Trapping Coyotes

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

We have a Trapper we let trap Coyotes on out land. So far this year he has caught 6 or 7. They just lie in the cage and seem so friendly.  ;D
This particular Male acted just like the other 7. He just laid  there, really looking like a pet.....until I got to close to the cage. 
I just about lost my Grits. He came at me in a split second. Good thing he was in a cage.

The trapper takes them to a fenced in farm in the southern part of the state where they train hunting dogs to hunt Coyotes.



  

  

 

[Cypressstump]

 Well, you were actually close enough to be one of the very few guys in the world to physically pet a wild Yote, and you mean to say you Did NOT ? ? ?    what's up wid' dat' ? ;) ;) ;D

[red]

next time bring Milkbones

[WDH]

 :D :D :D

[JohnM]

What no Roadrunner avatar, P? ???  Your Panthers beat Atlanta, you could put that one up again... ;) ;D

As for yotes, I've got to try my hand at hunting them.  Hunting a week or so ago at the end of the day I had a pile of they howling up a storm, close enough that walking home in the dark I left the primer in the muzzleloader.   I never had much against them til last year when they got 5 of my chickens. >:(

To live trap them like that and that many, I'd say that guy knows what he's doing!

JM

[WDH]

That dog will bite you.

[Riggs]

cool pics, keep the fingers away from the cage....

[Al_Smith]

There's a guy at work who snares them and does pretty well at it .He doesn't fool with them though ,22 mag right between the running lights .A couple years ago he got a 65 pound male so they eat pretty good here in the Buckeye .

I've only seen a few of them but after a fresh snow I've seen the tracks around my firewood piles evidently from some yote looking for a nice fat rodent for his breakfast .We got yotes and owls at night and red tail hawks during the day .

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

cool pics, keep the fingers away from the cage....

I started to give him the finger but didn't want to temp him.  :D

[Al_Smith]

Where in the world did all of them come from in the last 25 years ? The danged things are from Ont. to Florida all the sudden .

I used to do a lot of fox hunting in the early 80's and can remember what looked like dogs running way ahead of us  but I'm not so certain now if the weren't coyotes .I would have thought though that if they were coyotes the Walker hounds would have trailed them but they didn't .Not much got by that brace of Walkers .Had they been Airedales I imagine they'd have given chase .Just as well because even with a 30:06 I doubt seriously if I could have made a good shot at 500 yards .

[Jeff]

Any chance of getting him to give up a tutorial on how he goes about his coyote trapping so successfully? 

[doctorb]

I, too, am interested in his techniques.  I would think you would also catch a lot of other, and maybe more desireable, critters.  I have heard that coyotes are not easy to trap, and that once they sense something is askew, they will not go near the trap.

[Al_Smith]

Well I can tell you this  a fox is a chore to coax into a set and I'd imagine a yote would be also .

I nearest I ever came to a fox was some red hair in a number two double spring trap but once I caught a crow of all things .Then again I caught a skunk in a mink set once .What a smelly surprise that was .

[Jeff]

I'd love to get a baby crow somewhere. My friend Lou has had 3 pet crows (ravens) in his life, and says he really would like to have another. The last one's name was Poe of course.

[chain]

Once you learn the 'yote's habits and travel lanes, such as crossings and where he leaves his sign, trapping the critter is much easier. Coyotes are naturally curious and will investigate objects of interest to them. An old bone, or piece of wood in an open area, most 'yotes will have to check out for a sniff of other critters.

Setting the trap[foothold] is an art, must be hidden completely and just the right pan resistance pressure is set so as to allow the animal to step down but not 'feel' the steel. Great pains in allowing no human scent, rubber gloves, etc. I had more success in the dirt-hole set using beaver meat and an attractant scent above the set. Used steel foothold trap, I don't think snares are allowed out of water in Missouri.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

This guy is really pretty good......if he can read their signs. Unless a COYOTE has rabies, he will generally have a hunting path.
When the "Trapper" determines a Coyote path, he sets up a trap, sort of like a big rabbit box but made of wire. He baits it with "cheap" chickens thrown out by grocery stores.....their favorite food down here.

