So I figured we didn't have to many yotes left on the farm. Been a few weeks to month between catches and have taken 4 so far. The boy had one yesterday and I told him he should re set it and a few other traps that had catches from skunks and opossum but he had not reset because he didn't pack tools and lure to check traps. Seems he was getting lazy after not getting a lot of catches for several days


Well last night we had rain that turned to sleet and then snow. This morning I went to check and re set with him since he didn't reset the k9 sets just a few sets for adc problem animals instead.

Well a pair of coyote covered the farm very well last night and went right up to and past sets with traps not set. Looks like he got another lesson or two today. The tracks in the snow don't lie, and old dad may just know what he was talking about when I told him the k9s would likely move with the weather.

I well he will get them next time. Fur quality was very poor on the one yesterday so did not bother to skin it. Another female gone and that is enough for me. 3 of the 4 he had caught have been female. Now to get the two I know came through last night. They got very close to the barn and houses.

May need to go back and trap some beaver and put what I don't keep in a thicket and hang some snares. But I won't be off work much before season is out.

Snow is always humbling to the trapper when u don't trap in it regularly. Most people, myself included, miss more critters than we think. Watched a YouTube video of a trapper in Oklahoma a year ago that got a snow one day. Don't quote me but I think between bobcats and coyotes he had like 7 animals come check out his sets that he didn't catch. I've seen it too many times too believe those misses aren't the normal for most of us. Most of us miss more critters than we want to believe and without snow it's pretty easy to believe we've caught them all.

It is amazing all the little stories you get to read with a fresh snow.

Its also a good feeling to not see any tracks in the calving pasture you been working. Coyotes are sure enough spooky. Throw the same thing at em till the catch slows way down. Leave everything there then add different stuff. I dont snare for example till my dirtholes quit working.

If you don't have snow mud will work. A neighbor recently said she saw a cougar in the neighborhood in the daylight. I brushed it off as a city girl not knowing what she saw. The guy across the street called me to look at some huge tracks in the mud by his house. Definitely a big cougar.

I remember when I was a kid, I went deer hunting with my dad to his camp but I was actually more interested in trapping since I couldn't catch anything around the house and I figured the local critters were all on to me, lol. I was trying to catch my first coyote and failing miserably. Well, at the end of a dead end road there was a clearing, on state land, and I made a set there.

I was excited because as I was setting it, it was snowing heavily and I thought the snow would blend everything in. But, unfortunately I was also still experimenting with how to freeze proof sets, and some book or magazine had recommended spraying glycol over the set. So I really soaked the dirt down good with my glycol mix, lured the set, and went on just knowing that set would have my first coyote the next day.

What I saw there the next day was heartbreaking to a young, aspiring coyote trapper, lol. The snow around that set was literally beaten down with coyote tracks. It was probably only one or two coyotes that did it but back then I was convinced 20 coyotes had been there, lol. And right in the center of all those hundreds of tracks was a perfectly brown circle of wet looking dirt with NO snow covering it. The glycol had melted any snow that fell over my trap, and the coyotes flat out refused to step in that out of place brown circle. I think that was the last time I ever used glycol as a trap antifreeze.

See that snow taught you what you needed to know.

Snow is the great teacher...
Can learn more in 2 weeks of trapping with snow than an entire season without..