Back Home by Chris Hardie
Nature is anything but predictable. Just ask hunters who spend many hours in the woods.
That certainly was the case recently for Carson Bender, 19, of Wisconsin Rapids, who was attacked by a bobcat when he was turkey hunting near Nekoosa on April 18.
Bender caught the bobcat on video and it stalked the hunter, lunging at him and striking his left arm just before Bender took a shot at a gobbler that was near him. Bender was scratched but otherwise unharmed as the bobcat ran away.
I read Bender’s story and could relate. The same thing happened to me when I was turkey hunting in 2014 when I had a close encounter with a bobcat but was not attacked.
It was about 6:30 a.m., and I was turkey hunting on my farm. Since I didn’t have a camouflage blind, I had positioned myself in the middle of a thicket, with an open shooting lane to my turkey decoys staked in front of me. I overlooked a narrow valley that’s an opening about 50 yards wide in between wooded hills.
It’s a good spot for gobbler action, with roosting trees on the ridge in back of me. It was an active morning in the woods. I got lots of gobbling responses from my slate call.
The cutting and the putting sounds from the hens were suddenly quiet. I heard a slight noise behind me. I turned and saw the gray, striped cat walking toward me.
The bobcat sat down about three feet from me, with some thorny brush between us. Its gray eyes stared at me, not blinking. I saw no fear. Curiosity perhaps.
I know the woods well, having traversed and hunted the hills for more than 40 years. I’ve seen deer, squirrels, foxes, muskrats, mink, coyotes, skunks, woodchucks, turkeys, eagles, hawks, owls and even a bear. Never a bobcat.
I knew they were there. As a kid on summer nights with the windows open, I would hear bobcat screams in the hills. Of course I was safe and sound in my bed. I never imagined my first sighting would be so up close and personal.
I was in camouflage from head to feet, sitting on a folding stool. A 12-gauge shotgun rested across my lap. In my hands, I held my slate call and my striker.
When the cat sat down and looked at me, my first thoughts were not directed toward the shotgun. Bobcats rarely attack humans, right? I did not feel threatened but rather exhilarated.
The bobcat was fully grown, probably weighing about 20 to 30 pounds and maybe 3 feet long. It did not make a sound. I’m sure it would have snarled and hissed if it was unhappy with my presence.
My first thoughts actually went to the smart phone that was in my pocket for a possible photo or video. But there was no chance of me being able to make that much movement when he was looking right at me. Instead I moved my hand slightly to repeat the cutting sound on my slate call.
The cat’s head moved forward slightly, and it got up, moved about a foot closer to me and sat on its haunches. I was close enough that I could have plucked a whisker.
“Now what,” I thought, resisting the urge to call out “here, kitty, kitty.”
The cat was not interested in me. In fact, the cat clearly did not know what I was, since bobcats are very wary of humans. It’s such wariness that makes them extremely rare to see.
The cat got up and started to stalk around the thicket. I then figured out the objects of his attention were the plastic turkey decoys in front of me. My calling and the cat’s vision had led it to believe that breakfast was about to be served.
The cat dashed toward the decoys and I tried to pull out my phone. My movement startled the cat, which bounded across the clearing and disappeared into the woods. I had no chance for a photo. The entire encounter probably lasted 45 seconds at the most.
Had I remained still, I probably could have witnessed an attack on my decoy, which would have been great to see as well.
When I arrived home and told my bobcat tale to my wife Sherry, she asked if I had to clean out my pants. I was never frightened but could have been in harm’s way after reading what happened to Bender.
And while I didn’t get a turkey that year, I bagged something better. A rare encounter with an indigenous wild cat is something I will remember for a long time.
Chris Hardie spent more than 30 years as a reporter, editor
