“Cat tracks!” said I, pointing at bobcat spoor in the soft red sand. “Maybe earlier this morning.”
Chris Treiber nodded an affirmative. We followed the tracks fifty yards before the cat walked onto a solid rock shelf overlooking a brushy creek bottom.
“Let’s walk back to the pickup and get you situated in your ground blind,” suggested my hunting guide and friend, “the one where they got trail camera photos of the palmate buck. Once we do, I want to come back to see if I can call up this cat. If that’s OK with you.”
I will admit, I seriously considered saying “No! I want to be around when you try to call up that cat.” But, I had already invested one week hunting the flat-beamed buck, so I agreed.
Twenty minutes later Chris dropped me off for the final three hundred-yard walk to where we had set up a brush ground blind. Wish I could tell you I shot the big palmate-antlered whitetail that afternoon, but it did not happen. But when Chris picked me up after dark, he had a story to tell.
“Went back to where we saw those tracks. Found an opening where I could set up my call to watch downwind, thinking if a cat or coyote responded, it would circle around the sounds to get downwind before coming in to investigate.
“You know too, cats sometimes are slow to respond,” Chris continued, “But sometimes they do charge in quickly….”
Pushing back his hat he went on. “I had settled in with my back against a juniper forty yards away from the call’s speaker, then turned on cottontail distress. My intentions were to switch to a bird distress call if something did not respond after five minutes.
“I saw movement coming through the tall grass as soon as I started my call. Thankfully I had my Ruger set on shooting sticks.” Craig shook his head in disbelief. “The big tom cat came charging in, eyes locked on the flagging decoy I had set up. He stopped three feet shy of the call. That’s when I shot him. That Hornady V-Max did an impressive job!”
Later in the hunt, I too called in a big tom which I shot with my Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter in .44 Mag, loaded with Hornady’s 240-grain XTP.
Kempie Kemp with some of the hounds that helped Weishuhn finally take a big, mature tom caracal!
Several months later I was sitting on a hillside in the Eastern Cape of South Africa with Wolma “Kempie” Kemp, owner of Africa Anyway Safaris www.africaanywaysafaris.com. We were intently listening to a pack of hounds on the trail of a caracal cat, somewhat of a counterpart of our North American bobcats. When the hounds lost the track, I started relating the story just mentioned of how my friend Chris had called in many mature bobcats in central Texas.
“We occasionally have caracals respond to predator calls,” Kempie responded, “but it does not happen often enough for us to count on taking one that way. That’s why we use well-trained hounds.”
In the distance I could hear the hounds, and based on their barking, it sounded like they were on a cold trail; one which had been made the day before. They were moving way too slow to have been on a “hot trail” or having jumped the cat.
I smiled, reveling in the barking of the hounds. I grew up hunting hounds for raccoon with my dad, Lester, in the oak tree-covered gravel hills and creek bottoms of northern Colorado County (Texas), in the old Zimmerscheidt Community. I always enjoyed the “mountain music” orchestrated by several hounds trailing their quarry. I truly loved listening to the mixture of these African long-eared blueticks and Walker hounds.
Unfortunately, conditions were not good for hounds scenting the caracal’s trail. It was warm and dry. There was no dew on the ground to help hold the cat’s scent.
Suddenly to my surprise, the intensity of the barking increased. “Think they may be getting closer to the cat. We’d better go,” said Kempie.
We took off at a fast walk along the crest of the deep canyon from where we could hear the hounds down below. I liked how Kempie thought. Below us was almost impenetrable thorn brush and cactus. If the hounds ran the caracal up a tree down in that green hell, there was no question I would bail off to where the hounds had treed. But, if that was not going to happen I was quite content walking along the edge!
The hounds stayed ahead of us and below us. Their rapid barking indicated they were getting closer to the the cat. Then all went quiet, not a hound sounded off. They had lost the cat’s scent and trail.
A few minutes later we heard brush breaking immediately below us. Kempie put finger to lips then pointed in the direction of the sound. He motioned me to get ready for a shot just in case it was the caracal coming our way to cross into the canyon behind us.
I took a few steps backward and made certain the Ruger over-under shotgun was on safe and I could quickly slide the safety to fire, then swing on target if a caracal appeared.
The sound came closer and closer. I was ready!
Out stepped a bluetick hound. A few steps behind came an older Walker hound, which I had been told was the dog handler’s best. Soon as they saw us they trotted toward us. Obviously, we were finished for the morning; the hounds were quitting.
