I started out with this last Monday and then placed the carcasses out in the Oregon coast range. On Monday ten, and on Tuesday another seventeen for a total of 27. No traps were set, just carcasses left for critters to discover and claim.

I went back yesterday (Friday) to check on things and found the first ten carcasses had 5 bobcat hits. The next seventeen had 1 bobcat hit, one undetermined (maybe gray fox), and two civet hits. Another 4 carcasses had been taken over by hawks or ravens and another 4 had totally disappeared, which means cougars carried them away.

So I set a total of 9 traps. Six for-sure bobcat sets and two for civets and one for potentially a gray fox...could be a coon too I suppose.....

First set today held a medium size decent tom.



Second set had a very nice belly tom for our parts.

Another nice tom third set.

I think of all the catch pics posted up here, the ones with cats are the coolest.

Congrats, peeler.

Well, it wasn't a coon. T'was a gray fox. Took him in a 160 cubby.

Gotta love these little stinkers. The beaver carcass next to him was taken down the slope and partially eaten. Gray fox or coyote I'm thinking...more likely coyote to haul off a 45 lb carcass.

Another very nice belly tom for my country.

So a total of four toms, 1 gray fox, 1 civet for today. Maybe catch a little more fur yet off those carcasses before said and done.

You can kind of see that those toms mostly pigged out on beaver even after getting caught...very full bellies.

That's a good haul BP.
Way to utilize those carcasses.

Now I'm kinda like you Sage....gotta get the coffee going! Still have some procrastinated beavers to do as well. LOL

That’s some efficient cat trapping!!!
Dang it’s green there!
You’ve got a lot of cats if they find the bait that fast.

Do you wire the carcasses down?

Great check

Nice Partner!

One of the nice bellied toms before he was put down.


Nope, I don't wire down carcasses. I just let them move them around as they see fit. Bobcats will often move the carcass every night about 4-5 ft and then cover it up again. You can tell how many nights they've been on it from the old spots where they had covered them up before.

That’s awesome

So are you putting 1 carcass at each location or the whole pile at one location? Nice catches!

Nice catch in a short time with very few traps! Spotted skunk and weasel is protected here.

That is just crazy. Great pics

cant beat a beaver carcass jackpot in the bush to draw in a ton of fur.
Way to go BP.
Your best locations should produce several cats per season year in and year out.

Good stuff BP!

Nice catches BP, I drive a rebar stake down through my beaver carci.

Awesome catches

That's some high percentage trapping, nice work.

So... beaverpeeler uses pealed beavers to bait is predator traps? I should have seen that coming.

nicely done sir

1 per location. Almost 80 miles for that line.

Fantastic catch BP. Thanks for sharing those pictures. The civets are my favorite. I just love the way they look. Each one like a snowflake or fingerprint, completely different. Very cool

Those are some beautiful cats. Thanks for sharing.

WS

Beautiful Cats and civet

Great catches!

Very cool strategy; and success! Good job BP. Yes; some nice bellies considering they are on the coastal side of your lines

How do you leave the carcass and how do you set it up with the traps?

Curious how you set the carcass up. A cubby nearby or sets right on the carcass? Those appear to be nice bellied cates for west oregon

Nice !!

Terrific day, great job! Those beaver carcasses got out to good use.

Is there a market for beaver carcasses there if you were not using them as you do?

Heck of a catch forgot what a gray fox looked like

Good question.

I throw out carcasses wherever I have had luck in the past and areas that look like might get hunted by cats. Brushy creek bottoms and doug fir reprod about 15-20 years old being preferred. Then areas where hopefully birds don't discover them so kind of invisible from the sky. Old skid roads in mixed age fir plantations get a lot of cat activity too.

