I bought a couple dozen duke 1 1/2 coils. I bought them only for coon.Around here fox is like a bigfoot sighting because of our coyote population.In my opinion I think night latching for coyotes is great but should I waste my time for coons?I never have before but was just wondering how many of you guys do?

I did one tonight just to hear the click! If I do these I'll have about 3 more dozen older coon traps I'll do as well just because

I night latch all of my coon footholds. I want the trap to fire before the coons foot is too far into the jaws so that Its not caught above the foot. A coons front foot is like a slippery piece of wet rubber so I like the jaws to have a sharp edge to them. If you do laminate make sure you have STRONG springs or you will have some pullouts when trapping in water.

night lacthing is not for any one animal. it is so the trap is set the same way every time.time after time.

What does the term Night Latching refer to I have not heard this before.
Greg

it refers to the click sound when the dog and pan are engaged together. it loud enough you can hear it at night so you know that the trap is set right

Shorten up the pan notch and you have the same thing but with a lot less work and agravation.

dont see how that can be done beav?? how woudl that make the "click"

Thanks Warcraft.
Greg

Unless you're setting traps in the dark with no light or have poor eyesite, night-latching is a waist of time IMO. I set the traps in the full notch, look at it from the side and push the pan down to where I want it.

The "click" is cool, but if you file away part of the pan that's part you'll never get back.

~ADC~

Shortening the pan notch wont give that click sound but will accomplish the same thing as a night latch. The only draw back I had with this method is after some wear and rust you have nothing left to work with and must change the whole pan. It takes no longer to file a notch in the pan notch than to file the entire notch down. I mentioned coon because that is the species KSCATMAN asked about.

When I'm on the fly I just dont have the time to visually drop the pan down until hair triggered. The night latch gives me a consistant pan drop on every trap and speeds up setting time. I have traps that I night latched over a decade ago that are still setting perfect. It takes but a few seconds to night latch a trap so not sure where the work and agravation enters in. Just take a 1/4" thick flat file, place trap on leg, give the file a few strokes in the pan notch and mission accomplished. It takes 10 seconds or less.

make quicker work of it with a Dremel tool

gotta remember the Beav is old school . . .

How are you making a squared off notch with a dremel tool? Doesnt it make a rounded notch?

Dave, I grind the teeth off one side of the file,making it safe and it acts as a guide, it helps keep things square and straight. Like you said a few passes and its a done deal, just keep the file parallel with the top of the pan.

LOL, Even on my traps that are night-latched I still watch it til it drops into the notch. Old habits are hard to break.

Shortening the notch WON'T take out the pan creep, so if use any pan tension on your traps it may not work as well or the same as a night latch.

~ADC~

Shortening the notch will decrease pan drop required to fire the trap. Night latching gives me consistant pan drop on every trap without having to guess each time. When I set a trap I dont look at all. I hear the click and I know Im good to go. When trapping in water if there is any mud or other material on the pan notch it can decieve you into thinking your set where you want. Night latching takes all the guess work out. To each his own. LOL

What is the advantage or disadvantage to filing the notch in the pan as opposed to in the dog. Seems like the dog would be cheaper to replace.

There really is no difference. I have filed a notch on the end of the dog on some of my canine traps and it accomplishes the same thing as a night latch in the pan notch. Only difference is you dont hear a click with the filed dog for some reason.

I agree. lol

I was talking of the pan creep for those people who may not know its caused by the hole in the pan being bigger around than the bolt. Here's an exaggerated drawing to show what I mean...



When you raise the pan to full notch the bolt (represented red) shifts to one side of the pan. No matter how tight you have the bolt there will be no pan tension or very little when you begin to push down the pan until this bolt is pushed to the other side of the hole. That's pan creep. So shortening the notch means you don't get to push the pan down to remove the creep, therefore, you can't get a good constant pan tension. Make any sense to anyone?

Re-drilling and using over sized bolts that just fit the holes will help this, at least until the threads rust down some.

Of course if you don't use any pan tension on your traps it wouldn't matter much.

~ADC~

I like the nightlatch on my coon traps. I like to stomp out a bed....set the trap with the dog burried in the deep part...bed the trap..then lift the loose jaw and lower the pan. I can't do that with a short notch.

