Jim Schwinefus and Lynn Sires love to listen to the sweet music of their barking dogs. They also enjoy watching their dogs hunt bear and raccoon.
But nothing matches their most recent experience.
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Plott dogs Annie and Hawk barked for more than three hours before finally cornering a 24-pound-6-ounce bobcat in the frozen tundra near Brainerd, Minn.
”It`s more fun to listen to the dogs than to kill a cat,” said Schwinefus.
”It`s more fun to see the thrill of the chase,” said Sires.
And what a chase it was.
It actually began four years ago, when the two men became interested in hunting bobcats-the most elusive animal for dogs to chase, according to Schwinefus.
The men studied bobcat habits and hunted the critters for the next three years without any luck.
”Bobcats are the hardest game to catch because they don`t give off much scent and they`re so secretive,” said Schwinefus, who hunted bobcat in Wisconsin until 1988, when he met Sires.
Minnesota`s 1991, 30-day season began on Nov. 30. Both men and their dogs weathered a snowstorm and an eight-hour drive from La Crosse for the opening weekend.
The first day was fruitless. On that Sunday, they tracked a huge cat, possibly a Canada lynx according to Sires, before giving up. On Monday, Schwinefus and Sires crossed a fresh bobcat track. They trailed it for 6 to 8 miles before it became too cold for the dogs to follow.
Unsuccessful again, the men and their dogs still learned a great deal about the animal they had tracked all day. The bobcat wound its way along snowshoe rabbit trails, through marshes, on top of log piles, through thick woods and brush and even over beaver lodges.
”You could see where it had chased two cottontail rabbits in the snow. But it didn`t catch either one,” Schwinefus said. ”And they like to be near beaver ponds and lodges,” he added. ”They`ll take a small beaver.”
Bobcats also devour squirrels-well, almost, Schwinefus said.
”We heard and read about it but we didn`t believe it until we saw it,”
Sires said.
The bobcat had caught and eaten a gray squirrel. The cat left one, and only one, part of the squirrel-the tail.
”That was it,” Sires said. ”Absolutely nothing else.”
Sires also was fortunate enough to see the cat pull another trick they had heard about from other hunters in Vermont.
”The cat headed into a 500-acre marsh and the dogs were hot on the trail,” Sires said. ”I was up on a ridge where I could see the whole thing.”
What Sires saw found him shaking his head in disbelief two days later.
”Both dogs were on the trail but I couldn`t see the cat,” he said.
”All of a sudden, after the dogs were about 10 yards down the trail, the cat jumped straight up in the air out of the thick marsh grass and headed back the trail the other way. The dogs never saw it.”
The female bobcat eluded the dogs one more time before they finally cornered it in some downed timber. When the animal broke for the open, Sires shot it with a 20-gauge shotgun.
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”It was a great experience,” Sires said.
The men said they had to tag, then register the cat promptly at a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources registration station. The only other requirement is the skull must be submitted to the DNR.
Both men admit that while it was a feeling of accomplishment to kill their first bobcat, they are more interested in working their dogs.
”If we had found a young female, or one with kittens we would have left it,” Schwinefus said.
”Our goal is not to exterminate the cat, but to breed a better dog.”