Sometimes if he starts catching Coons or Foxes, he will move the trap at least 400 yards to another spot. If he catches a possum, he will take the trap up and replace it with a trap that has been cleaned. He always wears glove, and if his gloves touch anything that a possum has touched, he throws the gloves away. Same as a Fox....Coyotes shy away from the scent of a Fox. Below is a pic of a Fox. When he loads the fox into the transport cage, he gives the Fox his gloves.....the gloves are no good from then on trapping Coyotes.

You can see one glove.



 

Coyotes don't mind the scent of Beaver or other dogs. Just Possum and Fox.....Why? I don't know, this is just how he explained it.

He has a noose on a stick, like the dog catcher and moves the critters from the trapping cage to the transport cage.

He has 2 traps within 200 yards of my mill. If I get to the mill real early, he is usually already checking traps. I can hear him on quite mornings, hollering......."Get your a** in that cage"........growling going on.......cage doors banging......then it gets real quite. A few minutes later, here he comes with 2 Coyotes, or whatever on the back of his 4-wheeler. Tobacco juice running out the side of his mouth and the poor soul at 81, is out of breath. :D He told me he gets bit every now and again trying to get the noose off, but he says it comes with the job.

Jeff, I do not know if he knows how to catch a Crow but I'll ask him. From what I've heard, Crows are thieves.  :D They steal jewelry or anything shiny.

[doctorb]

Not much red on that guy!

[JohnM]

Not much red on that guy!

Me thinks that's a grey fox, Doc.  

I can't believe how relaxed that yote is!   I meant to ask early and you mentioned 'transport' cages, but this isn't like a Trout Unlimited 'catch and release' type operation is it?! ???

[doctorb]

Me agree, JohnM.  I do see them from time to time, but have many red fox in my woods.

[Riggs]

I'd love to get a baby crow somewhere. My friend Lou has had 3 pet crows (ravens) in his life, and says he really would like to have another. The last one's name was Poe of course.

When I was a kid I used to get on the schoolbus at my grandpa's. He had a pet crow named "Groucho". He/she would sit on the gutter of the house and "talk" to me until the bus came. He cut down a tree with a nest in it (he didn't know it was there). They are very intelligent. It would fly to the woods at night, and every morning he would go out and call it. It would sit on his shoulder and eat little pieces of hamburger. It would spend the days walking around on his roof or in the yard. It would let him know anytime anyone got in the yard. It is one of my favorite memories of growing up.

[Jeff]

Lou and Catherine were telling me that Poe would come to the house every morning and rap at the window for his slice of baloney. If they tried to give him anything else, bread, other lunch meat, anything, he would walk off and "Cuss in Crow" until he go his slice of baloney.

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Your friend Lou that had the 3 Crows and the last one was named Poe......would the first 2 named Edgar and Allan? That would have been pretty good. 

[Seaman]

Do you know what brand of cage trap he uses? Mabe makes his own? We are covered up here in WNC, I just can't find enough time to hunt them.

[Cypressstump]

Down here there is a live trap, a large one, that has a  'cage within a cage", for which to put a teaser live rabbit or chicken for a lure. They are said to work pretty good.
Like already mentioned, the yotes are very wise and trap savoy.
The larger the trap the better catch rate I'm told.

Back in the mountians of N. New Mexico, I'd hunt them with a reed or diaphram distress call, hanging a hawk feather on a string out the side of a sage bush, 3-4 foot high, tied off on a 3-4 foot stick. The feather would spin and float around, keep the yotes attention for that required split second, cause most times that's all you got.

Ever heard of a crow talking?  My friend had one, it had a 6-8 word vocabulary. I caught a pair of feathered babies once, the tree with nest blew down. I keep them for a few months, they tamed up well, and were trying to talk a bit with a lot of coaxing. A knothead next door kid feed them waay too much bread ( forbidened by me), it killed them. Poor ol' Heckle and Jeckle..

[justallan1]

I keep hearing stories that a few of the guys around here can call them in good enough that they carry a rifle and a shotgun because they will come fast enough and close enough that you can't get them with the rifle. I'd sure be interested to see it.