We spent the rest of the day on another property looking for a big bushbuck. Late that afternoon after having spotted four truly nice bushbuck males, but nothing I wanted to shoot, we headed back to our Indian Ocean seaside beach house. But not before we enjoyed plenty of delicious seafood in a local restaurant. The latter was certainly a huge plus for hunting the coastline of South Africa’s Eastern Cape!
That night we got a call from three different dog handlers and learned come morning there would be five different packs turned loose in an effort to try to find a caracal for me. I fell asleep recalling my first caracal which I had taken in north central Namibia while hunting with the late and legendary Fred Burchell. Fred and I happened upon the caracal in route home from a kudu hunt. That cat had been a nice one with long tufts on his ears typical of the species. Unfortunately, improper care of the hide by a local taxidermist destroyed that skin, leaving me all the more wanting to take another.
An early-riser regardless of where I travel, I was enjoying my third cup of coffee while talking to Dustin Blankenship. He films and edits episodes for our “DSC’s Trailing the Hunter’s Moon” television show, which appears year around on Pursuit Channel. Then Kempie walked in.
“Just talked to two different houndsmen,” Kempie announced. The guy we hunted with yesterday morning and also another one closer to the coast. The latter, yesterday, found several antelope killed by a caracal. He’s taking his hounds there a bit later in the morning. If his hounds start a caracal he’ll call us. In the meantime, we’re going back where we were yesterday. That area has a high caracal population. Gather your gear and let’s go!”
Thirty minutes later we were on the property we had hunted the day before. Our early morning hunt was a repeat of the day before. The hounds cold-trailed a cat for twenty minutes, then gave up. We loaded up and headed to town to get a hot breakfast.
We were about to get out of the vehicle to head into the restaurant when Kempie got a call. As he spoke I watched his face light up.
“The farmer that has found the several dead antelope is about to release his hounds on a fresh track. We’ll eat later!” I agreed!
After several minutes of driving through pineapple fields we pulled up to the edge of a huge, deep and steep, dense brushy creek bottom. After a quick introduction to the local farmer, Kempie said, “The hounds are treed at the bottom of the canyon. It’s rough and gnarly!”
I listened and heard hounds barking. Their voices sounded almost exactly like my dad’s hounds had when they had treed a raccoon.
Kempie, like me was smiling. “Let’s go,” he said. “This is not going to be easy! Expect to hold on to vines while slipping and sliding downhill once we drop over the edge. I’ll carry the shotgun until we get close.” I nodded an affirmative as I handed it to him.
We took off at a trot until we reached the drop-off. There things slowed down considerably! The angle down was extremely acute, actually nearly straight down. We snaked through vines, over rock ledges, grabbing saplings to slow our rapid dissent. Several times I slid ten to twenty feet before I could stop my downward movement. Throughout the descend I kept thinking, Please, may we get this cat! I do not want to crawl out of this crazy place empty-handed!
Texas has an abundance of bobcats, but that does not mean they are easy to call in. It sure is rewarding when they do respond!
Through the wall of limbs and thorns below us, we could hear hounds barking treed! Thankfully they were keeping the caracal corralled. Hopefully they would do so until we got there.
Finally, we reached the canyon’s bottom albeit less numerous bits of skin and clothing. The hounds were just on the other side of the narrow creek.
“Load up,” instructed Kempie handing me the shotgun and couple of Hornady shotshells. “Soon as you see the cat, you’re going to have to shoot him! Otherwise he’ll jump from the tree and be gone.” I nodded, loaded up and followed Kempie.
We stepped forward ducking under limbs to reach the base of the trees where the hounds were treeing. Looking up, I immediately spotted the cat twenty feet above me. He was crouched, facing away. I glanced at Dustin. He had the camera pointed at the cat. “Get ready, I’m about to shoot!” I whispered.
The shotgun came to shoulder, pointed at the cat. I pulled the trigger. At the shot, the cat jumped out of the tree toward the creek. The hounds were immediately on him. The caracal backed against the opposite bank, snarled at the hounds, wavered and fell dead into the water.
The dog handler called his hounds off and I quickly walked to where my caracal lay in the creek. As I pulled him out, he got bigger and bigger. Had he been a bobcat from back home in Texas I would have guessed his weight at well over thirty-pounds. Even wet, he was extremely handsome with his yellowish-brown coat, long dark tufts on his ears and a tail nearly twice as long as those of our bobcats.
I was thrilled! After pictures we crawled out of the canyon. It was steep, tough and slow going! But I was happy – I was bringing home my caracal!
It was not until that evening back at camp I realized I had cactus spines in my legs, just like hunting cats back home in Texas! I guess in some ways there are not that many differences between hunting bobcat in southern Texas and caracal on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.