Re: calling Cats
Fresh snow helps a lot to get you close enough to a bobcat or lynx for it to hear you calling. Cats tend to be much more sparsely distributed across the landscape than coyotes. the smaller cats also tend to be tied more closely to specific bits of habitat. So if you do not already know the locations of several pockets of cat preferred habitat start out by cruising the roads after a fresh snow and look for cat tracks. You might want to put the coordinates of each set of tracks in your hunting diary and or on your local map. These points will be good starting points for days when there is not any fresh snow and you have to call blind. Anyway after finding the tracks continue checking the road and side roads if possible to try to determine if there is fresher sign nearby. Make a decision on where to set up along the cats projected travel path where you can be comfortable and have shooting lanes. Comfort is important because you need to sit as motionless as possible for at least an hour. Probably more cats are called in by accident by coyote hunters using rabbit or deer vocalizations then by dedicated cat hunters because coyote hunters probably outnumber cat hunters by 20 to 1. People focusing on bobcats tend to use bird vocalizations more often than coyote hunters do.
With cougars it is even more important that you try to find very fresh sign so that you have some hope of having a cougar within earshoot. They are exceedingly difficult to call in if they can not hear you imploring them to come visiting. None the less, every year one or more of my clients relates that they were just sitting there tweeting on a deer call or an elk cow call when they found themselves being stalked by the cougar they brought to me.
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