Bobcat killed

Janet Harrington · September 27, 2006, 08:43:31 PM

Roy Ames killed a catamount or bob cat yesterday. It measured three feet in lenght, stood 18 inches high, and weighed 35 pounds. It was a vicious looking animal.

Joanna · February 03, 2007, 07:30:24 AM

Reading this puts me off on a tangent (like so many of my thoughts). Virgil Fickel always called me "bobcat" as a child. He and Virginia and Mary Jo were at our house, and he took me outside and taught me to call bobcats. I have no idea what a bobcat call sounds like, but I remember he always thought it was hilarious when he conned me into doing it.
Do any of the kids on the South Howard school bus route remember when Bob Carr drove the bus? He lived on the Copperhead Gulch Ranch southeast of town. I remember on more than one occasion when he picked us up with either a coyote or a bobcat strapped to the fender of that old bus. I don't know where he kept the rifle. Bob was an avid trapper and Dad took me to Bob's house one evening to see a live trapped a mountain lion (yeah I know they don't exist in Kansas - but this one was trapped on the Copperhead). I have no idea what he did with that cat, but it was sure angry to be in a cage. Bob had a horse drawn sleigh that he would use on snow days. He would come to town, park behind Brown's Feed Store. After he ran the bus route he would go home. I think that was the only sleigh I ever saw in actual use. I wish I had asked him for a ride in it.
In the context of today, some of this seems out of the ordinary. In the 60's it really didn't.

Marty Hunter · February 03, 2007, 07:39:02 AM

I messed up and sent this out under Joanna's log in. I don't suppose she would want to be thought of as "bobcat".

Wilma · February 03, 2007, 08:02:46 AM

I was wondering about Joanna. As to mountain lions not existing in Kansas. I have heard from 2 reliable sources about 2 different sightings of a mountain lion in Union Center Township. Paul Rader, a good ole boy, swears that he saw a mountain lion in the Forrest Cemetery vicinity in the not too distant past. Paul has been gone for at least 10 years. My brother's wife, Nadine Hancock and her son, Randy, have seen one with a young one more recent than that in the same area.

I read an article not very long ago about mountain lions in Kansas that had been killed. I will probably never see one, but I would rather see one than be one.

Marty Hunter · February 03, 2007, 08:24:42 AM

I have only seen a few, but in the summer you could hear them screaming down by the creek below our hill sometimes at night. It sounds like a woman being hurt, and will send shivers down your back. Dad always said they followed the deer as they moved along the Elk River. Obviously that was back when seeing a deer was a cause of celebration around our house.
Ken Kelly and I saw one in the field South of Clay Rheems house one day when we were skipping school (so probably 1976).
The one that I remember the most though is when Dad was running the Copperhead back about 1994. I was working somewhere else on the place, so I took the boys down to fish for carp on the distilling basin below the lake. There was a baby calf over about 20-30 yards. I came back an hour later and asked the boys if the mama came after the calf. I found it in the same place with the whole side torn out thru the rib cage. The boys had not heard a thing. I have always been thankful that the calf was there, rather than one of the boys.

Wilma · February 03, 2007, 08:29:37 AM

Ken kelly skipped school. Now that is a hard one to believe.

Marty Hunter · February 03, 2007, 08:33:39 AM

Don't tell his mama.

Janet Harrington · February 03, 2007, 02:32:56 PM

Woody and I heard one scream once when the pickup had stalled on a low water bridge, the Thompson low water bridge, and we were waiting for the truck to cool down so we could start it up again. That scream does scare you.

I saw one coming back from the Roby Ranch once night after checking on a fire. It was on rock road about 1 mile west of Fred Preston's farm.

Milton Wolfe, who owns the Leonard Roper place now, always swore that cougars were getting his baby calfs, but when you would tell game wardens about it, they would always say, Kansas doesn't have cougars. Yeah, right!!!!