Adapt, improvise, and over come…………

Here's my new coon bait we’re gonna switch to and see if it has any better drawing power.



Here’s my “sharp sticks” that I’m gonna try and use to hold my bait in the back of my dirt holes for yotes. I hope it make them have to work for it……Testing 1,2,3….Testing.

Weather proofing idea. If you’re gonna set up a property to trap for two weeks then it’s very likely gonna rain sometimes within that time period. I don’t won’t to spend all day setting up chit loads of traps….only to have it rain on day 2 and turn my cat food to mush and my marshmallows to sticky goo. I think I’ll put a little bit of bait on top of the tin foil as well. I bought some big marshmallows along with the little ones. I may just set one big marshmallow on top to help cast scent out in the air. In addition, I thought the shiny foil might give it some eye appeal to the coon. I have no doubt they'll tear right through this thin foil. If you could keep from tripping the trigger then you could pre-bait the traps like this before you ever go out. Gonna make some changes tomorrow...........

CNC,

I have been using tin cans that canned food comes in to do the same thing. I usually peel the label off which provides a nice shinny can that they investigate out of curiosity. They don't seem to have any problem flipping the can off to get at the food.

Thanks man…..that’s a good idea too. I wouldn’t tell any of these guys you have a cat though.

Day 7.......3 male coons


Adding the fish definitely seemed to help out. It does draw in ants though so it may be better to just buy some fish oil and use it for the scent. I rebaited everything with our new mix and added some fish back to each trap as well. Something small had worked my yote set again. I had fish all over my hands so I didn't mess with it while I was there. I'm gonna ride back later on and remake my set....doing things a little differently this time.

Can you put up a game camera at your coyote set? Might be interesting to see what it is.

I just went a scooped mine up to take back with me.

Alright we’re reset and have a camera on it this time. Here’s my set. I used some natural structure to try and help funnel them into the trap. Those are old Otis turds in front of the hole. The pan is sitting just in front of the turds and stick.




Once the hole was baited….I criss crossed two shish kabob sticks down in the hole to try and make the animal have to work a little harder. We’ll see what happens………..

Day 8....……Caught 3 possums and 1 coon

Total catches to date: 8


I think my yote set robber is a possum. He didn’t mess with my set last night though. He worked a DP I had set up nearby but didn’t get caught. Just about every set location had been tampered with. The new bait combination seems to lure them in much better.

We actually took out 19 possums this morning but it wouldn’t be fair to count it like that. I kept them this time to try as bait in my dirt hole sets for yotes. I should be able to stake them down in the hole with my skewer sticks. I think I’m gonna let them lay in the sun for a little while and the put ‘em in a ziplock bag to freeze.

They do count though for your predation control. If they are getting your bait you need to dig your hole deeper so they really have to work it. I never have anything but buzzards and flies eat the possum carcasses when I throw them out. About the same with coons. Occasionally one will get drug off but I think there are a lot better baits. You only need a small amount of bait in the hole. You got some good experiments going though.

Yeah, I thought about making the hole smaller in diameter as well. The one in the pic has already been dug out twice now so it’s bigger than I’d like for it to be. I believe it was that possum doing it because it looked like a small animal doing the digging. Last night just about all of my DP’s had been messed with. I’m pretty sure one of the local yard dogs worked several sets because they were completely pulled out of the ground and triggered. I saw some big dog tracks too. A lot of other traps were eaten out of but not triggered. I think the possums are more reluctant to reach way down into the trap.

My thought on the baby possums is that if there’s that many babies hitting the ground across the landscape then they likely have a pretty high mortality rate…..which means something is likely eating them. I read that coyote diets vary a lot with the seasons. It looks like we’re on the front edge of baby possum season. Maybe that’s the current hot food source. Interesting note about the study I was reading…..deer was #1 on the list. It was found in something like 47% of all scat piles tested over a 6 year time period I believe it was. I believe rabbit was second. I'm using some bait I bought from the trap store right now. Another idea though was to put a piece of deer meat on one of those skewer sticks and jabbing it into the back of the hole.

