Thought it would be a good idea to share some tips on baiting practices and even some of your favorite baits and lures for animals using cage traps.

One of the things I do is re-use old sardine tins. They make a great container to put raccoon and squirrel bait in. With squirrels, I fill it up and tilt it against the back of the cage on a 45 o slant. Because the bait is oily, rain will run off of it, for the most part. I normally use a light cover over the bait on all my traps to keep the sun and rain off. For skunks, possums and raccoons, I use the "tins" to put a fruit paste in with a few marshmallows for eye appeal. Often times using the mini marshmallows as a trail into the trap. I usually tilt the lured tin too but at a lesser angle. On chipmunks, I use a small clam shell baited with squirrel bait. Seems to be the right amount!

Here we go. I am waiting for the little debbie cakes, some fried chicken and dead chicken in the cage trap. LOL

They do make a good cream pie..........ummmmmmm, lil'debbie.

Well I do not use any of those... and I am having a more and more difficult time catching raccoons on what I used to so I am using and making alot more professional type baits and lures these days.

I use Bob's and others with great success, and some of my own with great results as well.

I suppose I should thank my compition for having caught and released raccoons for over 15 years. There are alot of them out there that are more difficult to catch. Funny thing is that now some of their customers are calling me to catch their coons... can't shake a stick at that... LOL, I should by them a lunch.

I blind set chipmunks though....

Any paticular way you place your bait in a cage trap, Paul? Blind setting for chipmunks? 2-way trap against a wall?

When I was a kid, we would glue some whole kernel corn on a Victor Rat Trap and sprinkle some around and across the front of the trap. Usually catch the chipmunk with his cheeks full going for the last (glued on) piece. We would squeeze him and make him drop every last piece and reset the trap. Then we skinned them with a straight razor and dried them on a weasel stretcher.

Cage trap bait placement is placed 1/3 outside 1/3 just inside and 1/3 behind the pan, unless of course it is a synthetic lure and that is always placed all the way behind the pan only.

Chipmunks are set up using victor pro rat traps, the ones with the yellow pans, I modify them and drift fence them to funnel them chippies down, it helps to lay on the ground and get a chipmunk's eye view of the terrain. (I do the same when blind setting for mink)

I do not bait rat traps to cut down on non-targets there are just too many otherwise. I do not want a grey squirrel in a rat trap on a chipmunk job for instance.

a word to the wise... never set just one rat trap for a chipmunk, always double them. I learned this the hard way, One time I had set my job up, had the traps in place, was signing the contract and collecting payment, shooting the bull with the customer, when out came Mr chippy. I thought this will be good the customer can see me in action... yeah right... Mr chippy ran the gauntlet of traps swiftly jumping over ever last trap I had set LOL.

I doubled the traps and he tried it again while we were still standing there. We both learned a lesson, and we both left that job together in the same truck. HA!

Chipmunks are also carnivorous, they will eat on each other. not all of them, all of the time, but some family units seem to be worse then others.

I do use some bait for them from time to time for live trap jobs when trapping for a sensitive customer, but even in these cases I perfer to blind set the holes with extruders or colony type traps and hardware cloth

Drift fencing for chippies....Hey LA, you gettin' this down?

LT GREY- What is a drift fence.
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Ron Fry

If i use a bait container it is a sm white foam bowl... I like the white for the attraction. I do not use bait covers.....I charge to rebait and inspect every 3 days in my contract.... As far as Bait.....Big Marshmellows, fig newton and chicken soup for the soul dog food are the main stay. I also use a LOT of apple oil.

Told you it was coming. Vinke what are we to do with you.LOL

He's got the Seattle influence...

Jimi Hendrex and Curt Kobain????........... Ted Nugent is coming to our little fair in aug.........Wonder what kind of influence he will have.........

Waaaaahhhhh Wango Z tango.........


Vinke, you're not r e a l l y using chicken soup and fig newtons for bait are you? Marshmallows, well even I use them but usually "with" some other bait or lure. Tell us what you really use, not some funny story.

LA, if you read Barkstone's post, you will see he says he uses a drift fence to guide chipmunks to his traps...

And- My question to you was

Do they really work??

Ron Fry

OOOOOOoooookkkkkkkk........I have a "Magic" Flute and a Genie in a bottle who can not count

Man Vinke, I want some of what you're on! Ha!... You must be R E A L close to Canada, if you get my drift!

LA, Kinda wondered that one myself. He said he uses them to help guide the chipmunks to his snap traps... ? I use squirrel bait myself but maybe his way is better? I never heard of anyone using it to catch a fox either... Possums,groudhogs, 'dilla's, and skunks, sure! But foxes? Learn something new everyday!!!

for coons in a no cat area (not many of those i know) I use smoked oyster oil (leftover from what I can't stop eating myself.)
I mix in a little glycol to "thin" it (or make it last longer)
I use mellows as well for eye candy... If I have gotten a smaller coon but not the moma and pa, i use a little coon urine on a fuzzy dog toy...

bushy tails usually get a multi catch unbaited <(Oooh, look, a compound adjictive)...Or rat traps, or 110's up high. I use smaller cage traps with nut oil and peanuts or other nuts to trail them on the ground or as backup..
I use a pheasant wing on a wire from the back of a cage for fox with some quail, grouse, or duck scent...( I just don't have any pheasant scent around)
I have made a large backing, #2 cs flat set with a "nest" of duck feathers and duck scent for yotes and it has worked well. Sucks when windy though.

( OT-BTW- toss some feathers in your duck decoy spread for realism, works good - but again, windy days ruin it)


Has anyone used fur in or at a set? I was thinking of trying it, but just have not yet. Figured it would work well on K9...

Don, You should be aware that it is illegal to use "ANY" part of a native "game bird" (ie: ducks, geese, quail, pheasant,doves,etc.) for bait, for any trap, in the state of OHIO! I certainly wouldn'd put it on a public forum when people know who you are. Had you read your manual that comes with your trapping licence, you would know that. You'd also know that it comes with a serious fine, if you're ever caught doing it!

Smoked oysters, I have tried those but they are way too expensive for my taste to use as a coon bait. On that line of baits, I would rather have a tin of sardines in soybean oil. and a splash of shellfish. I have (and do) caught hundreds of coons every year on no more than that. You can also use the soybean oil as a trailing scent, out away from the cage. Of course it will catch housecats.

Pheasant wing on a string? Soungs like a housecat set more than a fox set. Feathers are no doubt big attracters for all predators, but I would want something they could actually eat. Even LA Trapper (and maybe Dave Vinke), who is as far as I can tell are probably the best trapper at getting a fox in a cage trap, at least on this forum, would use a more substantial bait that a bird wing to try to catch a fox in a cage trap, even a young one.

Pheasant scent? Just what "is" pheasant scent? I trap the biggest Pheasant farm in Southern Ohio 10 months a year. So one could say I am around 10's of thousands of birds,at every stage of their natural life. Other than the body odor of 30,000 birds, , can't say I've noticed any special odor other than the normal poultry scent you get with that many birds all together. Just how does one get this "scent" from a pheasant? Is this a synthectic product like they train a young dog with?

You must make it LT GREY. Like I do. HA!!!! Grouse, chukar, duck etc.No and I am not telling how I do it.........