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Hunting with a house cat?

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mmattockx:

--- Quote from: boomhowzer on May 20, 2021, 08:26:35 pm ---When my cat gets close to a bird, she makes this strange clicking chirp noise as if she's trying to call the bird in.

--- End quote ---

Sounds like chattering. I have had cats that would do this when watching birds outside the window.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILFCDPjwSBw


Mark

boomhowzer:
That's it! That's the sound!

But before the sacred 'Shooting and Hunting' section of the PA forum turns into a dissertation on cat psychology, has no one really ever hunted with their cat? Okay, here's just one example of how my cat allowed me to take a shot on a deer that I wouldn't have been able to take without her. My wife and I were in a make-shift hunting blind in some bushes on the edge of a meadow. It was mid-October and a herd of 7 deer came feeding through the meadow heading toward us. The cat was perched in a tree above us but when she saw the deer, she climbed down and sat on the edge of our blind. The deer heard her rustling around in the leaves. They all stopped and stared at us, but when they saw it was the cat making the noise, the deer went back to feeding. An hour went by, the deer were moving at an ungodly slow pace and we were getting antsy in the blind, as in, we had to change sitting positions because legs were falling asleep and butts were getting numb. We were quiet as we could be, but the cacophony of two bows, two quivers of arrows, dry, crunchy ground and snapping twigs would have normally sent the deer running for the hills. Not this time though. This time it didn't seem to matter how much noise we made, the deer would just assume it was the cat and keep on munching. Finally, they moved to within 20 or 25 yards of us, still having no idea we were there. I was able to raise up and take a shot at a buck, but missed over his back. The deer didn't move, all 7 of them looked toward the blind, they were alerted now, but none of them ran and most just kept on eating. Then one moved in range of my wife and she shot and missed (hence is the state of our deer hunting prowess). She swore a little under her breath, and that finally did it. All we saw were white tails heading for the hedges.

Poor shooting aside, there is no way those deer would have kept their steady march through the field in our direction with all the noise we were making if it hadn't been for our cat offering a diversion. I can't be the only one out there who has witnessed something like this, right? Anyone?

JW_Halverson:
Some hunters will post "confidence decoys" of different species in their spread. Duck hunters in particular will use a great blue heron on a shoreline near their dekes because of the herons are known for being very skittish. Goose hunters have put foam archery deer targets on the edge of a field.

I suspect your cat gave the deer something innocuous to blame for the noises you generated. You may be onto something

boomhowzer:

--- Quote from: JW_Halverson on May 21, 2021, 01:12:08 pm ---"confidence decoys"

--- End quote ---

That's wonderful, I've never heard of those before.

Like the blue heron and the white tail deer are the prodigal 'canaries in a coal mine' for migratory waterfowl. Maybe someday someone will carve up a foam house cat to use as a 'confidence decoy' for deer hunting.

I'm new to hunting, so the more learned tactics are completely foreign to me. I've read lots of books about it, and I've sat out in the woods for a hundred hours the last couple of years, but nobody has really shown me the way. I started out two winters ago with my grandpa's old fiberglass recurve from the 1970s (Indian Seminole, 45# at 28" shot a 500 grain arrow 180 fps). This fall will be my second deer hunting season, but my first with a homemade bow and arrows. I'm obviously very excited about it, but the cat thing just happened one day last winter. I was out wandering around in the snow, looking for rabbits. My cat was still a kitten, jumping in my foot steps out to the back of the lot where I piled up some sticks and grass to make a little 'rabbit hotel'. The cat didn't hesitate and I didn't need to coax her, she just climbed into the pile of sticks and less than 5 minutes later a rabbit popped out and I got a running shot at it. Missed, but the next time I went out hunting, I just followed the cat around and that's kind of all I've been doing since. Its amazing what she can do for a novice hunter like me, but what happens when one of you guys/gals with more experience follows your cat around with your bow one afternoon? What can an expert hunter find in the ways of working along side a cat that I can't see because of my naivete? Maybe something brilliant! Maybe we'll enter a new age of hunting, where the K-9 no longer holds court on human-animal cooperation and the feline will get her moment to shine as the quiet, brave, and unassuming hunting companion of the future.

Digital Caveman:
Cats can assume quite a lot.  ::)

The difference is that you take your dog on a hunt, but the cat takes you on the hunt. 

BTW, have you ever tried to call a cat off a trail?

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