Well guys, Today was the day. I caught a nice little bobcat behind my house the other day so that was fun, don't have any good pics of that one to share unfortunately. But otherwise things have been pretty slow. Still had 2 days of season left but snow was getting kinda hard to get around in and hadn't had a whole lot of luck recently. Any way, just thought I'd share this story with you all from my last trap check of the year.
It was a sunny day and I'd rather pull traps in the sun than in a storm. Got all but the last 3 sets checked and pulled and was making the last hike. Dad came along today and we decided to split up and pull different sets to make quicker work. As I'm walking up to my first set I can see things are a bit tore up and I got excited. I also saw tracks headed toward my set in the fresh snow on the other side of my set. I wasn't close enough to know what they were but assumed bobcat. walked right up to my set and saw grey fur hiding behind the rocks and logs. I then Ran across the hill and yelled up to dad "HEY! BOBCAT!" he started down to come see and I walked back over to the set. By the time I got there this time the "Bobcat" had moved and stood up on the logs.... It took me about no time flat to realize - That's not a bobcat at all! That's the long tailed jumbo size variety! Well.. I carry the catch pole to every set so I guess we had to put it to use. I do know about the plywood method and if I had to I would've done it, but carrying a sheet of plywood up 200' vertical in a foot of snow is something I'd rather not do if I can help it.. LOL.
With dads help we got him turned loose and although it was a bit of a rodeo went well overall. He jumped/ran off in the most amazing way. What an awesome animal. Although I would've much rather caught a bobcat today, being able to be so close and experience a mountain lion in this was was really kind of an awesome experience. It was stressful but when we watched him leap down the hill and the rocks I was grateful for the experience. It wasn't a real big lion by any means but I think it'd be hard to call it "small" hahaha. A young cat though, under 100 lb but still twice as big as any bobcat. Anyway that concludes my cat season. It was a great one. Didn't catch quite as many as I hoped but had a lot of sunny days and nice light snow year which sure beat last years having to chain up the truck every day to get around. If any of you guys have cat pictures I always love seeing them. Anyway hope everyone is doing well and here's my pic of kitty kitty.