With family and work obligations my field time has become less and less. To fill in the void of actual field time, I have been reading maps, looking at google earth maps, reading the message boards, watching predator hunting videos and shows and making my plan.
This past Saturday I was up and out the door by 4:00 AM with coffee in hand and a two hour drive ahead of me. About half way there my good friend from New Mexico shared a few text messages back and forth and my hunt turned into a friendly competition between friends " bet I'll get something before you! " kind of thing, now the pressure was really on!
As I was within the last 60 mile stretch my truck thermometer read 45 deg, I was thinking that's a lot warmer than I would like, but it is what it is. Wrong, the last 15 miles back into my first canyon stand and the temp had dropped down to 20 deg's and my thoughts of a comfortable hunt turned into, man I had better really bundle up, this T-shirt and light jacket are not going to cut it.
I headed into a stand where I had spotted a Mountain Lion a few months back on a high rock over looking its kingdom. The cover in this area is tight, at best I could only see 20 - 25 yards. After 35 - 45 minutes of calling every bird in the area to investigate my decoy and caller I decided to move on - the stand just did not feel right.
I left this canyon after making two more blank stands and decided to try another spot just down the road. This area is more out in the open with less pinon trees, but It had lots of high scrub to deal with.
On this set-up, I positioned myself in the shade of a large pinon tree and put the decoy and caller out 45 yards in front. Because the cover was very thick, I keep my rifle in the ready position with my head down and ready to shoot.
I let things calm down for about 5 minutes after setting everything up and turned on my E-caller. Right at the 25 minute mark a Bobcat comes in hard, right up to my decoy, I was in total shock. My rifle was up and ready to go, I placed the cross hairs on the cat's left front shoulder and let one fly and the cat turned around and bolted like it had not been hit.
At this point I had a lot of things going through my head, I just called in a cat, I think I missed it, do I sit here and continue to call, my mind was thinking a mile a minute. I get up with rifle in hand and check out the area around the decoy and about 3 feet behind it, I spot blood - ok it's a hit! I scan the sage brush and I could see something about 5 yards out moving slowly, I line up again and take a second shot and hear the " Thump " now I know that was a solid hit.
This Bobcat is an older female with beautiful fur and very few spots, a large body but very lean. Her teeth had been worn down pretty well and I think that she was well past her prime.
I had an absolutely amazing morning! My plan is to either do a rug or just tan the hide and have the skull done - I just need to find someone locally that does Taxidermy work!
Equipment list as follows:
Rifle - KAC SR-15 18"
Scope - Leupold 2.5-8x
KAC - NT4 suppressor
Hornady - 75gr bullets
E-Caller - FoxPro II
Because I have a hard time judging predator weights, I'll let you all take a guess at her weight. I put her on a bathroom scale and weighed her, but I want to see what everyone else thinks!
