One would have to think when you have to chop a frozen trap bed and use peat or other materials to bed your trap that may be slightly unstable you would have the greatest amount of diggers. A little more work to get it right, but well worth it in the end.

Asa, caught one 2 years ago that was missing his right foot just above the pad. It was in a fox set where the trap was tight to the hole in a #1 1/2 duke. The only thing I could think of at the time was someone forgot a trap or never went back to get it and he finally escaped. Whoever caught him, it was a perfect pad catch had they went back for him.

Was I that far out there Cattrax?

I don't agree. The moma would have had to show the pups EVERY piece of steel in the area. I don't believe they can reason between a trap and a buried fence post or wire. It sounds like there are other issues going on in those situations.

Often we see things and interpret them to what we want them to be and not what they really are.

Asa, your dad was on the cutting edge of ideas and tactics in his day. Today,people seem to think in a rut. I've trapped and taken instruction in 13 states for 35yrs. One thing I've learned about coyotes is they are all the same but different!

Folks, get out of your ruts and enjoy.

I don't agree. The moma would have had to show the pups EVERY piece of steel in the area. I don't believe they can reason between a trap and a buried fence post or wire. It sounds like there are other issues going on in those situations.

Often we see things and interpret them to what we want them to be and not what they really are.

Asa, your dad was on the cutting edge of ideas and tactics in his day. Today,people seem to think in a rut. I've trapped and taken instruction in 13 states for 35yrs. One thing I've learned about coyotes is they are all the same but different!

Folks, get out of your ruts and enjoy.

I don't claim to know more or even consider myself the caliber trapper as Asa or his Dad. But,IMO trappers give animals WAY too much credit to think and reason as humans do.

Thanks for the kind words concerning myself and Dad!
Where we differ is that I don't think trappers or people in general give animals enough credit for thier abilities to reason, learn quickly, retain experiences, etc. I surely don't think that they can reason like humans or the family dogs would all be opening doors and running in and out of the house and maybe driving off in the family car. But, to call them stupid, 60 years experience has taught me differently. Animals, especially coyotes or any canine most all have difference levels of intelligence, reasoning and other abilities and most have varying personalities from timid to agressive, pleasant to ferocious, etc. I have owned several Labrador Retrievers and all of them varied greatly in thier abilities to learn and retain, reason, etc. The one I have now is way more intelligent and shows a greater degree of reasoning power than any of the others. All were rasied from puppies so life's experiences and conditioning has been exactly the same so one can't explain away the differences because of conditioning, food supply, overpopulation, regional differences and all of the other possibilities of wild animals. Asa

Talking with pin owners here, they do not like and most times will not purchase a coyote taken in a steel trap due to the foot damage even when no external damage is visible. I am sure you have pelted animals with little to no foot damage while another’s are bloody to the knee under the skin with no external damage. I feel that we are sometime to quick to jump to the conclusion that someone left a trap out or did not check it when in fact the animal might have struggled enough to free himself with the damage already done. Pin owners tell me that feet don’t always heal and toes and pads have been lost on occasions, weeks after the catch was made. It has to do with the circulation being cut off.

Also I rather believe or state that maybe a drag did not hold or equipment failed in the anchoring of the trap instead of blaming it on the trapper, as we have enough of that already and don’t need to point fingers at one another. I also saw this last year and being the only trapper know to area of over 10 square miles, the only reasonable deduction was that the one trap lost the year before in the area was the reason for the lam coyote. The lost trap was due to an anchor failure. The cable broke on a super stake attached to 650. As smart as the coyote was, he stuck his good front foot in another 650. He must not have learned.

I don't claim to know more or even consider myself the caliber trapper as Asa or his Dad. But,IMO trappers give animals WAY too much credit to think and reason as humans do.

The only thing I could think of at the time was someone forgot a trap or never went back to get it and he finally escaped. Whoever caught him, it was a perfect pad catch had they went back for him.

You did not say he may have gotten run over by a car, nor did you say that might have broken free due equipment failure, what you did say is above and to me it sounds like you jumped purdy hard.

