ihuntducksalot72
New member
I've been predator calling for years, mostly coyote, fox, and occasionally coon. The area of Iowa I live in has a few cats, but the population is pretty low. We've had a Bobcat season since about 2007, and last year was the first year it was on a no quota set up so we had all year to call them. The zone is significantly south of were I live, so a buddy and I have made a few trips down to Southern Iowa over the last few years trying to fill a cat tag. We've called in one cat during that time, and it never offered a shot, and I know we've had more in we've never seen. (blujays going crazy, pheasant flushing out of the grass, all the things that let you know somethings there)
We've had some fun trips and done quite a bit of calling, but do to needing to travel to hunt, we don't get many chances a year to cut our teeth and learn in the field when it comes to cat calling. Not to mention we are always traveling out of our "home" area we are familuar with and hunting new territory to us. The area we are traveling to has a good number of cats, so were in a good spot.
We've got a lot of the basics down, but I'd love to hear from some of the more seasoned bobcat callers on here about how you do things, certain tips you might have, or observations you might have made over you years about cats. Ive sifted through the searcha archives and got some great information from old post!
The areas we are hunting are broken up Ag ground, lots of fields and big timber areas. (big timbers for Iowa anyways) Lots of CRP and the Timbers are full of deep nasty ravines, that I know the cats like. On the calm days we'll work edges calling, and use our rifles, on the windy days we like to bury into the ravines with our shotguns. I usually keep the caller running almost continuously, with 3-4 sound changes over about 45 minutes and we will move on. I've got a decoy on the caller, and I'll go about every other set using it or not using it. We haven't had enough time to tell if its good bad or otherwise. On the sets I don't use it, I'll hang the caller in a tree off the ground. Thats kind of been our system. Sound about right? Some pieces we just hit and leave but on bigger chunks with a lot of good cover, we'll make several sets, moving 200-400yds to the next good piece of cover making sure we call everything that looks good.
Vacation starts at 0700hrs tommorow morning and we'll be driving down south for a week of coyote/bobcat calling! Can't wait!! A whole week of hunting and NO WORK!! Just interested in sitting tonight and seeing what info or advice anyone might have to offer on calling bobcats. Other than just taking the time to get the sets in, is there anything we should really be trying or keying on to get a cat into the caller?
Thanks everyone!
We've had some fun trips and done quite a bit of calling, but do to needing to travel to hunt, we don't get many chances a year to cut our teeth and learn in the field when it comes to cat calling. Not to mention we are always traveling out of our "home" area we are familuar with and hunting new territory to us. The area we are traveling to has a good number of cats, so were in a good spot.
We've got a lot of the basics down, but I'd love to hear from some of the more seasoned bobcat callers on here about how you do things, certain tips you might have, or observations you might have made over you years about cats. Ive sifted through the searcha archives and got some great information from old post!
The areas we are hunting are broken up Ag ground, lots of fields and big timber areas. (big timbers for Iowa anyways) Lots of CRP and the Timbers are full of deep nasty ravines, that I know the cats like. On the calm days we'll work edges calling, and use our rifles, on the windy days we like to bury into the ravines with our shotguns. I usually keep the caller running almost continuously, with 3-4 sound changes over about 45 minutes and we will move on. I've got a decoy on the caller, and I'll go about every other set using it or not using it. We haven't had enough time to tell if its good bad or otherwise. On the sets I don't use it, I'll hang the caller in a tree off the ground. Thats kind of been our system. Sound about right? Some pieces we just hit and leave but on bigger chunks with a lot of good cover, we'll make several sets, moving 200-400yds to the next good piece of cover making sure we call everything that looks good.
Vacation starts at 0700hrs tommorow morning and we'll be driving down south for a week of coyote/bobcat calling! Can't wait!! A whole week of hunting and NO WORK!! Just interested in sitting tonight and seeing what info or advice anyone might have to offer on calling bobcats. Other than just taking the time to get the sets in, is there anything we should really be trying or keying on to get a cat into the caller?
Thanks everyone!