Raccoons

[Al_Smith]

Any smelly nasty fish will attract them .The nastier the better .

[Banjo picker]

I think the marshmallows will do fine.  Only thing I don't like about them is they attract ants....probably some uncles too.  Tim 

[WV Sawmiller]

Tex,

   I used to use sardines to catch feral cats in Saudi using a similar trap. They worked good. I could put out one of my minnow traps in the creek in the front yard and catch a few chubs or crawfish for bait but they are well used to stealing Sampson's dry dog food. :D

[WV Sawmiller]

  Well last night I had 2 marshmallows stolen and one successful modification to my old fashioned box trap and one young coon has now gone to Happy Mountain. I hope to make sure he has plenty of family and friends with him soon.

[Banjo picker]

Howard, here is my wire trap it allows no escapees.


 

 First pict. Is gate open....when they step on the trigger, door falls and those hooks hold it shut.  Tim

[WV Sawmiller]

Banjo,

   I don't want to hurt your feelings but these WV coons are harder working and smarter than their Mississippi cousins. :D I have 2 wire traps out there on the porch very similar or identical to the one you show in your picture. Both of them are self locking too. Most of the times the coons go in and steal the bait and never put enough weight on the trigger pedal to spring the trap and when they do they have figured some way to unlatch the trigger and get out. Maybe they have outside help? ??? Bottom line is they are gone the next morning. I found one in there one night and personally tripped it locking it in and left him overnight to remove in the morning and he was still gone so I know they did not trip it from outside. The ones I am catching are mostly young coons. 

[gspren]

Saturday morning a neighbor lady called me and said there's a coon stuck halfway in a box trap and she needed help. The trap is a Hava-hart wire mesh trap and the medium sized coon had flipped it on it's side and was ripping a hole through the side of the trap which was now the top, it had broken the wire welds and had about a 3" hole that it could almost get out of but I dispatched and disposed of the coon for her. She had caught 3 previously and someone would take them alive for dog training, she didn't think this one could wait until that evening for him to come get it. The trap needs some repair work. This was inside a detached garage with a pet door for her cats.

[Texas Ranger]

home made trap

[Ron Scott]

Night time marauders. They are great escape artists and challenge the live traps.


 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Got another one in one of the metal traps last night. We will keep whittling away on them.

[timberking]

I have had to "take a couple to the train station" from around my protein feeder.  I use dog proofs.

[Banjo picker]

Howard, that was probably a transplant from down here that moved up to WV to escape the humidity.  Banjo

[WV Sawmiller]

Banjo,

   He did seem awful confused and spoke with a bit of a Cajun accent so that could well be the case. :D

    I called a young friend with a coon dog to see if he wanted him for training. He did not. I showed him to Sampson before and after but Sampson did not want anything to do with him. While I hauled him off Sampson did come up on the porch and hiked his leg to show what he thought of him. I'd really rather he would just bark. :

[YellowHammer]

As mentioned earlier in the post, distemper in raccoons is a very bad thing.  Around here, raccoons are rampant with distemper and even occasionally rabies.  I've seen and dispatched quite a few, with permission from the local health department and game wardens.  Its getting worse because coon hunting is going away, and the raccoons are breeding up, and mother nature is culling them down.

Distemper is as deadly to dogs as it to raccoons and is always prevalent to a certain extent in the raccoon population.  It has a 100% fatality with dogs (its called Canine Distemper for a reason), and it does get through the vaccine sometimes, according to my vet.  I called up the health department a few years ago about it because we were seeing so many animals infected with it, and they said they treat every raccoon as if it were a carrier.

I've seen infected raccoons get extremely aggressive, and chase dogs and people.  I've seen them climbing chain link fences to get to my dogs, and have seen them climb on the roof on my house, in the middle of the day.  Their normal infected look is just "confused" like they have a hangover.  They can function but are not hitting on all cylinders.  

If you are live trapping them and letting them go with a store bought trap, they are deigned so if you pull up the door catch, and turn the cage on its side, the door will open freely when the animal pushes against it, without you having to raise the door by hand and possibly getting bit.

Anyways, as I was reading this topic, I thought I'd share my personal experience.       

[WV Sawmiller]

   Most of my coons go to Happy Mountain. If I catch one in my box trap I open the metal trap, let him out into it then take him off in the metal trap and dispatch him with my pellet gun then haul them off.

[Magicman]

They can't swim if they are inside of the cage/trap....just saying.  :   Neither can skunks.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Good advice, especially with a skunk but my creek is not deep enough in most places and the pellet gun is faster.

   I have not tried it yet but I have been told you can hang a road kill, or otherwise deceased critter, on a limb over a quiet spot on the lake and after a few days in warm weather the maggots from the flies dropping in the lake will  draw fish to the area and the bait fish draw the larger fish. Makes sense but it probably helps if you have a severe head cold to fish near there especially if the wind is shifting and you can't stay upwind all the time. I might still try it.

[Magicman]

I have a pier and the pond is deep enough. 

Put it in a burlap bag with a brick.  It sinks to the bottom and lots of stuff grows on the outside of the bag as whatever is inside decays.  A food chain is attracted when minnows come to nibble around the bag.  A cow's head last a long time and works very well. 

[WV Sawmiller]

MM,

  I think that is the old standard to bait a catfish hole. I just like the idea of drawing them to the surface where I can chase them with my flyrod and a cork popping bug. :D

  I had a dear friend with a place on Lake Blackshear near Cordele Ga and the norm there was to put a set of 4'-8' fluorescent lights a couple feet above the water and they would turn them on to attract bugs/minnows/baitfish/crappie/bass. I have seen 10+ lb bass come to that. They would not bite a bait but were at risk from alternative methods not to be discussed here.

  Dock owners would often get mad at people fishing under their docks when they had the lights/fish attractors on. It got ugly a few times. My old buddy did not care because he had sunk a roll of old rusty fence wire under his dock and every winter when they lowered the lake level to work on the power dam he would go out a collect a couple hundred dollars worth of expensive bass and crappie lures. :D

[WV Sawmiller]

    I had another one of those misplaced Mississippi coons in my metal trap this morning. He was lucky - was going to the flea market so instead of going to Happy Mountain I loaded him and the trap in my truck and once I crossed the bridge I let him out on the side of the road. he's either got to run across several hundred yards of highway bridge or swim the lake and walk 9 miles to get back here.

[Ron Scott]

Did you paint a "yellow spot" on it so that you know when it returns? ;)

[WV Sawmiller]

   No, I just gave him Banjo's address and told him to go back home. :D

[Banjo picker]

I hope he gets lost, I don't need anymore.  Banjo

[WV Sawmiller]

   I have a couple of cans of WM Orange spray paint. I guess from now on before I release one, if I release them, I can hold him by the tail and spray his butt good with orange paint. If you start seeing coons that look like a bull-eye when walking away from you then you will know it was one of mine. :D

[Al_Smith]

In the words of Rudyard Kipling " you're braver man than I Gunga Din" .A raccoon by the tail no no and no .I've seen what they can do to a good hound .They are a grizzly bear in a smaller package .