Old school Huh! well old school has caught me a ton of fur LOl
I just don't think all this tinkering gets you any more coon.
Square up the end of the dog square up the pan notch file it down to about half of It's original depth. Close up the dog end where It attaches to the post. Bend the trap frame so that when you have a level pan your dog Is fully engaged In the pan notch. Now you have a well tuned trap.
Set the trap place it at the set and your good to go It will be the same every time you set and no guess work.

False drop or pan creep.
If you look at your trap you will notice that the pan posts are wider then the pan shank. So when you tighten the tension bolt the pan posts close up against then pan shank but If you look close you will see they only tighten up on the top edge of the pan shank. This gives you false pan drop. You need to add a thin washer or two between the pan posts to even up the pressure exerted on the faces of the pan shank. This will give you a smooth and even pan drop when the trap Is sprung.

with the short notch, your trap pan will be properly adjusted as soon as you set it. I have used short pan notches, night latches on the pan and on the dog. They all work good. It depends on how much time you want to put into adjusting your traps. A little bit of pan creep (1/8 to 14") doesnt seem to bother any animal. I use the sleepy creek traps now. They come with the paw-I-trip type pan and has no pan slop so when you set it, pan creep is completely removed, especially when you night latch the dog.

Guys.......this is good stuff....how about some pics added and throwing this in the archives!

Back peddle a little and ADC has a pic

I'm computer chalanged can't do all that neat stuff but maybe ADC can show the relationship of the pan shank to the pan posts as I explained.

use a sanding disc on the Dremel and you can make 90-degree angles easily

Thanks Muskrat. never thought of the sanding wheel. May have to give it a try.

The washer (represented in red) is what you mean to remove the wobble side to side of the pan.

------------------------------------------------

The pan creep I was speaking of is the pan sliding front to back of the hole where the bolt attaches. The red circle shows the bolts position when you push the pan up on the dog in the left image, the right shows its position once its been pushed down to the night-latch. No matter how tight the bolt is it will slip this way easy. Unless you drill it out and use an over sized bolt because the hole in the pan is bigger than the holes in the pan posts. Like I said with a short notch you can't push the pan down any to eliminate this movement so its impossible to get consistent pan tension.



~ADC~

Dave,

Careful with the sanding disc, the steel literally "melts" away very quickly.

I use my "wally readers" and a steady hand to make these ninety-degree cuts. Sure works like a charm!

Do you mean you are grinding the flat top part?

ttt

yes the wide part on one side only it acts as a guide, because it's smooth and will not remove any metal

I thought about this post again while putting night-latch's on a bunch of 1.75 Vic.'s. The question was do YOU night latch your coon traps as well as your fox or yote trap's. I don't. Can't really say why I don't but I hardly spend any time at all on coon traps. I think probally I should but I consider myself a canine trapper. I'm always working on yote traps and want them perfect, so why not the coon traps. I intend on targeting coon heavily, early next season then, hit the land after deer season. So maybe I'll start working on the coon traps as I have time. I used to deer hunt so much I wouldn't start trapping till deer season was over anyway. Coon were always a side line, something to set for just as I happened by a likely place, so maybe this year I'll show the coon a bit more respect and properly adjust and tune even a coon trap.
Robert

buckskinner,You pretty much nail what I was talking about.I play around with all my Coyote and cat traps but have never really messed with my coon traps.Why, I don't know.

In water sets ive never seen the need. Coon arent shy and stomp around with their feet sinking in the mud all the time. Doesnt matter if the pan creeps 1/2", the way coon stomp around.

If you allow the coon's foot to push the pan all the way down before firing it will often have a hold above the foot which is something you dont want with coon. By having little pan drop you are more likely to catch the coon accross the pad of the foot. Seldom do coon escape when a perfect pad catch is made and the tendancy for them to pull out decreases as well. Some coon trappers install a pan stop besides night latching for this very reason. A bolt is installed up from the base which only allows the pan to drop enough to fire the trap. We all know what coon sometimes do when they are caught too high.

Excellent drawings ADC, Really brought the point home. Thanks. Tom

I belive the use of the pan stop was more to cut down on the amount of space under the jaws to help with the chewing problem, not to give you more even pad catches.

