#654270 - 03/27/08 08:18 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Supergoose]
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Snowpa
trapper
Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 229
Loc: Mn.
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I took my half beagle along once and got back to the truck and had to go back and do a remake on opener.
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#654380 - 03/27/08 09:14 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Zagman]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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Mark, 50/50 male to female is what you want year to year and I agree with you that the weighing of critters throws trappers for a loop. A 40 lb coyote is a big animal no doubt. Next year keep a close eye on that gender ratio as ma nature knows what's blowing through a population before we do and I use one year's population dynamics to set up the next year's plan. If you have several spots you can go or trap, this can really help planning when you know what the population is doing. If you trap the same spots, it doesn't matter as a fella is tied to the critters that are there, good or bad.
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#654410 - 03/27/08 09:37 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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bluegrassman
trapper
Registered: 11/29/07
Posts: 112
Loc: Indiana
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Well Mark we all told you what we would do with this issue! now what would you do? 
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#654437 - 03/27/08 10:00 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: bluegrassman]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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bluegrass, Hmmm. Coyotes are creatures of habits and form a strict social heriarchy early in life.
For shy ones or what we call neophobic (scared)I use more fox and bobcat smells.
For dominant that I see pee near my sets but won't come in... I use coyote pee and a darned near blind set on a simple tuft of grass, etc.
For those who are livestock killers, I often sit out to ambush.
You have to have lots of tactics.
My ACE and I don't tell this often is to cut open the gut and take digested chyme (the mushy stuff on the duodenum or upper GI section) and use as a smear at a flat set. A SUPER SNEAKY deal folks and since all canines are attracted to chyme smell, it's an ACE!!!!!!!!!
Mark
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#654438 - 03/27/08 10:01 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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( I have never shared that method B/4...must like this darned TMan crowd)..........
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#654478 - 03/27/08 10:40 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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bluegrassman
trapper
Registered: 11/29/07
Posts: 112
Loc: Indiana
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well thanks for the info mark. never heard of useing the digested chyme before I'll have to try that out this fall. I'm glad your willing to fill us in on some of these secrets after all thats what this site is all about. to teach others and to learn from others.
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#654561 - 03/28/08 05:07 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: bluegrassman]
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tmrschessie
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 1749
Loc: Near Red Cloud,Nebraska
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Funny Mark I have a couple jars of stomach contents that I never knew what it was called. But it sure works...Tom
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#654574 - 03/28/08 05:33 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Zagman]
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Asa Lenon
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 2476
Loc: Gulliver, Michigan
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Mark June wrote...Here in NE, I learned mighty quick when I first started trapping that things here are NOT as they were there in the east. You take a dog around here and NO WAY a yote is having fun investigating. Dogs here mean stake trucks and guns and such on big ranches and out on the prairie a yote learns to be cautious.... see forever and be a scardie cat and LIVE LONG and POSPER!
Being that you have trapped both down State Michigan around Fenton Mark and also in the upper peninuula near Seney, did you notice a difference between these two areas in coyote behavior? Personally, I trapped the Seney/Superior National Lakeshore area for 30 years and have always found those wilderness area coyotes to be very wary and suspicious of anything out of place from the normal and natural. What was your take on any differences? Ace
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#654582 - 03/28/08 05:51 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Asa Lenon]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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Ace, I did trap the UP of Michigan as well as around Hillman, Alpena in the northern lower back for about a decade (late 70's and early 80's) and I found there is a big difference on what coyotes in certain areas do and it's related to home range. In the UP and Zone 2 you have more coyotes and they have smaller home ranges for the most part. Here's the key on what research has taught us... yotes are harder to catch in their core home ranges. I did telemetry studies in all 3 zones in MI and found also that coyotes are one of two things in their core area;
1. Neophobic or timid of new things inititally.
2. Inattentive or disinterested.
Now you do pick up dispersing animal a lot and in our telemetry studies we always caught subordinates or young readily because they don't exhibit these traits. But the mature home range pair were not easily captured. So... when in areas with HIGHER populations of coyotes atention should be given to placing sets on the paremeters of home ranges, usually river or water shed basins, railroad grades, long running barriers like highways, etc. Folks tend to catch enough coyotes that none of this science matters but it does matter if you want to maximize results.
