My friend from NM and I have been planning another bobcat trip for the past couple years. The way the weather has been all across the US this winter we were a little skeptical to be venturing off. We were lucky with cold temperatures and no measurable precipitation on our 2 week adventure. We had a very successful trip finding a good healthy bobcat population. We released 3 kittens and plan on letting the area rest a few years and returning to hopefully an even better population. Coyotes were scarce in this part of the country catching only 1 mangy male. We found bobcat toilets like what you see in NV or CA stretching 10 feet long littered with old and new droppings. An old cat trappers saying is that old sign is generally more promising than fresh sign as the bobcat will be back to that location sooner. With the abundant amount of sign you couldn't help but be excited. Exposed sets and walk through dirt holes were our best producing sets. We ran a 40 mile line out of the pick up in the morning to the south and than came west back to the camper. By that time it started to warm up and we took off in a Polaris ranger covering another 60 miles the other direction. The Polaris was a necessity getting around those old washed out roads and grown up 2 tracks. We had a 50 mile ride to a gas station so we brought in food, fuel and everything we would need for 2 weeks of trapping. We just barely scratched the surface on the 3 ranches we had permission to trap on. 50+ sections is enough country that we couldn't have covered it if we had 10 years let alone 2 weeks! All I can say is I'll never forget this trip! Thanks for looking!

Awesome thanks for sharing!! I did have a question though since I would love to do a trip like this someday how do you go about knowing where to trap and getting permission do you look for certain things on google earth or onx hunt app?

Nice catch. Well done letting the kittens go.

Thanks for sharing all the cool pics, and your adventure. The hard part is done...posting the pictures. Now, I'd love to hear some details of your trip. Spin a few yarns, and give us a day by day blow, if anything exiting happened. Details...like, traps, sets, lures, ground conditions, soil, weather, terrain...etc. All that stuff would help us picture the trip.

I don't have cats where I trap, so have never trapped them. But I am very intrigued by the thought of trapping them. Thus the reason I'm asking for some more info...help me picture the process.

Thanks a ton for posting Jp, looks like you had a blast!

ps...what'd you have in those black 55 gal drums?

I luckily have a good friend that has worked in the oil field his whole life and has been all over the state. Having somebody local is a huge help. Most ranchers in the west are happy to have a trapper come in and take out some predators. I do use google earth and onX a lot once we have picked an area to help locate the micro locations. Both those apps can save you a lot of miles when it comes to planning a line and cutting down on backtracking.

We used 550's, 650's and sleepycreek long springs on this trip. I make a cat gland lure that worked very well and my friend using a modified version of bill nelson's pacific call. Both performed very well on cats. The soil we had was either sand, clay or rock. I've trapped quite a few different areas in NM and the soil conditions vary a lot just like the terrain.

We had 3 days that we caught 2 cats a day and one 3 cat day. One interesting thing we had happen was a toe caught bobcat that pulled out of the trap. The catch circle made it obvious it was a bobcat and a little bit of red hair and evidence in the corner of a 550. It's depressing but unfortunately it can happen to anyone. The following day about 1/8 mile down the road we had a big red back tom. After dispatching the cat the evidence left at the other set revealed he was caught by a back foot and fell for the same set with the same lure the following day!

Weather was more than fair to me coming from NY. We did have a lot of cold nights for NM down into the low teens. The warmest day we had was 55 degrees. I'd say the average temp would have been mid 40's during the day, atleast during the two weeks we were trapping.

The country changed drastically from plains to river bottom. Big breaks, draws and deep canyons that ran for miles. Some very thick and brushy country around one corner and rough rocky country with rim's around the next corner. The terrain of that country is why we picked it to target cats.

Thanks for the interest and replies! We brought in fuel and water in the drums.

Awesome trip and great pictures!

What a trip, Did you fly down and meet your buddy?? Thanks for sharing

Thanks for posting guys, you did well. Some very pretty cats, some neat color variations.

Osky

Great post. Some dandy cats an awesome country. I love NM

Thanks for the great information Jp. Great story, and great trip. Congrats on your success.

Looks like you had a great time.

Let’s just pray HB 366 doesn’t get through in NM or awesome trips like yours will be a thing of the past. Everybody everywhere that’s ever considered a trip out west to trap should join a state association to help pool funds and numbers together. Great trip, awesome pics and concrats

Congrats on some beautiful cats and an incredible trip. Hope you have many more successful trips like this one

I did fly down this year, the previous 4 trips I drove down. I like to drive but it adds 5 days of travel time to the trip and is much cheaper.

Thanks for all the replies and interest!

Agreed everybody that is able needs to participate, even phone calls or e-mails. the Anti's improve their tactics a little more every year. The lies they create is only fueled by people's emotions not facts. We need to be on top of our game, you hear people say "it'll never happen in this state". Well it's happened all over the west and it can happen anywhere. HB 366 for NM is basically set on repeat every other year. They won't quit and they try a little bit of a different angle every year. Unfortunately every state will go through something similar like this in the future. All we can do is try to pull together no matter where it is. There are far more uneducated people out there that are easily swayed by all the lies than there are trappers.

Thank you for sharing, that is pretty much my dream trip...looks like a blast.