I was wondering, and maybe you guys might know, most cats start training their babies to pounce at a very young age by flicking thier tails. How do bobcats, lynx, and caracals make up for this loss in training while still in the den?

Many cats bring back live prey for there young to teach them to hunt. This is the most common method as it gives them a real target and a meal.

There's usually a bit of a tail with which to "flick" and the little ones can see that... I had a cat with a bobbed tail and she still used what little she had and her kittens ended up being fierce hunters...

I was refering to the time when the kittens/cubs are still very very young, before they even leave the den. I know as they mature she will bring them back live prey.

Don't know then, NYX's post makes sense, they still have vestigal tails, they are just reduced. Insects are always handy too.

Yeah kittens love grasshoppers, I will take Nyx's word for it.. shes a pretty smart lady

Hmmm...I wonder if Animal Planet/Discovery Channel has every investigated this. Interesting to think about. My parents had a great cat that was a Manx. Bill had a very short tail & was an amazing hunter. I think he made up for no tail by having terrific speed, super sharp claws & scary teeth! I used to watch him go out first thing in the morning hunting for mice, rats & moles. He never came back empty handed.

Short funny story about him:
My parents were tired of constantly letting him out to hunt, so they left their sliding door open about 6 inches. My dad, who was taking treatments for a lung condition, was sitting near the open door. Bill came strutting in with a small water snake in his mouth the majority of it wrapped around his shoulders. Now, Mom is terrified of snakes, even pics of them! Before the cat &/or snake could be stopped, Mom came into the room. Needless to say what happened next wasn't fun for Dad nor Bill! She was going to kill both of them! She just wasn't sure which would be first!

leads one to wonder what sort of evolutionary advantage is held in a bob tail? At first one might be lead to assume that ground dwelling felines that have short tail because they living in a snowy environment where a long tail might be a disadvantage (unlike the mountain cats who also live in the snow but use their tails for balance ie. cougars and snow leopards). But the Caracal is a savannah dweller, though closely related to a lynx

The caracal has a tail, much more so than the lynx. Also note lynx are much smaller than the moutain lion or snow leopard.
But the shortend tail does not affect the lynx, it potentially was an advantage. I have tried to find infomation but there is limited infomation however I have discovered the same gene for the lynx tail shortening is found in the Manx cat.

The reason for a mountain lions and a snow leopards h has little to do with their size, these cats use their long tails for balance while navigating among the hieghts of their environment. A caracal has a longer tail than a lynx, but is still much shorter than most feline tails in comparison to its body. i will look into it, but I am pretty sure that lynx have been succesfully bred with caracal's, though resulting in sterile hybrids.

One of the cat's I got, it's mother was a bobtail cat. I it act's differently from my other 2 cats. It also runs very strange.

A larger body is much more difficult to balance however and only the Eurasian lynx is much larger than a domestic cat. The carcal tail is relatively short compared to most member other cats, but it is much longer than the lynx's tail and benig in a flat landscape it may not need it much. Inbreding to form a sterile offspring would not suprise me, it is happens with many closely related species (lions and tigers, various types of dolphin, horses and donkeys).
It could also be that the lynx has a lower centre of gravity? (this is just a guess but there seems to be little work done upon this)

In comparison the Clouded Leopard (roughly the size of a lynx,) has the longest tail of all cats, but it spends most of its time in the trees. A lower center of gravity sounds plausible, and the lynx long legs and relatively short body seems to fit the profile. Lynx mainly eat hares, perhaps its easier to mark the flight pattern of a hare with a shorter tail?

Quite possibly yes.
I'm suprised there is so little research on this.

Well the lioness teaching her cubs to pounce brought it to my attention, and from there I started to wonder more about the bobtail gene and what purpose it serves, been looking around the last few days to no avail. Thanks for the assistance Mattshark.