Snaremaster what size loop are you using for coyotes, what cable. What is your percentage of neck snared coyotes.

and so... the challenge begins. lol

No challenge, just curius

Discretion is an important part to any trapline, however, the same incident with deer applies to any animal. Set a steel trap for canines you run the risk of catching a whole host of non-target species. Set water traps for beaver or otters and you may catch geese, ducks, blue herons, ects. There is no sure-fire method for keeping non-targets out of any set, be it snare or steel trap. What are we really trying to say here?

don't know. makes sense though, maybe I misunderstood what every ones talking about.

Loop size for me is standard compromise for both foxes and coyotes. Roughly 7" with the bottom loop suspended between 6 and 7" off the ground

I'm 100 % on neck snared coyote about 80-90 % on chest snared fox with that loop.

I enjoy the debate by the way guys. Don't worry about getting me riled.

Now I will agree with that as I run 7-8" loops with 8" off the ground and get a big neck catch percentage. But I'm only snaring coyotes.

yeah, that was the best snare height and loop size for me simply because it caught both fox and coyote and never bothered the deer.

I use 5/64 1x19 cable and filed camlocks with dispatch spings.

3/32 size cable with 7' of cable and cam-lock, that was my set-up of choice.

I only mentioned what I did because it seems that in my area jump sticks seem to encourage young whitetails to put their head down right into the snare.

Maybe I was setting up wrong as I was more like 10" of the ground with a 10-12" loop. If there is a way to minimize non-targets with any method I am interested in learning more.

Snaremaster, can you post a pic of your trail set-up.

I encourage the debate Judd, and I would gladly post a picture if I had a scanner but I don't. However, I'll describe it to you like this, imagine a pinch-point in a deer trail, be it between to trees or clumps of brush. After hanging my snare with a loop size of roughly 7" and 6-7" off the ground I lean a sizable stick maybe at the most 3" above the top of the snare. All total from the top of the stick to the ground it has a height of 17" which greatly discourages deer in my area from even trying to squeeze under the pole when they can much more easily go around the whole thing all together. I hoped this answered your question, and again, I welcome any feed-back on this subject.

I also wanted to mention that you will greatly reduce non-targets simply by reducing loop height and size.

A lot of it will depend on your terrain. If you're a good trapper, trapping canines in (somewhat) dry non freezing weather is not a problem and it's easy to rack up some good numbers. Winter weather? Well, that's where a snare really shines, in my opinion...and is how I catch most of my canines in winter conditions.

Well said, it don't matter what the season is, if you know what your looking for you can get the numbers, but winter, like you said, is where the snare really comes alive.