double post? Do I have a special talent or sumthin'?
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on February 11, 2003, 06:15 PM:
This place is known to hold a ton of bobcats (and big blacktails, the second biggest blacktail ever came from somewhere in this neighborhood... there's your hint local guys), so many that they are often seen by the few hikers and Mtbikers that frequent the area. Me and Red called one in last time we were in the neighborhood (but it hung up way out of range).
The area is about 800ft ele. at the river in the bottom, 3500ft at the top of the ridge three miles away as the crow flies.
It has very thick underbrush (much of it Himalayan blackberries) and Doug fir/Cottonwood at the lower elevations breaking into Cedar/Hemlock re-growth above about 1500ft where the undergrowth finaly relents a little and one can actually pass through without a bulldozer. The cliffs in the picture are typical of the area and many small outcroppings hide in the forest, and boulderfields and erratics litter the place, which is steep and arboreal.
Ferns, moss and salal are the main groundcover, mixed with patches of devils club (one of the meanest plants I know of), slide maple and alders (slipperier than a greased pig on a teflon griddle, and tangled like witches hair), and salmon berries, huckleberries, and blueberries.
The area would hold more bears but is adjacent to an ORV area and too close to town (some big one's come from the basin beyond the ridge).
Gated logging roads divide the area into a maze of patchwork clearcuts, replants and unlogable steeps and gullies.
I don't know what a "guzzler" is but there's water everywhere here... they don't call 'em The Cascades for nothin'. Much of the year the trails and roads more resemble creeks
Swamps with thick black mud and huge skunk cabbage are tucked onto little shelves, often blackened with the soot and ash of old forest fires.
Roaring creeks lace the area as well, most too steep to hold fish, boiling and frothy with white water that would grind up small cars (and have).
Deep blue jewels of lakes, some small some a few miles long, hide in nooks in the mountains and ridges, a float plane is not an unseen thing. This is young country, deeply carved and scrubbed by the last ice age, then filled with the sand and gravel of many glaciers as they receeded.
So in this area we have rocks, boulders, canyons and rimrocks. We've got the thick cedars, a decent supply of deer, rabbits, pika, quail and grouse (but they're dwindling).
Man I love this place, when I die my ashes will be dumped in a tributary upstream from this one, and I'll be part of it forever.
How's that?
Jeff 
[ February 11, 2003, 06:18 PM: Message edited by: Krustyklimber ]
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 11, 2003, 07:36 PM:
A very complete, detailed description!
However, for most predator hunting, it looks darn near unhuntable. Which is not to say, that it doesn't hold a population of bobcat.
Good hunting. LB
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on February 11, 2003, 10:07 PM:
Now maybe you guys can see why I get so wound up over the whole east west thing. lol
I doubt even the guys in PA hunt in country that thick and hard passed... but that's what we're up against. Most of western Washington looks like this... That's why we often hunt with shotguns, and/or makes stands in or next to the roads.
Does the Mark Twain National Forest look like this? How 'bout the LBL (whatever that is)?
Jeff
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on February 14, 2003, 11:02 PM:
C'mon guys, I didn't mean to hi-jack this thread... somebody else take a turn.
I know how to describe an area, but somebody with actual experience can help us learn how to kill them...
Who's next?
Jeff
Posted by WhiteMtnCur (Member # 5) on February 15, 2003, 08:41 AM:
Thanks for the reply KrustyKlimber. It's funny that you post that picture because I have a place in an area I hunt/trap that looks identical to that. But like Leonard said, it's unhuntable. And not easy to trap either.
Anyone else care to weigh-in? Leonard? Steve Craig?
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 15, 2003, 09:42 AM:
Being a city boy, but at the same time, a veteran desert rat, I was very surprised by the question: what's a guzzler?
Both my brother and sister and formerly, my mother live up there is "God's Country", Washington State, where it rains at least every other day, and the wildlife don't need the support of artifically cached water.