Bill, how well do you blend your sets in? I haul sugar sand in to the set in many locations as it works great in the bed of wet clay and will pack around a trap making it tight as Slim's hat band. I don't blend many of my set in at all, I like to use the pattern for eye appeal.

Not trying to write a book with a small response. Sorry, I'll have to cover all my bases a little better. You didn't even catch the Duke 1 1/2 I caught him in and make a response on that, eh Howard.

What I did say is, more or less, directly or indirectly, it was trapping related. Apparently you have a problem reading between the lines. Keep messing with me and I'll start picking apart your posts.

Na, your right, less don't go there. That is what Blackdog is around for and I for sure don't want to be thought of as picking apart post like that. You are right though, if I had picked up on the fact you caught that three legged yote in a Duke trap, I would have hammered for that. My point could have been made better, but the point is still the same, we have enough people putting us under the microscope for lam critters, I don't like to see trappers have negative attitude toward our own kind.

Cut the coyotes "credit" short and you'll cut your catch rate as well.

I have caught at least 100 coyotes over the years with paws or toes missing. For years we never had any trap check laws and most long line coyote trappers like myself only checked traps every three days and there were others who checked traps only on weekends. Also, this is a soft sand country so all trappers used drags and chain so suppose many couldn't find the trapped animal and it stayed in the trap until its paw/toes come off. There was no question that 99% of those coyotes missing paws and/or toes were the result of traps. One doesn't see so much of that these days with trappers more educated, checking traps more often and thinking more humanely. Asa

Asa I have too caught several with missing toes and a couple with no foot, like you said, not as many in recent years. I chalk that up to better equipment.

(other than the obvious stuff)

Most fox trappers are most likely going to be using a single small dirthole with a small exposed dirt pattern in front of it. If coyotes are going to have a bad experience with trappers then most likely this will be the set involved.

To me lure is not the obvious. I think too many people think that ever snake oil out there is good and will work just because the guy making it says it will. Lure selection is to me the most important part of the set. I do not want a lure that makes him tip toe in or roll. I feel that lure plays a more important part in making coyotes look smart than anything else. Many people use 4 or 5 lures and never keep written records of what really worked and what didn’t. When they encounter a digger they just assume it is a smart coyote when in fact if they looked at records they may find it only happens with one lure.

I think the correlation from lure to digging is simply cross contamination (lure smell on the trap). That doesn't take much to do...as a lot of these smells become airborne as soon as you open the lure bottle cap. I also noticed this to a limited degree with fresh wax on traps years back...Had a couple diggers with fresh waxed trap. I now make sure they air out a couple weeks before planting them. Not saying your wrong, Howard. Always good to think about things. I think its important for the odor to be down the hole and not get on the trap bed. How many times does a drop fall off the stick right on the trap pattern. Maybe I/m the only clumsy one.

On thought to be considered... How can trappers east and west wear the same pair of gloves for everything, setting, luring and dispatching and stiil catch fur and not just the bigtimers either??

That's a good point, Asa: If one did get lure odor on their gloves, then the trap, there is a LOT more of that same odor in front of them...combined with the visual of the hole, etc. Likely not enough "diggers" in the big picture to worry
about. Just one for me, irritates me, however.

i would almost guarantee ya that digging is from 1 of 2 things, tippy trap or loose dirt.

in general a canine will be more focused on the hole and smells coming out or eye appeal, not a "faint" smell underground.

Well this post has been kicked around and gone from one end to the other and I have enjoyed it. The question was, “do coyotes dig?” The answer is yes, but not as much as fox and coon. What causes them to dig is as varied as way some people pick their nose in public and others do not. I for one can not pass a fire ant mound that I don’t kick just for meanness and to watch them work their little buts off. What I am fixing to share is intended as my view and my view only, agree or disagree I have found success with these procedures.

I ran traps the same way with mixed success for years. Once I got on this site I read so much stuff that I was doing wrong I could not believe I had ever caught anything. I began to try some of these things out and watched as my success went down the drain. I said to heck with the way the pro’s do it, I am going back to the old way and began catching again. Dad always said “if it anit broke, don’t fix it.”

