Predator Scouting » Wildlife Callers

Fall Hunting is Coming Fast – Is Your Scouting Gear Up to Date?

Posted June 28, 2010 By Mark Healy and has no comments yet.

We’ve added two new compact trail/scouting camera styles and 4gb memory cards to The Wildlife Callers’ Store. Don’t just hunt. Hunt where you know there’s a trophy!

Are you an outfitter? Hunting or Calling Club Member? Please call for details on bulk purchasing rates. We can save you even more money on a group order! Toll Free 1-877-734-1010

Regular readers to The Wildlife Callers’ Blog know that routine scouting has been a huge part of our success in calling mountain lions. Before we spend a lot of time mountain lion calling in a particular area, we use trail cameras to find out if an area is getting frequent cougar activity. These cameras are also part of our scouting arsenal for Coues Whitetail and Elk.

We’ve had great luck with the infrared flash DLC Covert trail cameras, believe other people will too, so we became a distributor. They have a fast 1.2 second or faster trigger, take excellent 5mp photos and up to 60 seconds of video. We’re offering these great little cameras as a single unit and in a money saving twin-pack. To see specs on these battery-friendly, compact cameras in our store, just click on the photo, or CLICK HERE. As of this blog post we have them in stock and ready for immediate delivery.

Covert II Trail Camera by DLC

There is another compact game camera that caught our attention as well. Wildgame Innovations has taken some of their best & time-tested trail cam technology and put it in a much smaller case. (more…)

Categories: Predator Scouting, trail cameras

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, bobcat scouting, calling mountain lion, cougar, game cameras, Hunting, Predator Scouting, scouting, scouting cameras, trail cameras, wildlife callers, wildlife images, Wildlife Photography

Color Phase Black Bear Called and Taken In Idaho

Posted May 7, 2010 By Marc Reindell and has 1 comment.

Tom Sorenson of Base Camp Legends contacted us about a Black Bear he called in on a cool spring day in the mountains of Idaho. This is a nice color phase bear, Tom and his wife had been scouting this area for a few weeks prior to calling this beauty.

Tom Sorenson and his color phase Black Bear called in.

Tom lives in Weiser, ID and called this bear less than an hour from his home. Idaho does not allow the use of electronic game callers for big game, including bear and mountain lion. He used a Primos Hyper Lip Cow Call to call the bear. Tom and his wife took up predator calling about a year ago or so, looks like they are catching on pretty quick!

Below is an excerpt from Tom’s story:

“ The game plan was much the same as the previous week – lots of hiking and glassing, and lots of calling. Predator calling was something we’d started last year and in all the sets we’d had yet to call in a bear – call that a bit of foreshadowing. I don’t know the exact score, but I’d imagine it was somewhere around 30 sets and no bears. For the record, those are pretty bad odds. But the law of averages says that we were due.” (more…)

Categories: Predator Scouting, Predator calling

Tags: bear hunt, calling bear, calling black bear, electronic game callers, electronic predator calling, hand calls, Hunting, Idaho hunting, predator call, Predator calling, predator hunter, predator hunting, Predator Scouting, wildlife callers

Mountain Lion Scouting Video – Scent Station Behavior

Posted April 21, 2010 By Mark Healy and has 2 comments.

For mountain lion callers, scent marking areas are key to successful cougar locating.

Dave Martens and I have placed trail cameras in dozens of locations that have rendered great photos & videos of mountain lions. It wasn’t always as easy as it is today for Dave to locate a lion hot spot to place a camera. Dave’s many hours in the field and the experience that’s come with it, allow him to quickly size up a long ridge or hardpan wash bottom and hang a camera that will produce lions nearly 100% of the time.

Some guys will say, “hey, I’ve taken lots of pictures of lions on my deer cameras on such & such waterhole”. That’s great and we love to get pictures of lions anywhere, but keep in mind we rarely put cameras on waterholes. We’ve had much of our success calling lions well away from waterholes and we’re more interested in how lions travel in their territories and where they go to lay-up after they’ve been to water.

