Good Morning!

I’m a new trapper in VA targeting raccoons to help our Turkey populations. I have trapped one “block” of woods pretty heavily and caught 5 coons. I would like to move my traps to a new location within our 1000 acre lease.

How far away should I move?
How far will a racoon travel from its den?

Depends on the food source and water ways. I trapped the same Coon on the same river about 3 miles apart.

Depends and if love is in the air

Raccoons have multiple densites varying on time of year and available food sources breeding season etc i'd guess your using dogproofs if so a smear of lure foot and a half or so on a tree or fence post with a foothold 8-10 inches in front will increase your catch Give them a variety

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/raccoon-nation-raccoon-fact-sheet/7553/

"The size of a raccoon’s home range varies depending on habitat and food supply. In urban areas, its home range generally spans about one mile."

And I would consider urban raccoons to have a good food supply.

During breeding which is like Dec Jan here they go for miles. Females layout in the tops of trees and let the wind take their breeding scents to blow across the country and males come from miles away and climb up the same tree and wait for their turn to meet the young lady.

There are a lot of variables, but I think you are on the right track by wanting to move. In that 1000 acres there has to be multiple denning areas, food sources and trails. I'd set an area heavy for maybe a week and then move to another area and do the same. Keep doing that and you will soon know that 1000 acres like the back of your hand. Good luck!

Thank you all.


We will move to two new locations and set 4 at each site. We haven’t gotten a quad yet, but have tripled at one location twice.

go looking for sign , set on sign any where you have sign

good den trees may even fill back in close to them dropping kits.

watch your food sources

I pulled 40 out of about 2 acres but in all reality I was getting most of them in under a 1/4 acre

if you think you trapped out a den tree rake some leaves around the base of it and come back in 2-3 weeks to see the base clean again you have more coons in it.

how far they range is very dependent of food source

if you see sign 200 yards from your last area trap it , fresh tracks after a rain , trap it

they need to nearly trip over your traps in many cases

range could be 200 yards or 2000+ a yard radius and change a lot from habitat to habitat
in the farmland I trap if they have a food source they may not move far from it but they will move in from to repopulate those good den trees and food source from well over a mile.

and you can easily trapp out a block of woods and a month or two later it is filling back in with overflow form a neighboring property.

It seems to me that every few weeks a new batch comes through. If they were there before I don't know. If that group just keeps going in one direction and never comes back I don't know but don't think that is the case. But they they do move from one food source to another it seems every week or ten days. Then they appear again. The same ones? I don't know. Good luck and 3 out of 4 traps is great.....jk

All depends on the food supply.
I trapped trails leading to apartment dumpsters that were on top of a hill above a river. Following those trails led to rock dens on the river hillsides. The dens were all within 300 yards or so from those dumpsters.
Then again i have trapped coons between cornfields with a small stream running between them. These streams were well over a mile or more to wooded areas for possible denning sites.
Just depends.

Then there is the mating season. The males will travel who knows how far.

Keep griding those coons Krm944

back in the day when racoon were 75$ in 1980's we would take them out 60 miles from the city and release, being foot tattooed we could tell when they came back----usually a week
two strikes and that was it for repeat offenders

[/quote]
I trapped the same Coon on the same river about 3 miles apart.[/quote]

Do you love coons more than Turkey? Why else would you let it go?

Maybe not much reason to now, but when a decent coon was bringing $40 I turned loose every kit I could.

Todays check added one more to the season totals!

I think that we are so overloaded with coons that they come to me, I don’t have to work hard for it.

Setting on sign- last fall during deer season we sat in one of our ladder stand and saw 2 coons- that’s where my little boy decided we needed to trap, so we set on sign that was 4 months old and had 3 on the 3rd night. I guess you could call it gang setting- putting 4 traps at each location (just far enough we don’t get one coon in two traps) Cat food and a couple marshmallows draws them in pretty well!!!

This summer when we had corn out, we would see 8-10 raccoons on camera at once.

Tonight I have been learning about POGO’s for anchoring. I have also looked at possibly adding a dozen more traps to the mix for next season.

I don’t think it’s very far. They are not like coyotes or cats for sure.
Den, food, water, and trails leading to each…you can pretty much draw a circle around it and cover the distances. Along creeks and rivers that may vary I bet but not too much.
Jim

I have had hounds run a track a mile and a half.

Back in the 80's I participated in a trapping program in Iowa where I was asked to reduce the coon population in an area to see how fast they would recover. The DNR had coons with radio collars and tags. The study area was about 8 square miles if I remember right, and we were able to almost eliminate the coons in that area, but raccoons from other areas filled it right back in within months. I don't remember the details but I remember being surprised how far they travelled in a short time frame.

Is that trailing a cold scent for a mile and a half before strike (jump)?

One day I would love to watch some good coon hounds work. In VA we use trailing walkers (English Fox Hounds) for deer. The good ones run nose down like a beagle.

Yes. Run a track a mile and a half before tree. Usually a long race like that ends up in a hole, den tree, old farm machinery or something. Coons knew where they were going. Why competition dogs are hot nosed. They want the coon on a limb for points. Dog strikes on a hot track. Push the coon up the nearest tree. A cold nose dog will start a track several hours old.