The traps gonna fire where you have it set to fire. A pan stop isnt gonna make it fire any different

I got a stupid question then.. Since the Night Latch concept works so well, "Why don't they build the traps with a small dog notch in the first place"?

I would at least like to see that as an option when I buy traps. It would require an investment for the manufacturer to re tool their pan notch dies but if they had enogh requests it might be considered I suppose.

Didnt the old Papa Bear/Baby bear traps have this pan set-up?

Never bought any but seems like they did.

My thought is, If this is a standard mod. Why would anybody NOT buy their traps because of it having a factory nightlatch?

Ely ,no a pan stop will not make the trap fire differently, but it will acomplish two things. One it removes some chew room from the coon and two it limits the amount of foot that goes into the trap before the jaws close,thereby reducing the high catch and increasing the odds of a strong pad catch.

seems like i have seen some traps for sale new from factory that were nightlatched

playin4funami, I may be wrong, but im gonna disagree anyway. If the pan hits the bolt before the trap fires it isnt going to fire. Once the trap fires and the coon is caught its foot isnt going any deeper into the trap anyway. The only way the pan can hit the bolt is AFTER the trap fires and the coon is caught. I beleive the stop bolt is to keep the pan (Dukes) from getting caught between the levers and not letting them come up the whole way. I tried and the only way I could get the pan stuck was if I would push down on the levers and let them back up, but when the trap was set I TRIED to get the pan to stick when it fired and I couldnt do it. Maybe im thinkin wrong.( been known to do that a time or two)

The pan stop keeps the foot from bottoming out when the trap fires and does produce more consistant pad catches with a 1.5 coil. The pan stop is set to stop the pan just barely after the firing point. I personally tried a pan stop on a few traps several years ago and really saw little advatage with night latched traps.

Anyone ever watched Otter Trapping The Johnny Thorpe way? He claims that on a Duke 1.5 that the pan needs to be shaved down due to the round pan that is oversized. When the pan drops it can still bottom out, but when the levers start to close the pan pops back up because it doesn't fit between the levers. This results in throwing the animals foot up slightly. So would a pan stop be pointless on a Duke 1.5 if the pan is going to throw the animals foot up somewhat anyways?

"coon stomp around."

Perfect case to watch "teachers of the night" ...
No plug or anything, just funny to see things like this once youve seen what really goes on, see just how much "stomping" a coon really does, heck the first clip proves alot about traps and there set-up...sorry, wandered off there

I night latch every trap i own, have had some many years, and there still working fine(wear), i see no reason to let the pan fall any further than needed. Granted, just pulling the pan to the edge of the dog does the same thing(What ADC does), i just like the night latch.

HB

Ya and Johnny Impales live bull heads on the triggers of his dry land body grips LOl
If a trap Is properly adujusted the pan can't keep the jaws from closing. And that same pan on a properly adjusted trap won't throw the animals foot out of that trap.

Pan stops night latching If It works for you great But I go with the KISS method. Keep It simple Stupid. (I'm not calling anyone stupid)LOL
If I make a high catch on a coon so what, If that coon Is still there that's all that counts. And If the coon is gone who Is to say what happened. The only way you can tell if you made a high catch Is If the animal Is still there and that's what counts. And If It's down at the end of the cable so what. I always figured a high catch was better then no catch. And In reality most high catches end up as pad catches after a bit of struggling.
so If you have lots of time on your hands get to tinkering, do some of your traps one way and some the other. Make sure both are adjusted correctly and go out and see how they preform.
I've been there done that and I know It's fun to tinker but there are times you need to separate the wheat from the chaff and keep things simple.

Yes, but Beav leg tendons are easily identified and if thats all thats left in the trap its obvious where the coon was caught. Also when a coon is caught high and slips to the pad close inspection will show evidenvce of where the trap originally held the leg before slipping down to the pad. I agree with the KISS method as well so I went out and night latched a trap and it took a whole whopping 5 seconds. Next I just shortened up the entire pan notch and that took about the same amount of time if not a bit longer since I had to remove a bit more material. Like you said if your holding more coon than losing who cares how you get there.LOL