I’ve been giving thought to the overall layout of my coon/possum traps and I think we’re gonna scrap the idea of running traps in a trotline pattern like I just tried……..

I think instead I’m gonna run bait stations close to the road on main travel ways like creek branches and such. I’m gonna consolidate the same number of traps into less set locations. I’m gonna approach it more like baiting in bears. Right now I’m running 2 traps at each location. I believe I’m gonna up that to 4 or 5 and figure out a way to increase the scent I’m putting in the air. Again, I’m thinking of bear baiting on a smaller scale.

One idea I’m thinking about is cutting the top off of a 2 liter coke bottle maybe 1/3 of the way off...basically cutting a slit in it.... filling the bottle with fish heads or something.....duct taping the cut area shut…….and then hanging the bottle near my gang set of DP’s. Maybe drilling holes in it to let more scent out. I’m guessing this is gonna be a matter of 1) Good location……2) Scent…….. That fish drew in the nest predators like magnets. I think I can quickly concentrate them to something like that the same way they eventually get concentrated on a corn feeder. At night the air sinks and scents are held to the ground more. I bet a good strong fish smell would flow down a creek bottom for several hundred yards.

Day 9…….2 more female possums……1 big boar coon

Total catches to date: 11

Took out a bunch more possums this morning with two more female catches full of little ones. That’s around 35 total possums in the last two days if you count all the little ones. The coon was probably the biggest one I’ve caught yet. That sucker acted mean too. A dog or dogs are messin up several pairs of traps. I may just have to pull ‘em up and move ‘em now that that they know where they’re at. I'm thinking that from a bait perspective.....fish and catfood may be about as complicated as we have to get with it.

This fish draws in ants to the traps so I made me some homemade scent lure that I’m gonna just squirt around the set each day. The oil is some old used oil I fried a turkey in a while back. I added 1 can of mackerel and one can of cat food……turned it into a slurry and bottled it up in some squirt bottles I had handy.



I didn’t clean out the bottle is why the one has a red look. The other one has a little syrup still in it too. I’m just gonna put dry cat food in the DP’s from now on. The marshmallows started melting on me in the bag and turned into a gooey mess. I think I’m out on those. The new lure must be pretty strong smellin cause my wife is bitchin like hell at me now for doing it in the house.

Day 9.......1 male possum.....2 male coons

Total catches to date: 14


We're running a pretty steady 10% catch rate now. All coon catches are male coons though. That's probably not a good thing as the females of a specie tend to be the more important targets. I guess the females are still denned up with babies. The female possums are definitely out though.

One adjustment I'm making is the amount of cat food I'm putting in my traps. I've had some of the targets, and I believe its likely the possums, clean out the top part of the trap and then move on. I'm only filling it up to the trigger now so if they're gonna get any bait, then they're gonna have to reach around the trigger to do so.

The possum continues to work my yote set as well without tripping it. I just pulled it up and I'm gonna reset it in a different spot using different bait. I may try deer meat this time.

If you are having a problem with ants use some Raid ant spray under the trap, the coons don't care.

I think you'll see the females and her litter on the ground sometime in June. Good time to gang set.

Thanks….that’s a good tip. To try and keep everything as simple and clean as possible, I think I’m gonna leave the fish out of the trap from now on though and just put dry cat food in the bottom. The fish is gonna be pureed in oil and squirted on the trees and grass around the traps. What I really need is some used grease from a fish fry. Something else I’d like to get too is some leftover shells from a crawfish boil. Them things throw off a real loud fishy smell.


I’ve seen deer smell me before during the daytime at distances of around 250 yards. So, I know if my scent can travel that far during the daytime….then a fish scent at night could easily travel that far. Realistically, I’m betting it can travel much farther and be detected by coons/possums. I’m thinking that 500-1,000 yards might not be unreasonable with good humidity in the air and enough scent being cast out along a creek drainage where the scent would likely flow in an undisturbed line the best.