Mark
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#654589 - 03/28/08 05:56 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: TreedaBlackdog]
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ZachAttack
trapper
Registered: 01/01/07
Posts: 937
Loc: Goodlettsville, Tennessee
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TPC Please!!
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#654597 - 03/28/08 06:20 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: ZachAttack]
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Asa Lenon
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 2476
Loc: Gulliver, Michigan
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Thank you Mark for your analysis! I think is is important for trappers in different regions to understand the variables and to present new ideas cautiously until they see some results. Ace
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#654668 - 03/28/08 07:52 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: k. miller]
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270Jake
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 496
Loc: Michigan
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Excellent thread with lots of information...I think it has archives written all over it.
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#654677 - 03/28/08 08:04 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: 270Jake]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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k.. could be but human scent in areas that don't normally have are known to make yotes neophobic and skittish. Not that they run away and hide BUT they approach things with much more caution which isn't what we want at a trap site. Young and dispersing animals are always the majority of the yearly catch when tending a large trapline and that's fine. It gets a bit tougher when yuo have to ambush the lead pair in their home turf.
Mark
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#654686 - 03/28/08 08:13 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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Asa Lenon
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 2476
Loc: Gulliver, Michigan
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Mark wrote...k.. could be but human scent in areas that don't normally have are known to make yotes neophobic and skittish. Not that they run away and hide BUT they approach things with much more caution which isn't what we want at a trap site.
THANK YOU Mark! You wouldn't believe the guff I've received on the forums over they years for making such statements about human scent. Your statement reflects exactly what I've been saying for 10 years about wilderness coyotes and sometimes red fox, they approach and work sets entirely different when excessive human and foreign scents are present. Overluring sets many times puts them on alert too. Ace
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#654719 - 03/28/08 08:34 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: k. miller]
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Asa Lenon
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 2476
Loc: Gulliver, Michigan
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Good luck on the urine mixing K. Miller. Perhaps the results might vary from region to region but don't get your expectations too high. Here in my area I have tested different urines extensively on the coyote line, coyote, red fox, bobcat and mink urines both straight and various amounts mixed together. I honestly could not tell one iota of difference in the results, coyotes showed the same degree of interest in every urine and mixture. I believe that many trappers prefer red fox urine over other urines simply because of its louder odor, not because it produces better results other than perhaps being smelled for a longer distance and maybe hold up better in colder temperatures. Ace
Edited by Asa Lenon (03/28/08 09:45 AM)
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#654791 - 03/28/08 09:27 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: skunkly]
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Blak coyote
trapper
Registered: 12/25/06
Posts: 1613
Loc: N.e.WI.
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Really really interesting thread, folks  Blakcoyote, if you don't get a dog by next season I'll bring my little cur dog out and we can squirrel and rabbit hunt. Fox's had been regular customers to this deer carcase all winter long and a couple of coyotes would come check it out on occasion. Supprised me that they wouldn't really start feeding on it till reciently. Nothing left now but hair. -Skunkly-
Sounds like a plan.
I've seen that with carcasses over the years. Coyotes will walk right on by all winter then like someone turned on the switch and they go to town on it. Me, I think they keep tabs on it and eat it and save it till it's needed. But don't know.
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#654915 - 03/28/08 10:34 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Blak coyote]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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Blak coyote, coyotes are gorge feeders and can miraculously eat 40% of their body weight... they can clean them up quick if need be and this is a great evolutionary response to starvation pressures.
Oh and ASA, don't worry about those who say it ain't so about that human scent debate. I'm not a fanatic but I tell ya... I'll bring them out here and they'll see the proof in the sandy tracks!! The yotes headed somewhere else quick!
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#655001 - 03/28/08 11:16 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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Asa Lenon
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 2476
Loc: Gulliver, Michigan
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Mark wrote...I'll bring them out here and they'll see the proof in the sandy tracks!! The yotes headed somewhere else quick!
