Now that deer season is winding down I need something to keep me occupied until shed season starts. I am looking to take up trapping. It's something I have always wanted to do. Here in MT a furbearer's license is not required to trap coyote, so this is where I would like to begin. I have read about scent hole using a leg hold's, which seem very effective. However, with colder temps and frozen ground I'm leaning more towards the use of snares. What types of areas should I be looking for to set snares? obviously good fence crossing and pinch points, etc.. What about the use of scents or baits?
Backcountry, sorry I've been out of town all week for a regional meeting and I'm just surfing the net to kill a couple minutes before our team dinner... I'll try to remember to answer your question when I get back Friday if I have the time then; if you don't see me respond shortly after that, shoot me a PM.
Ok... back from my regional meeting but got a limited window here before I go crawl up in a tree to try to kill a deer on film for a friend. I'll try my best to hammer out some basics, but may need to come back for a more thorough review later. First... frozen ground, lol. Yes, it does present its inherit problems. Luckily for you, you've got the right person giving input on that dilemma: A lot of trappers will say that if you can trap in the Midwest, you can trap anywhere. We have some severe freeze-thaw conditions (the actual temperature fluctuations will get you more than just frozen ground...). Let me know if you're going to need to have a basic starter course in EVERYTHING... I'll be happy to provide one to you (i.e., what you need to purchase, and initial steps to get going...). For the purpose of this post, let's assume you know a LITTLE and let's just move on to bedding the trap itself. First, after digging out your bowl-shaped hole that you're going to place the trap in (I also like a conical hole even below that a little which my trap chain will lie in; this keeps my trap levers from resting on the chain itself and helps remove any "tippiness"; it also minimizes possible metal-on-metal contact that may serve to freeze the two different parts together)... anyway, after digging your trap bed, I sprinkle a fairly liberal amount of salt directly on the earth itself as an antifreeze. Then, I sift a good layer of pure peat moss over the salt. THEN I start concerning myself with bedding the trap by sifting dry dirt on top of that, packing it in, and then I sprinkle another fine layer of salt over the trap jaws/levers and cover once again with peat... One more fine sifting of dry dirt and then you can blend if necessary or desired after that, depending upon if you're making a flat set, walkthrough, dirt-hole set, etc. I've yet to have a trap not fire due to freezing conditions save once, and it's because I caught a monster tom bobcat the night before and didn't go through my normal SOP... the next day, I had another cat print on top of my pan and missed him because my trap was frozen in. That was solely my fault though for not taking the time on the remake to do it correctly. To me, that's part of the fun and challenge: to beat not only the incredible senses of a predator, but nature itself and her challenging conditions You nailed it on the placement of snares/cable restraints... predators leave paths much akin to deer, and you can find these by looking just inside a grassy area leading into a draw or pinch point as you referred to; you'll just have to do your homework, much like deer scouting. Most people using cable restraints rely on animal movement alone; in other words, they're sort of "blind setting" a trail where they can narrow down an animal's movement and force him into the opening. As far as using lures/baits in foothold traps, I have four or five that are my go-to lures... Gold Digger, for red fox; Sterling Silver, for gray fox (which I may lure a trap intended for yotes or even cat with this); Badlands Bob for cats; and Steppenwolfe for yotes. As I sort of alluded to, sometimes I'll punch in a double-dirthole set and only bed one trap between the two, and lure each of them with a different scent to get the animal to shift his feet more. Sometimes, if you encounter an animal that's been missed at a trap before, or who's just especially smart, old and cagey, I'll lure a hole and NOT bed a trap in front of that one, and NOT lure a dirt hole and WILL place a trap in front of that set... There's various ways to attack and it, and it all lends to the fun of matching wits with the smartest animals in the woods. I really need to head out now... think of some questions that this may have generated, and I"ll try to answer them as best I can later on.