There is, however, a feature that we always look for when scouting for lions. When we find it, our success in finding lions travelling through the area has been 100%. That feature is scent marking areas, or as well call them, scent stations. There are times when we locate a small area that is literally covered in a wide variety predator poo — and poo from many other critters as well. The spot that you’ll see in the video is one such place. Since finding this location we have taken still photos and videos of several lions, fox, bears, and other predators. This location, which unfortunately is well off the beaten path, if called frequently will eventually produce a lion.

Have a look at the first video of a fox, bear, and coati, using the scent station:

Then, have a look at this female lion (we’ve taken many pictures of her) and the way she behaves on the scent station:

Just like humans, where there are ladies the guys seem to just show up. We’ve taken a few photos of lions much larger than this female that we hope to someday call. We have worked diligently in the area to find the best places to call from and be able to see lots of open areas and tight cover. Now it’s a matter of getting the stars to align and be there calling when one or more of the mountain lions are home.

As always – you can subscribe to this blog for FREE by adding your email in the SUBSCRIBE box on the upper right side of this page. Or:

Please add your thoughts or questions in the COMMENTS section at the bottom of this page.

Thank you all for reading and good hunting,

Mark Healy

Mark@WildlifeCallers.com

Categories: Predator Scouting, Predator calling, fox, mountain lion

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, bobcat, calling mountain lion, cougar, cougar calling, cougar hunting, fox, gray fox, Hunting, Mountain lion, mountain lion hunting, predator callers, Predator calling, predator hunter, predator hunting, Predator Scouting, scouting, wildlife callers

Bobcat Caller Education – Two Good Books to Help You Locate & Call More Cats

Posted December 31, 2009 By Mark Healy and has no comments yet.

One of our blog readers asked if there were some good books we’d read and would recommend for guys looking to improve their bobcat calling results. Yes we do - here are two good reads.

Hat Tip to Alan N. of Sonoita for the great question.

You might wonder why we’re recommending trapping books. Well, both of these books are dedicated to successful bobcat locating and are full of information on behavior, travel patterns, terrain, and how to read land formations to locate more cats. Knowing that trappers must know bobcats well enough to get a bobcat’s foot in less than a six by six inch spot to trap it, then it stands to reason their locating & trap placement tactics will get us close enough to call them (or smack ‘em with a hammer).

Bobcat Trapper's Guide by Mitchell Ricketts

The Bobcat Trapper’s Guide by Mitchell Ricketts gives a lot of information on bobcat habitats across the United States. The level of detail this book offers about bobcat behavior and how to identify what the author calls “key activity areas” is outstanding. I keep this book in my calling equipment box. This book as available from Amazon both new and used.

The Competition Line Bobcat Trapping Guide & Gray Fox Refresher by Tom Miranda is not as data-driven as Ricketts’ book, and has several photos of terrain, travel areas, lay-ups, and practical advice on how to locate more bobcats. This book is an easy read and one that I keep with me in the field. Be advised, Miranda talks briefly about bobcat terrain across the US, but the focus of this book is mainly in the western US.

As always, thank you for reading and posting comments. If any of you have any book recommendations, we’d like to read them and put them on the blog. Please put them in your comments.

Subscriptions to the blog are FREE. Just put your email address in the “Subscribe” box on the upper right side of this page.

May all of your stands be productive in 2010!

Mark Healy

mark@wildlifecallers.com

Categories: Books & Education, Predator Scouting, Predator calling, bobcat

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, bobcat, bobcat calling, bobcat hunting, bobcat scouting, Hunting, predator call, Predator calling, predator hunting, Predator Scouting, wildlife callers, Wildlife Photography

Predator Calling Comes to the Phoenix International Sportsman’s Expo

Posted December 9, 2009 By Mark Healy and has 3 comments.

John Kirk of International Sports Expos and Mark Healy of Wildlife Callers Blog assemble a panel of professional callers for the first-ever predator calling expert panel discussion at an ISE event!

Panel Showtime! Saturday Feb 27th at 1:30pm

As further evidence that the predator calling industry is growing, the ISE, the western United States largest and best hunting, fishing, outdoor sports, and adventure travel show will host an hour-long predator calling panel discussion. Panel members include:

(more…)

Categories: Books & Education, Predator Scouting, Predator calling