Pursuing an Iowa Ghost: The Bobcat

Pursuing an Iowa Ghost: The Bobcat

By Troy Hoepker

They’re here! I can almost sense their presence as each footstep drives us deeper into their sanctuary. It’s like that every time I’m here. Fortifications Mother Nature has built up over hundreds of years surround us in the shape of rugged hills, acres and acres of cedar choked hillsides all intermingled with prairie grasses reminiscent of wagon train times as settlers trekked for westward expansion long before this new generation of bobcat now calls it home. Indians used to camp here on the hills overlooking the river below but these days the only human activity this spot sees is from those who follow in Native American footsteps as they hunt the land. It’s everything they need to survive and flourish. It’s everything I need as well. A breath of pure, clean air, an awesome sight of nature’s beauty and the anticipation of matching wits with Iowa’s rarest and most elusive game animal make this hunt special.

Catching a rare glimpse of a bobcat in Iowa is usually happenstance. Pure luck of being in the right place at the right time and having an encounter that etches itself into our long-term memory because of its rarity. Not for me. I strive to make luck have nothing to do with it. I’m a predator hunter. Each time my eyes fall upon the rosette patterned patchwork of a slinking feline I want it to be because I expected it. I’ve heard them scream right from where I stand on this hunt. I’ve followed their tracks. I know they are here.

Coyotes are on the forefront but a bobcat lays in the back of my mind as we set up for the hunt. Coyotes could downwind me but not before my father-in-law’s trusted shot would down them, or so we hoped, as Bob took up position prone on a terrace overlooking a bowl of grass below my calling location. I settled into my hunting chair high above him to the west and felt the sun on my face as I went about readying myself for the hunt. Letting silence take over to replace the sound of steps of intrusion was a must. We’d already spooked a flock of turkeys from the hillside into the treeline to the north on the walk in. As usual I enjoyed the peacefulness of my surroundings and thought of how lucky I was to be given the opportunity to do what I love by a gracious landowner here. Watching a bald eagle circle over Bob, mistakenly thinking that he might be his next meal, amused me while passing the time. Bob’s stillness had fooled that eagle for the moment into taking an extra long look. Bob had my back and I chuckled to myself that I might have to have his if that eagle gets any more serious. Okay…. Enough of that silliness… It’s time now.

Pressing a call to my lips I send the sound of miserable death into the air at the speed of sound and hopefully straight into the ears of any predator nearby. Three times I wail, three times I catch my breath and then we wait for the action to have a reaction. Still the eagle circles, only now he soars overhead of me. One quick look is all he needs and he is off to hunt something that is real in this world and not a ruse.

Only a couple minutes pass by until silence is interrupted by alarming turkeys. “Putt…Putt…Putt!” I’ve failed at turkey hunting over the years enough to know the unmistakable sound a turkey makes when it’s facing a dangerous threat. Two of the feathered flying pumpkins leave their tree perch and soar between Bob and I down into the valley. A minute passes and silence is interrupted again by the barking of a squirrel even closer! His harsh criticism was meaningful and direct. Something was on it’s way, I was now sure of it! I moved my rig and my chair out of the surrounding grass to face the north to intercept whatever may be advancing.

Just as I settled into my new position, a head comes bouncing above the tall grasses towards me moving only the way a predator can, moving the same familiar way that I’ve seen so many times before. Defiant, purposeful and reigning supreme to take control over the situation it’s approaching. It never backs down after hearing what it heard. Coyote or bobcat, they are Iowa’s top predators and neither is easily chased off what they believe to be a meal. I must have still been moving a tad, because this predator stops dead in its tracks staring in. His apprehensiveness is rational and his instincts are correct, he knows I am out of place. But for him it is too late to trust them. He was dead fifteen steps ago; he just doesn’t know it yet.

My vision increases 5-power as my cheek welds to the stock and my eye focuses on the sight picture through the tube. A bobcat’s yellow eyes are fixated on me from the weeds, only his head is visible, as the rest of his perfectly camouflaged body melts into the blades of grass around him. Each of us now acutely aware of the other’s existence focus our stare directly upon the other. For those inestimable seconds only he and I exist in this world. There is nothing else. There is no time for anxiousness; instinct takes over. The trigger eases backward as crosshairs lay just between and above the eyes over a facial expression that I’ve read before, a microsecond from busting you. A hybrid bullet is sent and smashes into the skull leaving behind only in that instant, a deep, foreboding thud as bullet meets bone! It’s over!

Bobcats are an uniquely elusive animal to hunt with dedication. Nothing else in Iowa really compares to successfully scouting, and killing a bobcat that you were solely targeting. That 25-pound tom you just read about was a 2015 cat that was as an exhilarating hunt as any I’ve had. All cat hunts are that way! For many Iowans, they’d love to have that same opportunity but they may not know how to go about it. In this article I’ll try and lead you along the path to success that puts you on an Iowa bobcat!

The four most important things for a successful hunt are finding where a bobcat is hanging out on a regular basis, setting up correctly, duration of sounds and caller placement. That’s it. You’ll notice I didn’t say type of sound or wind. That’s because those two things rank farther down on the list when bobcats are concerned.

