Another Passion: warning...not for the faint of heart.

I wear many hats.
Some, I share.
Others, I don't.
If you don't approve, I'm sorry.
It's necessary, it's vital, it's an acceptable method of
animal control in its most basic form.

I've studied this tradition since I was eight years old.
The rudiments were taught to me by my one and only Hero, my Grandfather.
Wild creatures are highly adaptable and will live unseen for years around people.
Yet, they impact our lives and often it is in a violent form or fashion.

I receive dozens of calls every year to "deal-with" these problems.
Fifty-plus years of experience and learning have allowed me
to become quite proficient and very effective in this vanishing art.
Regardless of popular opinion....this is an art.
When families around town begin losing their favored small pets,
I'm usually the one that they call. Pictured below are the results of my efforts.

Small kittens and puppies, little toy-dogs began disappearing from the
south end of town. Their screams of agony could be heard in the darkness
when their owners had let them out to go 'potty'. I got a phone call.


This big bruiser had snatched several puppies and kittens about three
miles to the west of me. Plus, it had killed and eaten several small lambs.
I went and did some scouting. Finally, I located the bottleneck in the timber he was using.
He wasn't a happy camper when I walked up on him.


I work a lot on federal ground. Usually it's very late in the season after
most of the upland bird and small game seasons are closed. These cats are
apex predators and take a large number of fawns and wild-turkey poults.
They will decimate wild rabbit populations and begin hunting small domestics. cats/dogs.
I had my oldest son with me and one of his buddies from school.
Every year, I'm invited to the high-school to give seminars on this sport.


On one morning's check, I had a dear friend along with me.
He's also an administrator at the high school. We had a mixed/bag that morning.
Two 'old-farts' havin' a blast.
The largest cat I've taken thus far was a 42-pound tom.

YES!! We do have mountain lions and I do target them when they become a threat to folks or their livestock.
I've not "caught-and-held" one....yet. Someday, I fully expect to have one on the trap line.
That...will be an interesting occurrence.


I also work very closely with farmers when they have problems with beaver
damming up small creeks and flooding their crop land. They can do literally
tens-of-thousands of dollars worth of damage when they're not controlled.
The largest one caught to date was a 78 pound boar.


Thanks for lookin'.

Grumpy

Beautiful cat! Its a good thing there are people like you out there to help keep the predators in check.

All I have to say about this is...great job!

And yes, beavers can really wreak havoc in a short time if there's low lying land around their creek. I could tell such a story about beavers, flooding and dynomite that my dad handled.

My goodness, those cats are beautiful! It seems a shame to have to kill them, but I am clear-sighted enough to understand removing problem animals when they are killing livestock and house pets. Good work, Grumpy!

Nice cat! And huge, too!

I only hunt for food and ignore coyotes and such here, but agree with the need to dispatch nuisance animals when they become a problem.

That cat would look great mounted with some dry grass on the base.

Wow! Even if it seems wrong to some, I think the RT Family can agree that sometimes these things are necessary especially when they are causing damage, killing livestock,etc....

Those are certainly some gorgeous animals! Did you ever try making stuff out of their coats? I got a chance to touch some skins his family brought back from Africa that were very cool!

great catch.. I hate when they have to take small dogs and kittens because there is no other food out there.. It happens here allot with the fishers.. I need you to come here and control them .

Wow! What do you do with them? (I'm assuming you kill them.) Do you mount them, skin them for the pelts, or what?

impressive! I don't know anyone who hunts/traps bobcats but the beaver - I know that. Beaver is one of those meats you wouldn't think would be that great but I've ate more than a few roasts that were outstanding!

Good work !!

Sadly it seems to be a dying art to locate and take out the predators that are problems. As more and more of their habitat is built over... there will be more and more such incidents.

Now if only More hunters would visit our hill... we have an infestation of Deer that could use a good thinning......

Nice Job! They are very cool cats to look at, but they've got to go when they start doing damage.
We have neighbors who had 3 goats killed and dragged of by bobcats a few years back. Occasionally we seem them crossing roads, and once on our property.

Props to you, Grumpy! I have a great respect for the predator hunters out there - we've never had a coyote problem here because of the neighbors down the road, they are avid yote hunters and keep the population in check.

Gorgeous bobcats, Grumpy!

I always enjoy seeing them here. I haven't seen him (?) in a while, but there was one that was so large that I mistook him for a mountain lion until my eye traveled down his body and saw his short tail. He was the size of a Springer Spaniel at least!

I have a funny story about a bobcat. Some people here had a large population of barn cats. They had at least twenty, but one by one they kept disappearing. One evening, as the couple sat on their porch looking toward their barn, they saw a bobcat sitting next to the cat door. Soon, a cat emerged and was promptly dispatched by his large "cousin". The cat flap was his personal vending machine! :lol:

Much as I admire the beauty of bobcats and other wildlife, if one were to start harvesting my livestock, I would not hesitate to kill it. As long as they leave us alone, we leave them alone.

This is something that my ds and dh are wanting to get into. Luckily we have some local guys that are willing to teach. I agree that it is a skill that is dying.

nice job. keep up the predator control.

Good job! I used to live trap feral cats (either for homing or to be put in a feral cat preserve), but you fulfill another very important function. As humans, we are at the top of the food chain and we have to respect our own role in the world, which includes insuring certain other species are kept in check as to not destroy others. I started to explain to a vegetarian friend about chronic wasting syndrome in deer just a few days ago, for example. I don't agree with factory farming, but I agree with hunting most assuredly. Hope you used their carcasses as much as you could; I'd bet on the fact you did, of course.

trinityoaks":3arx3ifv said:

Wow! What do you do with them? (I'm assuming you kill them.) Do you mount them, skin them for the pelts, or what?

Click to expand...

Yes, Trinity. I do dispatch them once I'm close to them.
When I say close....I mean "real" close...3 to 4 feet from them.
All of them are caught in "foot-hold" traps.
Take a moment and study all of their feet.
There's no tell-tale marks on them whatsoever.

All cats have a foot like a water-balloon....very mooshy.
When I do the seminars at the high-school I'll take one
of the cat-traps and intentionally let it snap shut on my hand.
:x The kids freak out when I do it. :x
The jaws are filed smooth with no sharp edges.
All they do is apply pressure and hold the animal until I get there.

When I approach a bobcat, I'm always very cautious until
I see how well he or she is caught.
If it's not on a nuisance call, I usually turn the girls loose.
That gets "fun" at times. LOL. If they're secure I'll approach
them slowly and dispatch them with a 22 revolver.

My grandfather's trap-line pistol.

I skin the cat and stretch the hide on special frames just for cats.

I save the meat as well. It makes outstanding bait for other bobcats.

Here's a pic of my fleshing beam where I work the fat off of the skins.
Before I stretch them.


Grumpy.

Love the set up, I would love to work in there

We have coyote here. So far I have not lost a pet but rabbit escapees don't last long. Wish we had someone like you we could call.

Like grumpy, I partake of similar pastimes.
Thinning the predators is a necessary thing, as it enhances quality of life for everyone.
It protects our livestock, first and foremost.
Secondly, it keeps some semblance of harmony in the ecosystem.
For example, right now, I'm dealing with 8-9 coyote that are terrorizing the neighborhood.
I've had them as close as 75 yards from me as I sat drinking coffee in the morning.
I see signs posted for lost cats and dogs all over the place, while few consider that their fluffy won't be coming home anytime soon, as fluffy is likely part of the ecosystem now.
Furs for big cats bring really good money, though coyote not so much.
Beaver, Fisher, and other northern type fur bearers can bring fair money too.
Time to go lay out some steel.....
Good luck grumpy!