A guzzler usually has a very low corregated roof situated in a wash where it can store rainwater, and be supplimented as needed, to sustain quail and other small critters, through periods of drought. Desert Bighorn also benefited. This was water that would otherwise run off, or percolate underground.
Thumbnail background:
They were installed by volunteers, a lot of them in the Mojave Preserve, and now the National Park service is removing them because they are "artificial" and at the same time, changing policy, not allowing any predator hunting over that vast area. (a bunnyhugger administration of the desert)
Good hunting. LB
Posted by Krustyklimber (Member # 72) on February 15, 2003, 03:27 PM:
"Artificially cached water"???
You mean a stash of water bottles, right? LOL
No, I get it, sorta like a "cistern" for critters, we actually have those on the East side of our state (where it's much drier, with the Cascade Mountains wringing most of the rain from the clouds), but I only know them as "watering stations".
I thought a "guzzler" was my bro' when the beer shows up...
Jeff
Posted by WhiteMtnCur (Member # 5) on February 17, 2003, 10:51 AM:
I guess there aren't going to be any more takers? I'll jump in then.
The first things I look for when trying to find good numbers of cats is an area that is in rougher terrain, with little human intereference, and a solid prey base.
Some of the best bobcats areas I know of are very remote, with few if any roads going through them, and they contain a lot of what a bobcat likes: rocks, steep canyons, rimrocks, thick brush, transition zones, and a good number of cottontails, pack rats, chukkars, etc.
I have mixed views on water in the desert. It seems like water gets so much pressure from everyone all year, from ranchers checking stock dams/livestock, big game hunters, upland bird hunters, and the predator hunters, that it's not all it's cracked up to be. I've called around guzzlers and killed cats, but not enough to consistently say that guzzlers were the reason for the success.
I will somewhat contradict that statement though, and say one of the best bobcat locations I know of, is in close proximity to a guzzler. The reason (I assume) is because a large flock of chukkars stays in the area and waters at the guzzler, which in turn keeps cats around.
The one other place where water has contributed to a really good area is in a thick cedar canyon, with rimrocks on both sides. There's patch of very thick green grass about 20' around, and a spring in the middle, with a pool of water a couple feet across. Cattle used to water there and it was a big mud hole, but it has since been closed off to grazing. There are a lot of cottontails in the area. It consistently produces bobcats.
Leonard, on an earlier post it seems like I saw you mention that once you know how to recognize good bobcat terrain, the hunting's gravy. Care to share your thoughts on cat location?
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on February 17, 2003, 03:29 PM:
I don't know, Trevor? You've been real mean to me, lately.
You know how they say; gold is where you find it?
On the other hand, sometimes you can look at a lake or stream and have a pretty good idea where the lunkers are holding.
It's like that with cats, in a way. You don't have to stumble into very many before you recognize what they like, and when they like to be there. A big advantage is spotting them at night, you get so that you can almost predict cats when you see the type of cover. Not that it is consistant; it isn't.
I'm not going to attempt to describe cat habitat, paint it with a broad brush, so to speak. You check an area and say it looks birdie, right? Well, how did you know that? Because you have found cats in that type of cover, before, consistantly. Pretty easy, as I said, once you know what to look for.
About guzzlers and water, in general, speaking of a desert environment. Everybody calls it. You can call it too, but you have to handle the stand in a unique way. Don't ask me what that unique way is (DON'T FORGET, I'M MAD AT YOU) because it varies. Placement, sounds time of day, etc. You have to throw in a twist, or you will have spotty results.
Good hunting. LB
Posted by Terry Hunter (Member # 58) on February 18, 2003, 05:17 PM:
Cats in my part of the country are almost always found in thick brushy areas and in rocky hills and hollows.If a creek or river is close it's almost a sure bet cats are close.Most of the cats I call are seen where the terrain changes.For some reason I have better luck setting up low and calling the cats down to me.
In the Mississippi river delta cats can be found where no trees, rocks or cover is present except for swamp grass.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on March 12, 2003, 03:49 PM:
Wasn't very hard to find.....
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