First let’s focus on finding them. I could call all kinds of ground for years and like the Chicago Cubs never achieve ultimate success. Okay, maybe that’s a bad example now, but point being, that if you really want a bobcat, you have to find them. Iowa only allows bobcat hunting and trapping in the southern part of the state and there is no shortage of public ground that contains healthy bobcat populations. Public or private, look for areas where great bobcat habitat exists. Whenever I find a cat track, the first thing I do is scan the area for the most likely spot where that cat may call home. I’m looking for a dense area that likely includes cedars and or brushpiles, and heavy grass. Even if you’re in a hardwood timber cats will still spend a lot of their time within areas of denser tree growth such as pines and cedars. Remember that bobcats like rabbit habitat so anything near brush and grass is appealing to them. Vast areas holding all of this heavy type of cover can be overwhelming but can work. In areas such as this, it’s important to call your way through it. Set up and call and then move a short distance and call some more and so on. Bobcats tolerate this type of calling well and what you are doing is saturating the area with sound so that you’ve not left any of it behind. This can take a while but is one of the best ways to have a cat by the end of the day. Personally, I like to look for smaller areas of this type of cover. They may be located on some of the steeper, rougher ground of a farm but may have row crop around it. The open row crop gives you access to be able to see the cat approach or break cover.

A bobcat track will be rounded and consist of 4 toe marks. Typically, a cat does not leave a claw mark in the track. The rear of the track will show the heel pad, which leaves a distinctive “M” shaped pattern. If you’ve found tracks, you’ll likely find them again in the same area. Tracks, game cameras, and talking to farmers or landowners are a great way to narrow down your search. Use those tools and combine that knowledge with the lay of the land. Likely, you’ll be headed for the nastiest, thickest cover nearby.

Once you’ve selected a spot it’s important to figure out the best way to call it. You want to find a place that conceals you but offers a good view and area for shooting. Think small. Huge, expansive fields aren’t what you’re after. Get closer to the cover than you would when setting up for a coyote. Make a bobcat hunt you. A bobcat prefers to travel in and near cover. Setting up to watch hundreds of yards of treeline from a long distance away can work but is also a surefire way to never know he was there. Cats blend in to their surroundings perfectly and are hard to see. Find a smaller area to draw the cat into where it has plenty of cover to approach and feels comfortable to do so but is open enough to see it once it arrives.

Before you can kill a cat you have to see it. Your mission is to get the cat into a place where he’ll stalk you or the caller where you can see him. Several factors go into dong that. First is sitting in a spot where you can see you’re electronic caller. This is a must! But don’t place the caller in the wide open. Hang it from the low limbs of a tree or place it inside a singular cluster of grass or along a fenceline. The key is putting it in a spot where you can see around the caller 360 degrees clearly from any possible areas the cat may approach from. Keep the caller a mystery and think about a natural place where a rabbit would escape into for protection. If a cat comes to the edge of cover and can clearly see the caller sitting there on top of the ground from 30 or 50 yards away, it may never break the cover. Instead it’ll sit and watch and you may never see it. It doesn’t take much to hide the caller. Just a little something that is just big enough so that the cat might believe there is a wounded small game animal hiding in. Something he can’t see into.

Now point your gun right at the caller. Bobcats rely on their eyes and ears for hunting. When cats approach the sound they’ll key on that source area where they hear the noise coming from. Once they get to a spot where they can see the source of the sound they’ll continue to stalk it into your ambush if you’ve hid the caller well and you do one more thing. Call regularly. With bobcats, you want to call more often than you would with coyotes. Cats get distracted easily and unless you keep their attention they can lose focus on coming in. Also if there is no sound playing for a long period of time, they will sit and watch and pick you out if you move, because there’s a good chance you’ll never see a cat when he first arrives. The last thing we want is for a cat to sit and watch the area from the cover. We need to keep them moving to see them. Sound keeps them moving. If the caller is hid well, and sound is playing there is a good chance that the cat will end up right next to the caller. A hunter often times never even has to move his point of aim from the caller.

Continuous sound is fine, but feel free to take some breaks in your calling too. I like to use different levels of volume during a set. Sound selection isn’t all that important. Find some distress sounds that are busy and include some raspier sounds mixed in with some high pitched wails and be sure to mix in several different types of distress during your set. If you don’t succeed at a spot don’t be afraid to call that spot again soon. Cats tolerate calling pressure much better than a coyote. A female, especially one with mostly grown kittens, is more likely to remain close to a smaller core area. Tomcats roam much more but in my experience still frequent a place they really like during the day, especially if there is a female already there.

I’ve only ever had one cat that I suspected might have winded me. That cat was in a riverbottom with a swirling wind at only 15 feet. For the most part you don’t need to worry much about the wind except for understanding that you should call for bobcats on low wind days. Bobcats don’t like moving in the daylight on windy days when their surroundings are moving and swaying in the wind. Sit still, move only when the bobcat is moving, and if you need to stop the cat, silence the e-caller. Bobcats can be called in multiple times I’ve found and can even tolerate some movement from a hunter on occasion. They are more convinced of the situation than a coyote will be but if you think they’ve been watching you for a while before you see them, they likely won’t come any further. Once you get a bobcat to come to you remember to breathe. Kitty fever is real. The first time you actually see an Iowa wildcat approach your ambush it will seem as though you can’t believe your eyes. Gain composure and make that shot! Good luck!!!