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Wisconsin Bobcat

thusby

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Joined
Apr 2, 2019
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Greater Milwaukee Area
After many years of applying for bobcat in Wisconsin, it was finally my turn. I ended up getting busy with a lot of things towards the end of the year and hadn't gotten a chance to get out until this weekend. We also had about 40" of snow over a one week span that put a damper on things. We spent Saturday driving roads but did not cut a fresh track. I was a little disappointed but I knew I had at least 2 more days to hunt. Sunday morning we cut a fresh track going across the road that looked to be a nice cat. We waited for a friend to arrive with one of his dogs and set 3 dogs loose on the track. They headed away bounding through the snow and before we knew it they were 500 yards away. We watched them swirl in a big circle around the edge of a creek and they were barking about 40 barks/minute so we knew they had something hot. After about 45 minutes the chase slowed down and all the dogs were together so we set out.
We threw on snowshoes for the 1.5 mile hike and spent about an hour working our way to the dogs. Lucky for us most of the floating bog was frozen solid. When we got up to the dogs we could see that the fight was on the ground. The cat was underneath a blowdown and swiping at the dogs as they were facefighting with him. He caught sight of me as I crested the last snow mound and took out of the back of the blowdown. Luckily, I had decided to pack the semi-auto 20 gauge with #3 buck. I was able to get 3 shots off and the cat was down. The dogs took turns nibbling on the downed cat to claim their prize. I threw him over my shoulder to get him out and we made it back to get the cat weighed and get a nice breakfast before noon.
Its great to have good friends with hard running dogs. I wouldn't have gotten this nice cat any other way.
 

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Very cool and great cat. I’ve got a tag in Illinois this year, hoping to be able to call one in somewhere in southern Illinois.
 
Looks like fun, hound hunting is something I've always wanted to do.
 
Was just about to ask the same, sitting on 2 points here. Sounds like a cool hunt, glad you got a nice one!
 
Very nice! Bobcats are amazing hunters! Their stealth is beyond.
Grats to your success!
 
Gosh, I bet it would be fun to hunt bobcats with hounds! We have a lot of them, but no one really hunts them here. The ones that get shot are mostly killed while someone is deer hunting. Only a few people do any predator hunting down here. I've raccoon hunted with hounds, and would love to hunt cats with them!
 
Not quite. You have to accumulate several years of preference points before you can draw a bobcat tag. Even worse, I’ve got wait around another 12 years for a bear tag.
Dang, that seems rediculous! Are there that many people trying to hunt bear there?
 
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