As most of us know, cats cover a carcass up when they're done eating after finding one, and one adult beaver carcass will usually last for 4-5 days of eating. Which is why I figure I have about 4-5 days before first look over on the carcasses. In Oregon we need to have foothold traps at least 15' away from sight baits. What I used to do was take the carcass away and dig out a dirt hole with a beaver haunch and either set it with a body grip, snare or foothold. I was getting some refusals maybe around 20-30% of the time. SO, I got to where I try to disturb their doings as little as possible and am getting better results.

I finally figured out that a covered up beaver carcass is NOT a sight bait per our regulations and therefore I can create a walk through set next to the carcass. As long as no part of the carcass is visible. That new strategy has been working better. I use a little beaver castor or otter musk to try to make sure they walk through where I want them to.

On the two sets yesterday that did not connect nothing had visited and being that each one was within a half mile of another set that did connect it's possible that one cat had worked both carcasses and I caught it. I'll find out maybe tomorrow if that theory holds.

Today I'm home skinning and such.

Did set up another couple of civet hits yesterday with 120's. On the civets I set the 120 right next to the carcass as the little guys circle carcasses constantly eating on different parts of the carcass. I cover up that side of the carcass with ferns over the trap as they like to be under cover when possible and also to make sure that no birds get caught. And to keep birds off my civet after one gets caught!

It's so brushy here if you tie off a carcuss with cable to a tree/sapling the critters will have trails going and coming through the crap and you can just blind set. Problem here with it is coyotes unless that's what your wanting to catch but they devour a carcuss quickly! BUT is a good way to find out if you have a bobcat in the area, nothing gets covered up you don't have to waste your time trapping that spot.

Good stuff peeler!

I would like to give credit to Rickett's book: "Bobcat Trapper's Guide" in helping me figure that method out. I was already formulating some ideas in my head about how to get rid of my excess carcasses and maybe catch a cat or two when I found Rickett had already written up this particular strategy. It really struck me as being ideal for me and this area.

If you wanna catch more cats it's one of the best, most comprehensive bobcat books I've read.

I have one regular customer that buys a small amount every year. I used to sell from time to time pickup loads to trappers from Idaho. Had some years when I sold a 100 or more to Oregon Fish and Game for bear or fisher/marten studies. One year sold a pick up load to Idaho Fish and Game for a lynx study there.

Good post.

Mac

Man I love when you post these cat threads every year. Sure is cool to see the efficiency

I was wondering if Oregon had a visible bait law. Thanks for clearing that up.

I love seeing those cat pictures. Four cat day, good by any standards. Thanks for showing us.

Sure, love your cats if you get any ugly belly ones let me know

They would never be mistaken for those high dollar cats you get but for here it was an excellent day. One of the four might be the best cat I've ever caught. I've never had a cat over $300 but this one might have a shot at that.

That is some efficient trapping. Nice haul!

Beaverpeeler we have been trying to get a Tom cat on the west side of Oregon weighing 25 pounds are we fooling ourselves. Do they get that big ? Best that we caught so far was a female at 18 pounds.

Very few get that size. More likely to get a bigger one in the Cascades than the Oregon coast. I weighed one of my males from this go around and it weighed 21 lbs. A friend of mine got a 35 lb male in the Cascades two years ago. He said it was the biggest he'd ever caught. And of course, if they've pigged out on beaver several of them momentarily could go 25 lbs...but wouldn't be legit.

They do, but they are rare there. I would catch one or two honest thirty pounders there a year when I used to hunt it. But that was out of 40-50 cats. Get in the cold country, high Cascades or east side and they tend to bulk up more, then move into the desert and they lean back up, even high desert where it gets cold they tend to be much leaner and not as heavy as timber cats. 18 is a real big coastal female, here she would just be average, I've caught females here that weighed 25 or better.

These are just my observations, no scientific data to back it up, just my observations from hunting bobcats my whole life across several states.

I should specify that most of my biggest "west side" cats came from the Cascades, they are much rarer west of I-5.

Good contribution there bearcat. Coincides with my observations.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

So you were in valley trapping west slope of cascades

Nice haul.

Those cats that BP caught may have weighed more than that with those bellies! Lol