If you hold the barrel up off the ground a bit you can eliminate some of that.

Hey Muskrat - you've got some great looking coon locations there!
Along with those DPs I'd punch some pocket sets in those locations. Besides more coons, those pockets will pick up rats and mink too.

They certainly do!

I kinda figured as much!

Thanks for the pictures and explanation ,very much appreciated!

I like the idea of the homemade caps. Not just to prevent mice and rain, but more for eliciting the urge for racoons to think that they are breaking and entering as well as trying to steal the bait in that weird pipe. Every raccoon trapper worth his salt knows that a raccoon is as greedy as a Pennsylvanian deer hunter. Adding that cap will surely add to their instinctive Yankee thieving ways.
(No offense to any Pennsylvanians nor any other such yanks, of course.)

Do you suppose a cap on a DP that requires a bit of thinking on the 'coon's part to remove might select for an older (and therefore larger) 'coon?

NO just the smarter ones.

Interesting. So, "smarter" originating innately or as a learned behavior?

Seen some studies college students did with coons putting food in complex boxes. Coons had to figure out how to get food out. With coons it seems to be more of a learned behavior for a reward.

Maybe Muskrat is right. Racoons in MO state park campgrounds can get a Yeti cooler open faster than the owner.

Agreed, have problem with them and beaver traps in shallow water with traps that have shine left on the pan.

You can take a golf ball and a piece of cable and put a nut or ferrule with a loop on one end. Drill a hole thru the golf ball put the cable thru the golf ball and put a nut or stop on the end. Put the loop on the DP's stake and snug it up and make the cable length how long you want, whatever works but not extra long. Golf ball will get knocked off by the coon but you won't lose the ball. Keeps the mice out. I read about this trick on here several years ago.

That’s what I did this season^^^