Crazy-Cool Hunt Today (***MILDLY GRAPHIC***)

thrillhill

thrillhill

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I had some pretty bad sinus headaches last night that woke me up at midnight, then 1am, and 4am.

The alarm went off at 5 am and I did NOT want to get up.

But, I had a friend over that was spending a couple of nights and I knew I needed to get up and get him in a stand and I might as well go to one myself since I was up.

I knew I was gonna go to one of my box stands so I figured I could always nap if need be. Or cut the heat on. Whatever.

I got in the stand about 15 minutes before legal shooting light. It was all I could do to stay awake.

About 10 minutes into legal shooting time this bobcat comes trotting towards my stand with a squirrel in its mouth. This stand is only about 200 yards from my chicken coop. I didn't want to ruin my deer chances but I felt obligated to shoot it. Hit it in the chest from about 30 yards and it crumpled.

I breathed a sigh of relief, texted my buddy so he wouldn't think I killed a deer, lit a cigarette and started sipping coffee.

I only got about 2/3s of my cigarette smoked. Not 10 minutes after I shot the bobcat I looked up and this 9 pointer was standing broadside at about 100 yards.

Holy crap! Dropped the cigarette into my water bottle. I could tell he wasn't a monster buck but fairly decent for around here. Good enough to shoot on a year that I want to put extra meat away.

Aimed for a high shoulder shot and dropped him where he stood as well.

All this happened in the first 20 minutes of shooting light.

I was glad that I had gotten up.



Even after I picked up the bobcat it did not let go of that squirrel!


Luckily my friend is bit of a trapper. My oldest daughter (18yo) is my Mini-me. She wanted to tan and keep the hide and keep the skull of the bobcat. My buddy helped her with that. And we boiled the head in the firebowl and cleaned it.



The best part is, we are eating ALL 3 of the animals that I purchased with two rounds of 62 grain Federal Fusion (.223).

We cleaned the deer, the bobcat, and the squirrel.

Gonna eat fried bobcat backstrap and sweet meats tomorrow for lunch.

Gonna wet cure the bobcat hindquarters for 4 days and then smoke them.

Gonna make stew from the one shoulder I kept and the flank meat.


Not the biggest deer I've killed by far. Fairly respectable for here.

But.

This will go down as one of my more memorable hunts.

Twas a beautiful day and I am quite thankful to live where and how I do.

And to be surrounded by awesome friends and a very cool wife and daughters!


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The third and fourth picture in this post are the squirrel and the cuts of meat that we got from the bobcat.

First, 5th, and 7th pic is my buddy Mike showing my daughter how to take the bobcat apart.

Last 3 are of my daughter working on the bobcat skull. She is gonna keep the skull and the hide.


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AWESOME!! now hole up...is that reddot mounted offset?
 
That's great! Now I know I should have gone out this morning.
I'm really curious what the cat tastes like. I lived in France in the 70's, it was law that all the butchers leave the paws on rabbits. During WWII it was common to sell cat carcasses as rabbit, people couldn't tell the difference.
 
Infamous1 said:
AWESOME!! now hole up...is that reddot mounted offset?
Click to expand...

ACOG is red Chevron.

So I did a 45 degree offset with the green Holosun.

Not a "tactical" move for me.

I was watching a coyote hunting video on youtube and the guy was complaining about having a magnified optic and a coyote streaked across in front of him at 25 yards and there was nothing he could do about it.

That's why I put that one together that way.

When I shot the buck it hit his shoulder high and deflected up through the spine. So he was thrashing for a bit with front legs.

I got down to see if I need to put another round in him, which I did not. He stopped moving before I got to him.

I am not qualified really to speak to fighting usefulness of a setup.

But let me tell you what.

Closing that last 30 yards on foot, when I was afraid he might spring up and bolt, it was VERY comforting to have both eyes open, rifle canted, and that green dot resting on his torso. I LOVE that setup.

Works for me anyway.
 
Pink_Vapor said:
That's great! Now I know I should have gone out this morning.
I'm really curious what the cat tastes like. I lived in France in the 70's, it was law that all the butchers leave the paws on rabbits. During WWII it was common to sell cat carcasses as rabbit, people couldn't tell the difference.
Click to expand...


Come on now. Don't tell me you never eat Chinese?
 
Pink_Vapor said:
I want to know what t cat tastes like. I may need to swing by Bill's in four days.
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Charlie said:
I have one hanging around and might have to give it a try if cats taste good.
View attachment 266952
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Here ya go..............I'll bet you've probably already tried it before and didn't know it:

natashaskitchen.com

General Tso’s Chicken Recipe - NatashasKitchen.com

General Tso’s Chicken is a Chinese takeout go-to. Make it all in one dish in the comfort of your home for a sweet and spicy treat!
natashaskitchen.com natashaskitchen.com

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This is the one we are gonna try in a few days.