First off is 9” back and 2” to the left. That one really blew my mind till I figured out they were talking about the cent of the pan. I use the 1 finger, 2 finger and 3 finger rule. On fox with a 4.5 jaw spread trap I run it right against the hole with an index finger width between the hole and the jaw. How many trappers carry a ruler to woods? I use the old school southern method. I judge everything, but it is measured from the hole to the jaw and with finger widths not inches. Heck half the trappers out there don’t even know how long an inch is, just ask their wives. I set mine back or forward depending on the animal I am intending to catch and the size trap I am using to catch said animal.

Next is the contamination factor. I never thought about contamination till I joined this site and heard had bad a thing it really was. I never said very much because there were too many first year pros out there ready to call me a fool and in fact did. The picture below is of a coyote with a sloppy dispatch. I was hammered so hard by so many people about this picture and the blood ever where. I felt really bad so I started doing it their way and went and made me a fancy catch pole just so I could dispatch away from the set. Dumb me did not think about just how many coyotes had come from this set already with the previous coyote’s blood all over the trap and the blood covered with dirt at set.



Now with the picture above and the sloppy dispatch, why did the coyotes keep coming to the set? It simply as I have stated before, I had retarded animals here. But what really kills me is the statement that you have to change traps after every catch. WOW! I would have to own 200 fox trap and 200 coyote traps and spend half my time changing traps if that were the case. If I changed ever trap out after a catch I would never get the line run or would have to run half the traps I do not. I am hobby trapper who does it before work and takes vacation to trap. All I can tell you is I would not want to trap behind me. Back to the point though, how can I have up to three coyotes caught in one trap with a coon and possum through in there in 7 days. I mean there is coyote pee, coon pee and possum dodo all over the trap with little to no wax after the coon. Still they come. I am sure it is because I don’t have any computation and a high population. But wait a fellow trapper 5 miles down the road states that once they get educated you want catch as many. What ever the reason, they keep coming to bloody, stinking traps.

Below is a picture of crow taken in crow season with a trap set for the crow. The crow was not a non-target just so the picture doesn’t get whacked for it being a non target. I baited or lured this crow with a piece of wax paper over my pan and covered much like you would do for a fox or coyote set. In fact, one might say it looked just like a fox set with nothing exposed. Any way, you can see what a good catch was made on the crow and you can also notice that the lure is gone. The wax paper was nowhere to be found. This picture was taken as he was found. Go figure. I deleted the video of a crow that got caught trying to steal my wax paper because I was told I could not show it as it was non target.


But I keep this one.


Also, this picture below is a target animal. I keep having my wax paper exposed and or missing. There were acorns around the set and could tell they were being placed there, so I set a hair trigger. This is what I found exposing or stealing my wax paper.



So I assume nothing when it comes to trapping. I use the same pair of gloves, the same set, and the same knee pad. JLord said it best and he and I spoke and agreed on about this a month ago, our scent control is simply to spend as little time at the set as possible leaving less scent to air out. Keep your cover dirt clean and put a good lure down the hole that they want. Most humans like the smell of BBQ while it is cooking, but only a few love the smell of chicken (I hate chicken). Just as K-9s have smells that turns them on like a chicken bone while other just make them look or sniff. I still feel that coyotes are given too much credit and humans give ourselves to little.

This video shows the reaction of a coyote to lure. Check out how he worked the set from the front like he should’ve. No trap was in place. I took a red and a cat at this set location two months later. Never did catch a coyote here.



While this coyote came in from the high backing working it from the back side. You can’t tell because you don’t know where the hole is. The hole is to his right when you first see him. He did not work the set, but rather sniffed it. It is still to early and hot to get a true reading on them right now.



Cut apart, dissect and call me a fool. I learn just as much from reading these post as the next guy, I just know what works for me and what I will call foul on.

Digging is not that big of an issue, once again, some trappers use it as an excuse as to why they are not putting the cuffs on coyotes. Several QUALITY lures advertise their product to have a digging and scratching response. Pedersen's" Trench Maker", O'Gormans "Big Horns Medicine", and "Revenge" just to name a few.I don't hit a coyote or fox line without some OG's or Slim's lures in my bag. There are 2 guys that KNOW coyotes.

I forgot to ask if a bear pooped in the woods or if the Pope was Catholic.