don't have enough cage trapped bobcat pictures here!

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Mercer I don't think anybody cages as many bobcats as you do.

Maybe Jeff Yancy but I don't know.

Thanks for sharing the pics.

When I grow up I want to catch'em like you Mercer!

cat season isn't coming around fast enough. great pics

Couple good looking boys there.

That one big cat is a dandy.

I wish mine had heavy fur like them CO cats.

ML

Mercer, you are always welcome to come to colorado and run a line with my buddy and I. Your traps got my partner and I started from half [beeep] trap line to full time all winter long line. leave them california cats alone for winter and get some colorado monsters.

Son of a B!tch!!!!! WOW!!!!

Mercer are you using those bright feathers, never even thought about doing that seems like a good idea.

Wackmaster thats a great picture with boy struggleing to pick that cat up.

well it is not a picture I will work on that later

http;//wwwyoutube.com/watch?v=QDdgYcQpxPg
I see that didn't work

SWH- The bright feathers are just whats left of a piece of feather boa that was hanging in the back. (picture below) Makes a decent attractor. Cheap. If there is any chance that cats can see some color the should be able to see that. At least at some saturation level.

I think hanging visual attractors are way overrated. Yet I still use them at every set. Habits die hard.

ML

Thats good stuff might have to get some of those I always use a attractrant but have always used something natural, turkey feather or chunk of rabbit, something like that

ddint you do that video on cageing cats? picked up a few more trivks useing footholds from that video realy enjoyed it thank you

Nice photos....good lookin' cats....congrats

Mercer also has the best fur handeling video for cats bar none. It will make you an instant expert.

Thanks for the offer Shepard.

If I get any time off of work this coming season I will have to leave the state. If not I will just dink around here a little. By the time season opens all of my vacation time will be burned up going to conventions. You going to be in Rock Springs in June?

So two years ago I find a cage missing that I had just set the night before. Brand new trap never been used. I follow the quad tracks down a mile or so into a rural living area with all dirt roads and proceed to dissect the entire area checking every driveway for a few miles in each direction and every road for matching tracks.

I narrow the search after 2.5 hours to a particular driveway and there is a rhino at the end of the tracks alongside the house. Knock on the door and a lady that looks to be 100 years old answers. She lets me in and there is her husband of about the same age. I start asking questions without being too specific about what I was doing. The husband promptly says he knows nothing and as I am looking at him over his shoulder i can see directly across the valley to the little knob where my cage used to be through his living room window.

Well then the lady starts telling me about this bobcat she feeds chicken to on her front porch every day. So me and the kids say goodbye and took a little drive up behind the house. Found a little wash and hiked a cage in about two hundred yards. Two or three checks later I recouped the lost cage money and a little extra with this 24 pound foster farms raised cat.

Too bad you wont be in WY Wackmaster. Looking forward to meeting you one day.

ML

Okay, So you go through the whole story.

Did you get your cage back?

I know your pretty persistant when it comes to recovering your propery.

Chris from nv.

Man you are the man , I need to learn some of your secrets

I like those cages. Man they are nice. Do they just slide inside each other? Where do I find your fur handling video? Nice catch

Hey Kris- No I didn't get it back. Never have gotten a stolen cage returned even when I knew exactly who took it. But you know I like to get even.

I have lost (stolen) a total of 8 cage traps in the last ten years. I made bout 240 sets last year and trapped for two months. So when you look at the numbers last year only loosing one it aint a big deal. Still sucks though.

The trap I lost last year was not the one from the story as that happened a couple of years ago. Last year I lost one of the least likely traps of all the ones I set. It was about a 200 yard walk from the road down to a flat nothing looking point. No trail or any real reason for any one to be there other than a bird hunter or nature lover.

I think bird "hunters" steal the most.

4 Hire- No real secrets. I think the two main things are having the cats to catch in the first place and then not doing the "wrong" things.

ML

So you guys are allowed to use feathers in your traps?

Here in NV as I understand it, NO animal parts are allowed to be used, nor any exposed bait. Feathers are animal parts....colored or not.

How would you guys go about setting a cage trap with our NV laws?