You know how Upper Michigan is Mark, miles on end of vast sandy areas, sand roads and months of snow. Easy to see how coyotes react around and work sets in this country. Ace
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#655060 - 03/28/08 11:45 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Asa Lenon]
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Slim Pedersen
"ALL HAIL EL PRESIDENTAY! "
trapper
Registered: 01/01/07
Posts: 380
Loc: Georgia
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This is a long interesting thread for sure.
Like has been stated several times, many many many variables involved.
To quote my mentor, the late George Good, "sometimes the coyotes walk past sets, simply because they were not in the mood, for lack of hunger, but most of the time, simply because they had something else on thier mind, and they are all animals so become quite one track minded often".
I have found that coyotes refuse sets for many reasons, and it seems rare that it is often the same reason. --- Odors: too much, not enough, human odor in the area, other animal odors in immediate area, Seasons when some odors produce better than during other seasons, visibility of odor or lack of visiblity.
-- Locations: wide open areas, heavy timber, thick low scrub brush, Heavy grass covers, dry arid regions with soils visible everywhere, Endless flat country, or rolling countryside----all offer a coyote many things to think about besides the sets.
-- Prey species in area: many or very few small prey animals such as mice, rabbits, birds, or similiar size. Or a flock of sheep or goats near by, perhaps a deer yard in immediate area, or antelope visible in flat or more slow rolling countryside, as well as mule deer----Again, all distractions for the coyote to concentrate his attentions on beside the sets.
I will not go into the many variable, mistakes, etc. that can be made to a set by the person constructing it, but the best constructed sets will be subject to all the things I already have listed, Not to mention Mother Nature's fickle ways with weather changes, which probably account for as many refusals as anything that has been said up to this time.
Probably the one single factor that keeps me in this coyote trapping game are all the variables all the time, and the challenges that must be over came constantly. For all the many years that I have been trapping, I learn daily, and when I no longer learn or have a new play toy to motivate me, I believe it will probably happen just after my very last breath of air. Enjoy the challenges, learn from them, force yourself, force your equipment, and enjoy every dern second of it, because your first challenge when you were born was to learn how to breath and life since that point is just overcoming one challenge after another, so enjoy the challenges-----that is what life is all about. Deffinitely what coyote trapping will always be about!!
_________________________
Proud to be a trapper and supporter of trapping organizations
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#655068 - 03/28/08 11:50 AM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Slim Pedersen]
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A.J.
trapper
Registered: 12/24/06
Posts: 577
Loc: New York
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Great Read Guys!
Here's a question for you. 90% of my catch was Males. And I would say of all the males 50/50 pup, adults.
This should be telling me something, but I am not sure what.
Any insight?
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#655775 - 03/28/08 07:09 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: bobCATching]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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griffondog, your coyote population with 60% juviniles is healthy and I hypothesis that with all the pressure on coyotes in MI...trapping, hunting, predator calling and such, there are less coyotes in certain areas to the degree that red fox are able to rebound. As far as coydogs and coy-wolf crosses, when DNA analysis is conducted there is wolf genetic material in many pockets of eastern yotes. Especially in the northern zones. I haven't stayed real current on the coydog situation but would suspect that large size in coyotes comes from the wolf genetic makeup in their blood rather than doggies. I'd have to look that up as well to know more about it.
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#655782 - 03/28/08 07:15 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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AJ, when you catch that many males on your trapline it suggests that this population is under what called stressors. In simple terms something is killing them off and the usual suspects are diseases such as heartworm (although many live with this... it just complicates it when they suffer from other ills), parvo, mange is HUGE as a stressor, canine lice, ectoparasites like mites, ticks and fleas. Any number of stressors can decimate a population quickly and 90% males means the more susceptible females are dying in the area. Bad for bredding more obviously.
Mark
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#655789 - 03/28/08 07:18 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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Jtrapper
trapper
Registered: 12/22/06
Posts: 7371
Loc: Alabama (Bama for short) 108 y...
