Coyotes, where are they?

Finishing the remake from a female coyote catch.  In a normal year, this would have been a hotspot for more catches.  This year, there hasn't been a coyote track to that location, and before the catch, just that one coyote.  The only tracks in the area are wolves and deer.

This trapping season will be one for the books, but not because of the record number of coyotes I’ve caught, but because of the lack of coyotes in my area.  Finding a coyote track seems to be one of the more difficult things I’m encountering this season.  There are “pockets” of coyotes, meaning some farms are loaded up with coyotes, too many in fact, but where I trap, public forest land, coyotes are roaming by themselves, seemingly outrunning the wolves.  Wolf and bobcat tracks are littering the area while fox and coyote tracks are almost non-existent. 

Thinking back to last season, by mid-December, most of the coyotes that I was catching were missing huge patches of guard hairs between their shoulder blades and were “rubbed” as we say in the fur market.  Most had severe mites/lice/fleas, and they stunk like wet dogs.  This is the first sign of disease and the stench is from the infection under their fur in the skin, flesh rotting away like a zombie.  My theory is that because of the crazy warm temperatures that we had well past Thanksgiving, and the lack of cold and snow into December, the parasites didn’t “freeze out”, and kept infesting these animals as their winter coats grew in.  I had to throw away ¼ of my catches last season due to the fur being unusable.  Imagine you are a wild animal and you must survive a Wisconsin winter in nothing but your fur.  Now imagine your fur is rotting off your body and you have bald patches.  Even if these coyotes would have made it through the winter, would they have bred? Would they have carried a litter full-term? Would they be healthy enough to nurse and raise a litter of pups for seed?

An example of the bald coyotes that I was catching during the prime fur trapping season last year.

This September, we were driving home one night and about two miles from where I trap, we saw a coyote walking up the middle of the road suffering from mange, with its tail completely bald, its eyes sunken in, and its body with hardly any weight on it.  This isn’t the norm around here.  We can trap, shoot, and hunt coyotes year-round, yet year after year, landowners are always reporting coyote issues.  So why is this happening now? Is it because fur prices aren’t very high, and not many of the next generations are getting into trapping or hounding, therefore Mother Nature took overpopulation into her own hands and this disease ran through?  It’s no secret that as each generation grows, they aren’t as hardworking or tough enough as the last.  Trapping, hunting, hounding, it all requires great skill, commitment, and hardwork, something we know is fading quickly in our society.  Did the disease that started almost one year ago last season take a toll on the coyotes this season?

Setting a cable restraint on a trail that leads into the pines.

When there isn’t a trapping season going on, I spend most of my time scouting and studying tracks.  I follow track patterns, observing where an animal navigates, how they weave in and out of the brush, what they mark on and what they don’t, etc.  I have nearly every “honey hole” memorized on my side of the county and when I wasn’t catching the coyotes like I should have been, I went to these honey holes just so I could see a handful of fresh tracks and re-assure myself that it’s not a lack of coyotes, it’s just me being a poor trapper this season.  I went, I looked, but I could not find any tracks.  I found lots of wolf tracks, more bobcat tracks than I could even fathom, but coyotes weren’t there.  I went to the bait piles that were put out for months but were untouched, nothing.  If I did cut a coyote track, it was a single one, and it didn’t return to that area for two weeks at minimum.  I was given permission to trap a farm that I took 16 coyotes from last season, and they always seem to have coyote problems just because it’s a funneling point within farmland, but I looked hard and only found one, maybe two coyotes that would travel the entire property.

I got quite a few calls this season already for problem otter, bobcat, and especially beaver, but nothing for coyotes.  I know many reading this are thinking, “well heck, we have TONS of coyotes on our property”.  But have you looked at the sign in the last 2 months or so? Have you had pictures on your trail camera since September? I would absolutely love to find new properties to trap this year that hold those coveted pockets of coyotes but as of right now, mid-December, there doesn’t seem to be much hope that coyotes will stack up before their fur turns bad in a month or so.

We know that one of the cool things about Wisconsin is that animal species vary from county to county here.  I might have a plethora of bobcats by me, but guys just 30 minutes away in Wood county are having trouble finding even a bobcat track.  I might not be able to find a fisher track by me, but in the next town over, there are pockets of 4-5 fisher on camera every night.  Southern WI has a great population of fox and coyotes, but they also don’t have too much for bobcats, fisher, or wolves.  When I lived in Barron County, trapping was so easy; vast farmland, hundreds and hundreds of acres with crop fields and small woodlines that the coyotes traveled through for cover, made trapping easy.  Here in “Central Forest Zone”, we have thousands of public acres, but they are so thick, you can’t even see 50 yards in front of you, let alone be able to run a productive trapline while competing with other outdoorsmen and wolves.

I’m in a lot of trapping forums and facebook groups and I see some of my fellow Wisconsin trappers are doing very well on coyotes this year.  I notice that most are in the southern half of the state and trapping private lands.  Most of them either work night shift, or are laid off, and most of them do not have little children at home.  I like to think that someday, when my kids are grown, and I’m retired, that I will really be able to trap like I want to now, but I have to remember, trapping is forever, coyotes will always be there, but my kids are only little once so I should appreciate spending time with them checking traps or catching weasels, even if there’s no sign or our traps are always empty.

Maybe I'm taking on too much? I work full-time, my fur hat sewing hobby has turned into something I can't even keep up with, and orders are the highest I've had since I started doing it.  Maybe I'm putting too much pressure on myself? I have so many people that love to follow my posts about trapping, kids that look up to me, new trappers that ask daily questions (which of course I don't mind), antis to combat almost daily, magazines and publication companies that want material, articles, media, sponsors that want good catch photos, other agencies that want educational photos and videos to demonstrate trapping; I have many different irons in the fire yet I can't even seem to take a minute to stoke the fire!

I’ve had a somewhat fun season so far.  Caught some critters I could harvest, caught a couple badger and bobcat that were released.  Trapped some new areas, made some new sets outside my comfort zone, and tried out some new equipment and test lures that I’ve never used before.  I was able to get a lot of cool photos and videos this year that I plan to upload in the off season to help new trappers and educate non-trappers.  I can’t say this season has been a total wash.  I did have some setbacks, such as having a lot of traps stolen, losing access to some land due to beaver flooding or travel, and some medical issues that hurt my early season.

If you’re still with me on this incoherent rambling, I applaud you, as it’s sometimes difficult to follow my tornado of a brain when I get coffee flowing and start overthinking trapping.  Maybe everything I just said isn’t true, and this year is just an anomaly, a coincidence, a fluke.  Maybe because I’m spending so much time helping others fill their tags, I’m not devoting the time I should to my own trapline.  I’m okay with that though.  I can trap coyotes anytime, but drawing bobcat, fisher, and otter tags doesn’t happen to people often, so I’m glad to offer my help to anyone who needs it.  But for someone as obsessed with coyotes as I am, it would be nice to have some in my own traps each morning.

Alas, I need to quit complaining and whining, be patient, appreciate just being out there in the great outdoors, and set more traps!

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"