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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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.  They’re calling this camera the Wildgame Innovations X6c – boasting infrared flash technology, crisp 6mp still photos and up to 30 second video in the video mode.  At under $150 this camera is priced right.  To see the X6c game camera specs CLICK HERE:   

Wildgame Innovations X6c - Compact Trail Camera

And, don’t forget your memory cards.  We searched for high-quality memory cards that we could bring to you for a great price – we found them.  These Kingston Technology 4gb SDHC cards will store thousands of images and we’re selling them for less than the Kingston Tech 2gb cards we bought for our own use (live & learn).  At just $13.48 in the Wildlife Callers’ Store you don’t have to compromise and get smaller cards!

Kingston SDHC 4gb Class 4 Memory Card

So, there it is — the whole package.  Compact trail cameras and 4gb cards priced right.  Our mission is to keep bringing these useful field items to you at the best prices possible.  As we get a chance to test mounting brackets we’ll add more camera mounting accessories to the site. 

If you’re wondering why we haven’t put some of the larger body cameras on the site, we really didn’t see a need to.  Bigger is not better when it comes to these cameras.  We have used several of the larger camera brands, but nothing we’ve used takes a better picture, has better battery life, and packs into the field as easily as these compact models. 

Thank you again for reading and subscribing to the blog.  As always, if you have any questions, we’re just a phone call away at 1-877-734-1010.  You can also reach us at info@wildlifecallers.com 

Good scouting,

Mark Healy

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.”

To read the complete story and previous posts about this bear hunt, go to Tom’s blogpost here.

Tom and wife Shanna with the bear hide.

Thanks for sharing your story Tom and congratulations on a nice bear called! Tom’s blog and website can be found at www.basecamplegends.com

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Thanks for reading!

Marc Reindell

marc@wildlifecallers.com

 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:   

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Thank you all for reading and good hunting,

Mark Healy

Mark@WildlifeCallers.com

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