I don’t know anything regarding the background to this video, but I’m highlighting it here anyway because I find bobcats especially interesting.
Bobcats are secretive animals that many hunters have never seen in person. When I think back over my 50-year hunting career, with opportunities to pursue various game species from Northwest Territories to Florida and many places in between, I’ve seen two bobcats.
One was while mule deer hunting in Colorado. It was snowing like crazy, and my guide and I were slipping along a rugged ravine and spotted the cat at about 150 yards across the bottom. When I saw it moving along the pines, I thought it was a mountain lion because of its size — BIG! But my guide quickly corrected me, and we watched the massive bobcat sneak through the 4-inches of fresh snow for 30 seconds. Awesome!
The second one was on a Texas whitetail hunt, and I was sitting in an elevated box blind. As is almost always the case on a Texas deer hunt, the outfitter had baited the nearby two-tracks (basically wide shooting lanes through the thick brush) with corn. From my blind I could see four of these two-tracks; they joined at my blind, kind of like spokes of a wheel. I could see 100-200 yards down each two-track.
Shortly after sunrise, I was watching at least a dozen whitetails feeding on the scattered corn; no big bucks. In the distance on one two-track, I spotted a flock of wild turkeys making its way toward my blind. The 10 turkeys — jakes and a couple toms — were vacuuming up the scattered corn as they slowly worked toward me.
Movement suddenly caught my attention in the two-track just to the right of the one holding the turkeys — a bobcat! I immediately could tell that the cat smelled the turkeys, which were about 40 yards upwind. The brush was thick between them, so the turkeys couldn’t see the bobcat and vice versa.
The bobcat crept toward my box blind in its two-track, all the while keeping its nose to the wind. As it neared my blind, the distance between the two-tracks narrowed (remember my spokes of a wheel analogy). The bobcat was 50 yards from my blind when it sneaked into the brush toward the turkeys’ two-track. But this cat was smart; it didn’t show itself in the turkeys' two-track, it stayed hidden in the brush and waited.
The turkeys were 30 yards from the bobcat and slowly feeding closer. With my binocular, I could see the cat hiding 3 feet from the two-track in the brush. It never moved a muscle.
Finally, a couple of turkeys — at the front of the feeding flock — were within sight of the bobcat. The distance between them was only 15 yards. It was exciting to watch!
The bobcat remained frozen. The distance shrunk to 10 yards . . . then finally 5.
I saw a blur of bobcat fur at the same time the turkeys did. The nearest jake flushed like a pheasant and the bobcat jumped to knock it out of the air. The jake spiraled from the sky and into the brush, then I lost sight of the bird and cat. Of course, all the other turkeys flushed and escaped. Then I saw the first jake exit the brush and race into the two-track with the cat in hot pursuit. The jake flushed, the bobcat jumped, but this time the takeoff was successful.
I felt fortunate to witness the bobcat’s failed hunt. It was proof that meals don’t come easily in the wild.
As for the 1-minute bobcat/turkey video below: I think this wild turkey must have had an injured wing, which is why it tries to flee on foot rather than fly. At the last second it flaps its wings but never gets off the ground.
Note: There’s not much sound in this Facebook video, but if you turn up the volume you will hear the turkey’s final few clucks. It’s a large Thanksgiving turkey feast for the bobcat!
