skunk bait/lure

What is your go to skunk catching lure/bait for winter? Grubbing? Year round? why do you like it?

I use On Targets "coon sb". I mix about 1/4 oz with a coffee can of fruit loops. Works well on coons, skunks and possums. Does not attract cats.

For me, nothing catches skunks faster than fish. Fish flavored cat food, sardines, jack mack, it all works.

Use a skunk sized trap and cats are seldom a problem.

If for some reason they are, stinky cheese is second best.

Cheez It crackers and peanut butter

Chicken wing bones work great for me, save em in the freezer till needed. lure is small marshmallows into the tube trap.

My kids use apple and pb. I use Skunk-O-Matic on adc jobs. Reason - because it hasn't failed me yet.

Tell me about this skunk o matic

I have found no consistent way to catch skunks Seems each job almost is totally differnt

Got this one fella that catches them in his nieghborhood and.i go pick them up and he always uses the left over esj of his subway sub. But I hate subway subs

Had another job that I tried everything that I could and was about to give up and put some bob Wilson's green beaver lure in and caught two skunks in a couple of days and promblem solved.

Skunks are my week point for sure. Some projects bang I get them and others just drag on

I agree. Skunk jobs are all over the map. Generic crunchy cheetos and/or marshmallows dipped in Peaches N Cream.

ThanKS folks! Keep them coming! Anyone else use something that commercially produced??

Cheese puff balls and wcs rosebud skunk bait...that stuff is dynamite on catching skunks

I have avoided On Target. I expected that On Target coon sb and rose bud have some of their ingredients come from the oil industry.( obviously wrong ) I am told that some products smell great but taste like wd40. The manufactures should make it a little easier on us. Edible or not clearly stated would be a good start.

Rosebud is from wcs and not on target...never tasted it myself

Bait is a funny subject. I'm of the opinion that bait needs to be edible and tasty to the target.

A couple of years ago I was doing a skunk job for an older woman (70's) and was baiting the traps with some chicken bait and some fish bait of my own design. She looked at me and said 'Why are you messing around with that when you can get it done a lot faster by using cat food? Everyone knows that!'

While I didn't use cat food on that job, I did appreciate her knowledge and point. lol

I agree with using a bait that he target animal likes to eat and taste good to them. I don't use cat food or fish as a base for my ADC baits. I don't want to catch cats. Just my view.

Cheesy and pork rinds. Trying to avoid non target

We use two - three baits we make with very good acceptance. Gotta be on them and they aren't too difficult to catch. Most of our baits are edible and one in particular has lots of cultured egg in it. I am not sure how they taste as I have not tasted them but they are essentially edible materials and they smell good.

The tame skunks I have tested baits on find them very attractive as do the trail camera video of wild ones. Skunks are just skunks in their behavior. Their habits and food focus items can be somewhat preferred seasonally. They as other animals at times can be finicky as stated at different times of the year. Other times they just will go for anything with an odor if it is just in close range to their activities.

I think at times the trap presentation is more the factor of acceptance then is the bait being used. I have seen guys using traps that have been dedicated for groundhog or coon use show signs of refusals on videos from skunks over the years. Not hard to believe I have seen many such refusals on video trapping cage trap presentations and a specific animals refusal to enter.

Some instances could be the result of catch and release animals that will refuse a cage for no other known reason then odor aversion or capture experience and stress memory from a previous experience not forgotten yet.

Some of the essential oils used not food grade aren't very tasty I am sure. In fact some are most likely chemical based of sorts. The bases we use are quite edible and all are gone when we pick up the animal so they must eat them while captured. Most all are captured by the time they get able to taste the baits. So taste aversion in most applications aren't that important.

I would use other items as teasers such as popcorn, cereals, small marshmallows etc. as chum in front of the trap for those purposes.

I have tried a lot of of different lures and baits for skunks and have had little or no success with any of them, what I use the most is Wise butter popcorn, it will catch many times first night with the tube and in the springtime for babys with the large have-a-heart and putting 3 or 4 piles of popcorn in before the trigger and one small pile after the trigger I can catch a whole family at once and in the same trap, the first enters and eats at the first pile until he gets bumped in, he eats at the second pile and the bumper eats at the first pile, more and more skunks enter until one gets bumped across the trigger which locks them in. with skunks the have-a-hearts solid door gives a side to approach the trap without offending the skunks

Also to satisfy the professional aspect of customer relations I will explain how I taint the popcorn with Red-fish Powder for a lure, popcorn is the visual, red-fish powder is the lure.

Show me something that works as good Wise Popcorn for skunks and I will change!
I invest a hundred + every year on baits and lures, most are disapointing, with multi trap sets I will try the new lure/ bait first, if no catch I will bait one trap with somthing Proven to work.

I dont like using the popcorn, I use it because it works. and I dont catch CATS or Coons with it.

I use my banana supreme and purple passion lure. Both are taste baits and lures. I also will use 2 taste baits and 2 taste lures per trap if I need to. I have spoken to folks about my baiting strategies, and they dismiss it. Then I see a pic like above and I laugh. Same strategies LOL Not meant toward stan58 just using his pic for example LOL

I try to dismiss baiting skunks as unimportant...then I try to catch coon only and some baits skunk just WONT walk by.

I catch a ton of skunks on Vanilla Wafers.

I use mostly the 6" PVC traps.I,like Jonsie, like to use multiple attractors. Along with Cheez it crackers and peanut butter I might use Grubstake or Peaches and Cream. I use Yellow Stripe as a trailing lure. I once had a skunk in a large , deep window well. Rather than put a board down for him to climb out, I tried lowering a PVC trap down. I baited with Cheez its and a little Peaches and Cream. I then put a cracker halfway in and at the front lip I put another cracker and a dab of Peaches and Cream. As soon as the trap was lowered the skunk walked right over ,ate the cracker , ate the Peaches and Cream then spent five minutes rubbing his face in the spot where the Peaches and Cream was. He then moved in and ate the second cracker and then to the back and triggered the trap. It was fun watching!

Anyone else??