Wildlife Callers

Dave and Dan head north in Arizona looking for cats and bag two big tom bobcats on Saturday, then finish the weekend off by calling in a juvenile lion late Sunday afternoon.

It wasn’t a run-and-gun weekend Dave told me.  He said he and Dan were taking it easy, looking for prime areas, and calling into spots that had the terrain, vegetation, and sign they thought would be the most productive.  Their approach paid off.  Early Saturday morning this big tom came to the call in less than 5 minutes and Dave dropped it with a single shot from his 12ga.  

Dave Martens and Deuce pose with a Big Northern AZ Bobcat

Dave’s calling technique was pretty simple.  Get in tight to the best available cat cover and introduce the sound low and easy.  A mix of mice and cottontail rabbit distress  from his WT Mighty Atom 21 brought this bobcat into shotgun range.  Dave said he would have gotten louder and more aggressive and utilized bobcat vocalizations and/or bobcats & foxes fighting as the stand progressed but never needed to. 

Later in the day Dan spotted another pocket of tight brushy cover several miles from where Dave took his bobcat.  After surveying the sign, terrain and the most probable foot access routes predators would take into the heavy cover Dan and Dave set up covering as much open ground as possible.  Using the same calling technique of low & easy Dave mixed up a combo of bird distress and cottontail rabbit distress to bring this big bobcat into Dan’s shooting lane in about 4 minutes.  Dan fired one shot from his 12ga to close the deal.  

Dan Tone and Deuce the Jack Russell with a Big AZ Tom Bobcat

With two cats in the truck Dan and Dave took a few minutes and skinned them.  A little closer inspection showed one had been eating jackrabbit and the other was full of Merriam’s turkey meat & feathers.  The fact that the cats were both operating on full stomachs didn’t slow them down.  It seems that curiosity (or a little greed) does kill cats.

Wildlife Technologies Mighty Atom 21 and N. Arizona Tom Bobcat

The remaining few stands on Saturday and Sunday morning were unproductive so Dave & Dan headed for lower elevations and into an area both of them have hunted and scouted for years.  They set up a stand with bobcats and mountain lions in mind and Dave started the Mighty Atom playing with a mix of mice, birds and cottontail distress.  Dave got no early takers and began to get more aggressive, turning up the volume and introducing gray fox & bobcat vocalizations into the mix.  After 30 minutes there was still nothing moving in and Dave started dropping in some young cougar vocalizations (whistle sound) in the mix of calls.  About 10 minutes later Dan gave Dave the signal that they had an approaching predator.  

Hoping to get whatever Dan was seeing closer to the speaker, Dave dropped the volume and kept playing various young cougar/fox/bobcat/prey distress sounds and heard nothing more from Dan.  A few minutes later Dave decided to turn up the heat on the stand even more and introduced adult female cougar communicative vocalizations into the sound picture.  There was an immediate reaction from Dan that something was now leaving.  Night was now approaching and Dave wrapped up the stand.  He discovered from Dan that a rather small lion had worked it’s way up a cattle/deer path and veered off the trail into some heavier cover and held up about 60 yards from the caller.  The lion was hesitant to cover the final distance down to the area where Dave had the caller hidden.  Once Dave introduced the adult lion vocals, the small lion turned back and left quickly on the same trail it had come in on.  Due to the size of the lion Dan never fired a shot.  

This was Dave’s second trip back into the field since rolling his quad and tearing his Achilles tendon last year in March.  It seems he still has the Midas touch.  He told me it was all about the basics of good predator calling–let the terrain, sign, cover, and a working knowledge of your intended target’s behaviors be your guide.  I say congrats on a memorable weekend–nice work Dave and Dan.  

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