Hunting with a house cat?

[Woody roberts]

I’ve had a couple cats that went wherever I went. I do some coyote calling and their pretty good decoys. A couple years back during muzzle loader season the cats and I were out. Little cat was mouseing in an old treetop out in front of me. She catches a mouse and runs up the hill behind me. In just a moment she come running back by me with a bobcat hot behind her. She goes up a tree and the bobcat gives up the chase.
I snapped the rifle 3 times but no go(bad primer). In Mo you can use a center fire pistol so I pulled my 45 colt and killed the cat.
If little kitty had jumped in my lap this would have been a more exciting story.

A few days later about 100 yds from there I called up another bobcat. This time the muzzle loader went off.

[boomhowzer]

Sweet. How’d the house cat do with the sound of the gun fire?

[Woody roberts]

They never seemed to pay it any mind

[boomhowzer]

No kiddin’! Those are some hardy hunter puss genetics. Ever think of starting a hunting cat breeding operation?

[Woody roberts]

A horse stepped on the female ( lil kitty). The male ( El Gato ) has been neutered.

[boomhowzer]

Same with my cat, she got the snip before I knew how useful she was.

[Gimlis Ghost]

"move while they move, freeze while they freeze"

And if every animal you see is running in one direction its best if you immediately run in that direction just as fast as you can. Don't wait around to see what they are running from or it will be tooooo late.

I have had several cats that acted more like dogs, they go were I point and stop when told and were brave as any dog. Never thought about training them as hunting animals though.

[boomhowzer]

After almost a year of hunting with my cat, we finally got a rabbit. (and with an arrow trade arrow to boot!)

It was a few weeks ago in Northern Michigan, no snow yet, I was following my cat around our property. I was walking along the path at the edge of a brush patch, the cat was in the brush, creeping along. Eventually she spooked a rabbit out into the path. I had a clear shot from about 12 yards but I jerked it high and the rabbit hopped back into the brush. Luckily, my trusty hunting cat was there and she forced the rabbit back out of the brush and into the path. I pulled another arrow from my quiver, nocked it, realized it was Pat B's 2021 arrow trade arrow, reminded myself that I do believe in magic, and whoosh...away she went, straight through the rabbit's heart.

We made rabbit chili, ate it for days, fed the whole neighborhood. Thank you Coco, thank you Pat, thank you rabbit.

[TimBo]

Good kitty, and nice shot!

[WhistlingBadger]

Wow, great score!  If my wife's cat ever did something that useful, I'd probably have a heart attack from the sheer surprise.

[JW_Halverson]

I wondered how long it would take before this thread came all the way around to this.

Great story, Boomz! Congratulations.

[GlisGlis]

the last days of august I was out near a pasture.
In the middle of this pasture there is a tree and under it a black cat making weird noise at the edge row 20 - 30 meters away
It looked very worried and also a little scared to leave the tree and venture in the open
All the sudden 2 roe deer fawns emerge from the brush and sprint toward the cat
they start chasing it at the speed of light
the cat run like hell but the pasture is big and the fawns are twice as fast
Every time the fawns catch it the cat stop and turns into a hissing black furred ball
without any significant speed change the fawns split, pass on the sides of the cat, make a large fast turn and start the chase all over again
In the meantime from the same brushes out they come the two mothers
the does run slowly, maintain some distance and seems to pay more attention only when the cat stops
after 15 or 20 run and stop the cat is too tired. It wont run anymore
The fawns stop running and the does join them and in a very aggressive way force the cat to a definitive retreat.
First time I saw something similar.  This is a picture after the event 

[bjrogg]

I’m pretty sure Ed has a house cat that follows him hunting. I’m sure I remember him saying how the cat always alerts him by it’s behavior when it sees something.

Very interesting

I’m not really much of a cat person, but they can be very successful hunters. I’ve seen them catch and kill rabbits, birds and mice.

Bjrogg