Originally Posted By: GCHere is an excerpt I wrote for something else, hopefully it is helpful...
Bobcats are beautiful and wondrous creatures. Cats like thick areas of brush near a water source. Brushy overgrown fields, swampy areas, cedar glades, pine thickets, creek bottoms, rocky bluffs, old ponds or lake edges are all prime places to find bobcats. They prey on all sorts of small animals including wild turkeys. At times bobcats may even include deer in their menu. The more common fare is rabbit, mice, squirrels, and any birds they can catch. Cats love birds! They’ll pass up a fat rabbit for a stalk on a song bird. Here’s a tip - if you are a predator caller fast, high pitched birds sounds, or high pitched cottontail are prime cat sounds.
Bobcats have a short attention span and get distracted easily. They may be on the way to the call, but if the sound stops for too long and they see something else like a bird, they’ll often just wander off or sit down and quit coming in. Tip - don’t have too long of a pause between series of calls if you are a caller.
Cats hunt most with their eyes and ears. Not to say bobcats completely ignore their nose, but I’ve had bobcats directly downwind and even though I know they had a snoot full of human scent, they never batted an eye. A coyote would have been long gone in that situation! Another tip - if you are a caller, a small moving decoy will help focus the cat away from you and tends to keep them fascinated on the decoy. Something as simple as a small cluster of feathers tied into a low hanging bush fluttering in the breeze will do the job.
Cats are stalkers and may take a long time to get to a calling stand. Most coyotes are onto a stand within 15 - 20 minutes, but a cat may take as much as an hour. They are extremely hard to see when they stalk into a stand. They use all the available cover to get close. I’ve been diligently watching as I called and suddenly realized, “Oh crap, there is a cat!“ when some little something catches my eye from a tuft of tall grass, or from behind an old stump, log, or rock clump. I never know how long they’ve been there before I actually saw them. Many a caller has stood up at the end of an hour long stand and jumped a bobcat that was right in front of them they had never seen. Bobcats have phenomenal eyesight and will pick apart a stand as they creep in. Fidgeting around by the hunter has saved many a cat. You must sit still and not be moving or else your chances are very low. They will also hear the slightest rustle in the leaves or creak, bump, ect. Quiet is important.
With all that said, bobcats don’t always slip into the calling stand. I have had them run into a stand as aggressively as any coyote I’ve ever called. In fact, the first cat I ever called was a huge old tom that nearly ran me over, sliding to a stop in the snow only a few yards from me. Sometimes they come hard and fast and that is a special sight.
Bobcats aren’t all that bright though. As mentioned, they will often ignore a snoot full of human scent. Their natural defense is to hide and I’ve watched them hunker down and attempt to hide, all the while shooters fire at them and miss repeatedly. I’ve seen a shooter miss a bobcat twice with a .308 blowing snow and debris all over it, and the cat simply lay low when it could have easily ran off the backside of the ridge. I talked the shooter down and his third shot connected. Another similar time a fellow shot three times with a .12 gauge shotgun and No. Four Buckshot, again blowing snow and leaf debris all over the cat. The cat never moved and I finally shot the cat as the other guy was trying to stuff shells into his pump gun.
Populations of bobcats can be wide spread. However, even where there are a lot of them, there aren’t many.
Spot on- from my limited experience.