Wildlife Callers

One of our Arizona blog readers & veteran predator caller, Danny Avey, reads several of our posts about sounds & tactics, gives the techniques a try and calls this 28lb female bobcat in Southern Arizona.  He openly shares his tactics and sound list with other readers. 

 

We’d like to thank Danny for the open and candid way he shared his story and tactics.  We hope these tips work for you too. 

Danny was hunting near the Arizona/Mexico border (US side).  He was calling for a mixed bag of predators, and although he wanted to call up some bobcats or a lion, he was perfectly happy chasing coyotes.  About a half-hour before dark on a still & clear afternoon, this bobcat arrived on his stand.  Two shots from his .223 dropped the cat 12 steps from his Wildlife Technologies KAS-2030-ML. 

 Side Note: It appears that Danny’s hair slipped off his head and got stuck on his chin.

Here is a full run-down of his set-up and the sounds, times, and volume settings:

Before setting up, Danny carefully selected his site by looking for a long & wide sandy wash that went for several miles in each direction.  The wash was very steep on both sides and had a generous amount of brush and desert trees along both sides.  In the bottom of the wash he found a medium sized bush with low-hanging limbs.  Danny turned his caller to the on position and hid the speaker inside the bush.  This is one of the techniques that we talk about often!  Make the predator (especially cats) approach the location to get a better look at what’s happening inside the bush. 

Danny took a position on the upper part of a wash bank overlooking the area he had hid the speaker.  The place he sat gave him the advantage of being able to see all potential approach locations (especially downwind) and it kept the sun at his back. 

Danny started his stand with between 2 and 3 minutes of Pileated Woodpecker Distress.  He kept the volume in the low and medium range hoping to get a quick taker that was laid-up nearby. 

His next sound was Adult Cottontail Distress.  He kept the volume at mid-range for about 3 minutes. 

At this point he was between 5 and 6 total minutes on the stand.  Danny seamlessly changed the sound to Crows Mobbing Food and turned the volume up a notch for about a minute and then back down to medium for 2 more minutes. 

At about 8.5 minutes he decides to switch back the Adult Cottontail Distress and let it run to the 15 minute mark.  While this cottontail sound is playing, Danny turns the volume all the way up for several seconds to reach out to critters that might be hanging up at a far distance, and then goes back to the middle of the scale.  He continues turning the volume up and down, hoping to create the illusion of movement and activity. 

At the fifteen minute mark there were still no takers, but Danny wasn’t done.  He changed to Ravens Fighting Over Food for 2.5 minutes and then Gray Foxes Fighting for 2.5 minutes.  The volume for both of these sounds was medium-loud and pretty aggressive. 

At the 20 minute mark, he switched back to Cottontail Adult Distress for 6 more minutes.  He was back up and down with the volume and being pretty aggressive with the upper limits.

At 26 minutes, Danny switched to the Young Cougar Whistles and let it run for about 3 minutes.  He then switched to the Adult Male Coyote Challenge Howls and and let it run for about 2 minutes.  He told me he wanted to create the illusion of predators in the area and in a dispute over rights to the still-screaming food. 

Toward the end of the coyote howls, Danny saw a bobcat casually approaching about 125 yards away.  The bobcat was in the wash bottom and was walking from bush to bush, slowly making its way to the speaker.  Danny immediately dropped the volume and went back to the Adult Cottontail Distress.  He said there were a couple of different times that he could have taken a shot at the bobcat, but chose to watch the bobcat and watch its behavior.  The bobcat used all available cover in the wash bottom and took several minutes to walk from 125 to just 12 yards from the speaker.  A caller who didn’t see the cat at 125 yards and stopped the stand at 31 minutes would have forever assumed nothing came in – patience is the key with cats. 

The bobcat stopped in the open staring at the bush the speaker was hidden in and Danny used his AR-15 .223 to shoot the bobcat just behind the front shoulder with a Nosler 55 grain Ballistic Tip.  The bobcat spun and acted as if it hadn’t been hit.  Danny took aim again and delivered another shot to the ribcage.  This time the bobcat dropped straight down.  An inspection of the bobcat showed that it had been hit both times through the lungs and heart.  The lesson here – always be ready to shoot a cat again – they are tough as nails. 

His choices of sounds and volume changes certainly adds to the argument that we, as humans, can way over-think what makes a predator come or not come to the call.  Lots of callers, me included, might assume that lion sounds and coyote challenges would scare a bobcat away.  As we see here, that’s just no so.  This says a lot about the chaos and challenges of nature that we’re disconnected from and don’t fully understand. 

Your questions and comments are always appreciated – please comment below.

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Thank you again Danny – and good calling to everyone!

Mark Healy

mark@wildlifecallers.com

1-877-734-1010