Wisconsin Trapping Season 2014

I had a good first year trapping by myself.  

I grew up in a family of trappers, and remember tagging along to check muskrat and coon traps with my mom as a kid before school, but never made any sets myself.  This year, I decided to try it out on my own and focused on canines.  All summer I got my fix in with nuisance trapping with live cages, but once October 18th came around, I was all about focusing on the coyotes that run through my backyard.  I set about two dozen sets, extending about 16 miles round trip from my house, mostly private farm lands.  I used 3 different kinds of sets: basic dirt hole with bait, scent post sets, and curiosity flat sets.  I learned quickly to throw away my rebar stakes and invest in Wolf Fang cable stakes.  I bought all different kinds of used traps from a local dealer, Trapper Art's Supply, and my stock include Duke #4s and #1.5s, Montana #2, and a few "unknown" brands that were too old to tell who manufactured them! After some modifications and a bath in Pete Rickard's logwood dye and trap wax, they were ready to go in the ground.

Below are some of my sets after I was finished and marked:

Basic dirt hole for coyote:

Scent post:

Territory crossing set:

Dirt hole with bleached bone attractor:

This first coyote was an interesting story.  It was a perfect paw catch, but when I came out to check this trap, this small female was already dead; I believe this girl was a nomad just passing through, and the resident alpha female had came upon her caught in their territory and killed her on the spot.

So I re-bedded the trap in the same spot, catch circle, blood, and all, and added some of the glands from this first dead female.
Two weeks later, I caught the resident alpha female, evident by the semi-healed scars on her face.  She was only caught by the toes, so I know she was a bit weery, but a catch is a catch.

Female

Male

#11 female coyote

#3 male red fox

Not every day produced, though some should have.....darn that dead spot!

I had an interest to try out dogproof traps this year for coon since I caught so many in cages over the summer, but after catching a few, and seeing that the fur won't be selling for much this season, I pulled my traps up during the week and decided to just target big boars.  I bought my dogproofs from a small business, 100% made in the USA and they work great.  You can order by clicking here: TrapsUSA.

A couple nice boars off the river; 30# and 23#

A few skunks found their way into my sets as well; but the essence is very sought after and the pelts make cool hats!

Below are some miscellaneous pictures from this season:

Before and After Trapping

Here are some of the pictures of my catches where I took the before picture and then had a successful catch! 

Dirthole caught 2 females in 2 weeks.

Cable restraint caught this female, #11, within a week.

Another young male in a cable restraint.

Male red fox caught in a cable restraint.

Here's a frozen dirthole from the fall that I re-bedded with peat moss, sifted some snow over the whole area, and put a shot of red fox urine on the backing; caught this female red fox the next morning.

Here's a cable restraint setup that was a fence crossing between two fields.  It had been set for a couple of days before I caught this nice big male. You can see the huge catch circle from the 7 foot snare.

This is an anthill that the coyotes were using as a pee post.  I added a fresh shot of red fox urine and caught this female the next day.

Here's a cable restraint that was hanging on a 4 wheeler trail for about 2 weeks.  Patience pays off as I knew that they would use that crossing whenever they made their rounds through the area.  I caught this little female in a perfect neck catch, but had to throw her out because she had mange.  Notice how I barely concealed the cable restraint, because if it's at the right height, there's not need to conceal.

Male coyote in a cable restraint that hung for 17 nights.