Baby Coons (2)

I am a coon novice with moms and babies in roofs, get few coon calls but not many. I did catch mom and one baby in a blind set on the ground in the past two days, but none today. I am told there are two more babies in a roof I can not access to remove physically. One baby did leave the roof as mentioned, not sure if the others have been out? Small space to set a cage or two. Wondering what bait to use to bring them to the traps or other way to entice them out? Not sure how much solid food they are eating if any.

Soft ripe juicy fruits for the young work good for me or a strong sweet lure. I know you don't have access but do you have a general idea on where they're at in the bays? What kind of roof system is it?

Modular home, low flat roof, hence only about 2 feet of space at center in a small area, tapering to 0 at the soffit, not much to work with. One big area where coon can move everywhere. Lady said she heard them pretty much at both ends yesterday, don't know about today, what happened last night and won't know till after 3. I have some of Blackies Fur King, think its a vaseline base or the like with fruit smell. Pretty hot up there too.

Wish I could positive set, but about 25% of the soffit is gone.

Thanks for the help.

Don't have a picture of what you're working with but you could always prefab a hardware cloth soffit to lead to a positive set just add a piece of 1x stock to it or scraps for them to walk on instead of the mesh or metal it out. I know sounds like a lot of work but not really, either way good luck.

I have been bombarded with momma and baby coons this year! I just had one this week with 4 kits. Almost the same situation. Set 6 traps baited with giant marshmallows dipped in WCS raccoon/skunk bait. Caught all the babies the first night...but mom dragged the cages all over creation and was able to free one from a safeguard trap. The second night I caught mom. Its been about three days and number 4 is nowhere around. I put material over the hole and no activity.
So my point is marshmellows with WCS bait is my goto! Lol!

Jim Comstock- Most raccoon kittens respond (try to find) to female “chirping” sounds and other kitten sounds, even before their eyes open. Many game callers have these sounds recorded in their libraries, or they can be downloaded to the caller. Some folks can mimic the sounds with their voices; I have not mastered that though. I have downloaded some sounds to a small voice recorder. The recorder was placed near my computer speakers.

Some examples of raccoon “talk” can be found on YouTube.
Baby Raccoons Sounds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZNpSra5icw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hgj0e1xoqY. See comments too.

Mother Raccoon Calling Babies Sounds (listen for female “chirping”- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-9AMTVpMU

And it really works too! I caught the female on the inside steps of a school. You could hear the babies crawling around on the

ceiling panels. The janitor got me a tall step ladder and I removed a panel and started voice calling. All four of the babies came

running so fast that I had to tuck them down the inside of my shirt and pray that they didn't pee.

Thanks for the help! Though I have not seen the last baby, the nice Russian lady left a message "raccoon got caught in middle of night." Hope its true. I put out some fruity stuff and some water mellon pieces, like Jonsie stresses, food baits they like to eat at the entrance and then through the trap.

A rough spot to set. The only trap that would fit up into the space was a 9x11x18, in the unset position. Had to push it up, then set it in place and bait it standing on the ladder in the small opening. Though there can be advantages to being large at times, this surely was not one of those times.

I had thought about calling having heard others do it, but did not have the set up. Wish I had the volume of coon business to justify buying a player. Could need it next week, but this was a first for me in 20 plus years and the first coon job this year. Can't sing, can't hum either, so would not attempt to make coon noises and embarrass myself in front of a coon who would succumb to laughter.

Thanks again.

If I already got the mother and the babies are the only thing left I switch to your 8x6x30s. I feel like the babies can slip through the wire trigger sometimes, especially after I have replaced them. I know they aren't getting around a panel trigger and the spring is strong enough I havent had a problem with them escaping.

That was my plan too, use the swing panel trap for the same reason as you mentioned, since small animals can't pass through them without firing the trap, but the "baby" I saw was pretty big and not sure the 30 inch trap would fit up through the hole in the ceiling and turn. I tried a 36 inch trap, but it was too long. Good part about a swing panel trap is that springs can be added, subtracted, stretched etc. to make the trap what you want it to be. Some guys even file a small mark in the trigger bar to make a solid set on the swing panel.

On the wire triggers. You can use soft wire or stiff and extend them of course, also squeeze them into the holes into the swing bar with vice grips. It seats the wire and makes it tight for smaller stuff, no slop or travel. Sometimes I have purposely left slop in the wires so that larger animals get farther into short traps before the traps fire. Each trap, foothold, conibear or cage trap, has a lot that can be done to make them do what you want them to do in differing situations with a variety of animals.

I have a gal that calls every year with at least one woodchuck and she's only a mile away. Well she called this morning and I used my

last three Comstocks yesterday on jobs that aren't even mine. Now I had to lie in wait for one of our techs to pick up his check and

steal a Comstock out of his truck when he wasn't looking. Everything went as planned and I pilfered the cage. Only problem... its

already got a woodchuck in it.

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I think the point that Paul is trying to make is that you can never have too many traps.

Happy to find the last little bugger waiting. Trap is 11 inches tall so you can see there was little room to spare. I might have crawled around up there 40 years ago but happy to place a trap and wait it out. Larisa said she heard the trap go off at 2 a.m., then some banging.

I know this is nothing for lots of guys, common place, all in a days work, coon by the hundreds, mom's and babies, but a novelty for us. We might have gotten a dozen or so coon calls over the years, or just forgot. Almost as apt to get a fisher call.