The bobcat seemed to appear out of nowhere.
I was hunting squirrels. I had just found a comfortable place to sit beneath a beech tree and had pulled a bellows squirrel call from my pocket and tapped on its rubber end. Fifty yards away, a fox squirrel responded.
The squirrel sidled down his tree and cut loose with a string of profanities, lashing the air with its expressive tail. I sat, watching its humorous antics, and pondered the best way to approach it for a shot.
Beneath the squirrel’s tree, something moved. The woods were open, but I could not discern that which had caught my eye. I squinted. I stared. But nothing was there.
I looked again at the squirrel. It had stopped barking and was stretched tight against the bark, motionless, its large black eyes locked on the ground below.
I looked again beneath the tree. A large male bobcat sat there. He was looking up at the fox squirrel, licking his muttonchops whiskers.
I was focused intently on my surroundings, but the big cat’s approach had entirely escaped me. He arrived like an apparition, startling me with his sudden presence.
The squirrel was startled, too. He quickly ascertained his position on the lower end of the food chain and raced for a hole high above. The bobcat made a halfhearted leap for the bushytail, then started off as if the squirrel had never been there.
I tapped again on the squirrel call. The cat turned and captured me in its gaze. I remember most his luminous eyes, two pools of liquid gold. He stared for a few seconds, then turned and disappeared.
I saw that beautiful animal several more times over the years. His home range and mine overlapped. He often hunted mice by the beehives at the edge of my garden. Sometimes, pulling into the driveway at night, I glimpsed his glowing eyes in the brushy woodland edge.
I never hunted that bobcat. He was too close to home. I hunted others of his kind, though, and learned through the years that bobcats are perhaps the most challenging to hunt of all our wild creatures. No wild turkey was ever more difficult to call. No deer possesses more elusiveness and adaptability. No bear is more reclusive. No fox or coyote is more finely attuned to its environment.
Bobcats are very cautious. They’re well camouflaged and hard to spot. When you’re calling, they don’t come running right up to you like a fox does, or sometimes a coyote. They slip up on you. A caller may find one practically in his lap before he knows it’s there. That’s part of the excitement of hunting this amazing animal.
Begin each hunting season by scouting the territory you intend to hunt. Ideally, you should map out a route that allows stands or hides every half mile or so. The more stands, the greater your chance of success. You may make 10 or 15 stops and never see a bobcat, or you may make one or two and have no trouble finding a cat. You just don’t know, however, so you want to be sure you have several places you can try.
I often drive the back roads through a wildlife management area or other public hunting lands and try to find places that are similar to those where you might find rabbits. If you have good rabbit cover — edge areas, brushy thickets, successional clearcuts, places like that — you have good cat cover. Bobcats will be where they can catch rabbits if they can.
The basis of bobcat-hunting
technique is appealing to the cat’s instinct to eat rabbits by using a call that imitates a rabbit’s distress cries. When a predator catches a cottontail, the normally silent rabbit shrieks in fear and pain. It does the same when caught in a trap or fence or when accidentally injured. Bobcats know this sound and respond to it looking for an easy meal.
There are many companies making mouth-blown predator calls, and though each call may have a slightly different pitch or sound, all of them will attract bobcats. I use only the closed-reed, barrel-type rabbit calls. But open-reed calls that make a high-pitched mouse squeal can also be effective.
Camouflage clothing is important as well. You’re going up against one of the sharpest-
eyed creatures there is, and the more you camouflage yourself, the better.
Bobcat-hunting season in Arkansas runs Sept. 1 through Feb. 28. Hunting can be good in all these months.
Be at your hunting area when the sun rises, and the best hunting will continue
until 10 o’clock in the morning or so. Up in the day, bobcats generally settle down and hole up somewhere. But they’ll be active again at dusk and into the night.
Calling is best when there’s little or no wind, which is one reason to recommend the first light of day, normally a period of calm. Try to position yourself so the prevailing wind is at the back of your quarry rather than yours, blowing your scent away from the animal’s keen nose.
When you get to your hunting area, pull your vehicle off to the side of the road, and when you get out, be sure you don’t slam the doors, don’t talk to one another and don’t smoke. You should move 60 to 100 yards away from your vehicle and slip in there like you’re stalking a deer. Get to your stand quickly, but as quietly as possible.
When you begin calling, don’t let your enthusiasm destroy the reality of the drama you’re attempting to create. Start calling quietly; then put a little more blood into it with each call. You want to sound like a rabbit that’s been caught in a fence or by another predator. Start your series real low, and if that doesn’t bring results, then you can kick the volume up. Some guys believe in calling continuously, and others do series of 30-second calls with pauses in between to look around and see what’s coming.
A fox or coyote will generally respond within five to 15 minutes. But a bobcat may take 30 minutes or more. I’ll usually stay at each stand close to half an hour. If nothing has come up, then I’ll move to the next spot. If a cat does show, I have my gun at the ready and make my shot — if I can.
Predator calling is not for the casual hunter. Don’t expect to fill up the back of your pickup with varmints. You’re an amateur “rabbit” operating in a world of polished professionals who stay alive by not making mistakes. Arguably, no form of hunting is more demanding of skill, dedication, shooting ability and patience than bobcat calling. None. But that’s what makes it such a challenge and so much fun.