One In a Million

Sometimes when the Lord wants to bless you, it doesn’t matter how much you know. Besides, it’s good to be lucky once in a while. Let me explain.

In December 2024, I had two things happen at my place that led up to me shooting a bobcat on my 40 acres. First, I had a beaver show up in a little creek on the very tip of my property. The only problem was he was starting to drop some aspen trees right along the road. There are power lines up there and it was only going to be a matter of time until he dropped a huge tree into the wires. This started my trapping journey. I went and purchased a few 330 conibear traps and set them up by a culvert next to the road. The beavers were actually coming from across the road. I didn’t know it at the time, but they had backed up another culvert on private property.

About the same time that the beavers showed up, I started getting bobcat pictures on my trail cam. I called up a friend and he immediately came up and helped me start trapping for bobcat and looked over my beaver set. I found out where the landowner across the street lived and went to talk to him. Turns out, he’s always had beaver problems, and he was relieved I wanted to help. He gave me permission to trap on his property. My friend came back up to help trap beavers too. It didn’t take long and we had the troublemaker.

Try as we might, we missed a few opportunities with the bobcat and the short Michigan trapping season ended. I’m not sure what convinced me to try to hunt the cat, but I work in a federal office (not a fed employee) and we had the day off for Jimmy Carter’s death. The night before I got the call working. My trapping buddy suggested a woodpecker call. Well, when I got in there, there were rabbit tracks all over and the woodpecker call wasn’t loud enough. I decided to go with the rabbit squeal.

The tree stand that I hunted out of is literally 20 yards off the road. The stand has awesome access, walk down the driveway, down the road and get into the stand. It’s extremely quiet, I got the call set up 15 yards out in front of me. I climbed the tree stand, gave it a few minutes and when a car passed by, I hit the electronic call to simulate a rabbit getting hit by a car. I never tried to call a bobcat before and I got in the stand around 7:50. After 15 minutes of continuous calling, a cat appeared at 40 yards, I shot it offhand with a 6.5 Creedmoor. I should have used a varmint round, but next time.

I am hoping that the bobcat opportunities continue for next year. I’ve bought a few traps and actually set up some hollow logs for next year. These late trapping and hunting opportunities just help extend my hunting season. Although, I didn’t realize a bobcat rug is in the $800 range and a full mount is twice that. I encourage everyone to get out there and enjoy all the opportunities the state of MI gives us. It’s good to continue to be a lifelong learner. The trapping aspect has also made me more aware of different tracks. I followed a fresh cat track a few days ago and found where it had cached a dead rabbit. It looked like a trash pile set. I can’t wait for next year. Happy hunting.