This will be my first time eating bobcat, but the meat looks great.

www.petersenshunting.com

Cured & Smoked Bobcat Ham Recipe - Petersen's Hunting

Following a wet cure, this sweet and salty glaze gives great flavor to any big cat!
www.petersenshunting.com www.petersenshunting.com
 
@thrillhill congrats!
I do have a question, and again, I’m not a hunter (willing to learn, just never had the opportunity)
I was always told you cannot eat predators like bobcats. You treat the meat for a few days and it’s ok?
 
There are so many people who are skeptical of any meat they have never tried before, when, in reality, it is all meat. Bobcat is a very delicious meat. I had my first a few years back at the NC State Leupold Club's annual Wild Foods Supper. I sure hope they are able to hold it again next year, usually in late February.
 
Spartan01 said:
@thrillhill congrats!
I do have a question, and again, I’m not a hunter (willing to learn, just never had the opportunity)
I was always told you cannot eat predators like bobcats. You treat the meat for a few days and it’s ok?
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Well I guess a bear is a predator and I had the chance to try some bear once and it was great. Definitely not your other white meat(and it don't taste like chicken) as it is more a red meat but it was really good.
 
As long as the cat was heading away from my coop with a squirrel in his mouth, and not a chicken, I might have given it a pass. But that cat meat does look pretty good.
 
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Several = more than 2 but not many

How many bucks can you kill where you are from?

🙀


chiefjason said:
I know the standard thinking is that a shot ruins the hunt but I've killed multiple deer by just staying put. Several of them bucks. And most of those without a suppressor.
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Deer know the big boom is bad but they don’t always know where it comes from.

I have had a group of mature doe come out and kill a couple before they run off but they always come back to check on the dead.
The pile tends to get deep.
 
Tailhunter said:
Several = more than 2 but not many

How man bucks can you kill where you are from?

[emoji79]
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Done it on more than one occasion. 2 nice bucks during ML season that were together. A buck trailing a doe that I shot. Double up on does a few times.

One single shot doesn’t really mean much in my experience. If you have time just sit tight. They will keep moving.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I've killed multiples on a few occasions. Mainly in the evenings though. I can't recall doing it in the morning but no telling what I am forgetting.

There was a particular buck I hoped to see yesterday morning, and that wasn't him. Glad this one chose to show up though. Made for a neat day.
 
Bobcat backstrap beside the round "keto bread". Deer backstrap up top. Green beans. Everything on my lunch plate today was grown or killed at the house except for the bread. That's fairly normal here.

The cat was pretty darn good. But I can't recall having backstrap from any animal that I thought was bad.

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Well, yesterday (Tuesday) I was hunting a stand that is only about 80 yards from the edge of our yard.

Another bobcat came trotting along. Kinda caught me off-guard. We usually don't have this kind of activity THIS close to the house. We do have a neighbor about 3 or 4 drives down that is clear-cutting about 20 acres and that may have something to do with it. By the time I got my rifle up it wasn't in a location/direction that I was comfortable shooting.

It was headed towards our homestead but I figured it would probably run the tree-line and end up trying to snag a "late to the nest" squirrel.

That was about 5pm.

I came home after dark and settled in the shop and ate my supper.

After supper, about 7pm, the wife came out and told me that something had killed one of our large roosters.
Said she found a couple of clumps of feathers and he was absent. Whatever killed it had to be big enough to carry it off.

So this evening I figured I would hit the same stand. I carried a .22 rifle in addition to my deer rifle just in case it came by again. I didn't really expect it to but thought it was worth a "shot".

Sure enough. Coming from the same direction but about 20 feet closer. Headed back towards our place again.

That rooster was due to be killed along with 4 others on Thursday or Friday. So it wasn't the end of the world that it got killed, but the bobcat stole food from my family.

As I was bearing down on the trigger all I could think of was Eric Cartman's voice saying "No kitty, this is my pot pie"! LOL

So now we got more bobcat to eat. It's smaller than the first, but I expect it'll taste just fine.

Had to give my daughter a couple of her Christmas presents early. We had gotten her a scraper/flesher, a stretching "board", and a tail puller. I hated to see her skin the cat without them then get them 9 days later.

She fleshed out the hide and put her borax/salt mix on it and left it drying in my shop.

I got all the meat off it. Gonna boil the skull and peroxide it tomorrow.

Chicken, bobcat, whatever. It all eats. Interesting season so far.

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