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Interesting Mark, my last major coyote line i had one farm that produced id say 75 percent males and wondered what was going with that. Hunter's also shot 16 off that farm before i trapped it and I caught another 15 in a couple of weeks on it.
Only one had some mange on it, rest looked healthy. I can't think of anything stressful going on with that population.
_________________________
 I ALMOST survived SmackDown Tupelo '08!
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#655803 - 03/28/08 07:23 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Jtrapper]
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Jtrapper
trapper
Registered: 12/22/06
Posts: 7371
Loc: Alabama (Bama for short) 108 y...
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I missed the part about coy dogs. The actual coy dogs ive seen would never be tested to begin with because they look like stray DOGS! No hint of a coyote at all!
Pair of coyotes here in the middle of town we had to remove, the male went down easy, the famle went on red alert, lol. She ended up having a litter the next spring, pup's got caught before she did so she went on alert again!
Pup's were short haired and jet black! Ive seen a million stray dogs along the side of the road's that looked exactly like them. If id caught one in a trap out on a regular trapline id of never thought anything of it other than it being a wild feral stray dog!
Those are the only coy dogs that ive seen as far as I know. Not sure if all coy dogs would look like them or not.
_________________________
I ALMOST survived SmackDown Tupelo '08!
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#655806 - 03/28/08 07:24 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Jtrapper]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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J... research tells us that populations that are under man-made stressors, like hunting and trapping for instance usually you end up catching more females because males are more easily harvested by humans. These are just rules of thumb but they do hold up most often. It's hard to tell the population dynamics sometimes and yours is a good case. Hunters shot a bunch and still you caught mostly males when you should have caught more females. I'd guess you have LOTS of yotes is the deal AND you have more mange than you think meaning a declinging population. But declining is relative because from what number is it declining? Areas of TX have declining coyotes due to mange and STILL they have > 2 yotes per square mile!!
Mark
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#655840 - 03/28/08 07:36 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Blackdog]
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Mark June
trapper
Registered: 05/17/07
Posts: 301
Loc: Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska
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Hey Troy will you be in Marshfield? If so look me up at the booth or something. You have some good posts pal and I like the way you put 2 & 2 together.
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#655844 - 03/28/08 07:36 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Mark June]
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A.J.
trapper
Registered: 12/24/06
Posts: 577
Loc: New York
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AJ, when you catch that many males on your trapline it suggests that this population is under what called stressors. In simple terms something is killing them off and the usual suspects are diseases such as heartworm (although many live with this... it just complicates it when they suffer from other ills), parvo, mange is HUGE as a stressor, canine lice, ectoparasites like mites, ticks and fleas. Any number of stressors can decimate a population quickly and 90% males means the more susceptible females are dying in the area. Bad for bredding more obviously.
Mark
Thanks Mark
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#655887 - 03/28/08 08:07 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: A.J.]
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Martin
trapper
Registered: 12/23/06
Posts: 710
Loc: SE Nebraska
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From what I heard the best way to catch that coyote is nail a ham bone up LOL. Glad to see you on Tman Mark.
_________________________
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#655900 - 03/28/08 08:16 PM
Re: What do you do when coyotes don't visit your s
[Re: Martin]
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Jtrapper
trapper
Registered: 12/22/06
Posts: 7371
Loc: Alabama (Bama for short) 108 y...
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My line in north bama was wiped out by mange! What I saw on this line i spoke of was mange just starting to enter the picture. But yes there were more coyotes there than anywhere ive ever trapped in my life. And they didn't walk by sets like im use to seeing from time to time either, lol. Competition for food was fierce!
Slim's already spilled the beans so i'll now answer your question as to what do I do if a coyote walks on by a set.
NOTHING!
More likely than not, he'll check one out on his return trip, that's just a coyote being a coyote!
I do however keep some sets out I can see from the truck and I never go near them or relure/bait/etc. They get put in and are only gone to once a catch is made or im pulling the line. Be suprised how often a coyote appears in those 2 weeks later after you have supposedly taken most or all of the coyotes off a place!
_________________________
I ALMOST survived SmackDown Tupelo '08!
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