Good post Buck, Andy and Bic. Agreed on all accounts. Now that everyone is thinking and past snow or tracks, I feel we are getting to the meat of the question which Buck has started another post about. You and I know what we are looking for when we walk into and area. We know where sign should be even in its absence. Finding tracks is not always the easiest thing to do and one can not always find them or droppings. So how can someone with less experience find location with out sign and with out wasting time and valuable equipment test setting for location? Trust me, I have run my fair share of test sets over the years and still do so just because it looks right. But as for someone just starting out with fewer traps and having them piling all on one spot to cover one location is a waste of time and energy. My purpose in this is to try and cut the learning curve by at least a year or two for so people. Again the best location is where there is sign such as tracks or droppings and the opening post was simply to state the point that location is key and even with the magic lure if your not where the animals are, you will miss more times than not.

Please keep it coming, this is the open dialog I was hoping to create and pull some useful information out of some of the ghost trappers on here.

My answer........6th sense

You know when the hair on the back of your neck stands up?

Thats dead critters!

Ya, but you have a third eye and six fingers.

hey Buck, why don't you copy and paste your thread over here. Leave the other one up also, but put what you wrote on the other post over here.

Ok, here's what I posted on the other thread.

Reading some of the writings of Charles Dobbins, he used the term "location" in a different way than I see it used by some people on this forum.

This is the way it seems to me, and Paul, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Charles talked a lot about sign, and then used the term "location" in reference to how he set on sign. It seems that "sign" always came first in determining if and where he was going to set a trap. When he used the term "location", it was where that set was made in reference to the sign. Like if he found coyote sign on a two-track, the "location" he mentioned was which side of the two-track he was going to make the set, using natural indicators such as wind direction, landscape, etc., or if he was going to make the set at this spot or 20 yards away down the two-track.

But I often see the term "location" used on this forum and in videos to describe a landscape feature, such as the intersection of a hay field and a bean field.

In those instances, "location" is used on a macro scale, as it were, while Charles tended to use the term on a micro scale.

Charles was very good at finding and interpreting sign, and it seems to me that in just about every set he talked about setting the first thing he mentions is the sign. And then he talks about trap location in reference to where and what sign he found.

Like I said, Charles seemed to use the term "location" on a micro scale to determine where he was going to make a set in a small area where he found sign, whereas in some of the videos and discussions the term "location" is used on a macro scale to describe a geographical feature such as an edge, where sign may or may not be found.

Am I wrong about that, Paul?

What you are referring to Buck is What I refer to as the SPOT. You already found sign. You know it is worthy of a trap. Now you got to find the right SPOT for the set.
To me, many variables dictate where place that set. Wind direction is #1. I want the lure smell to float across the animals line of travel. #2 is soil conditions. I drainage is very poor, I need a spot that is slightly sloping so water will drain from the set. #3 What type of set I plan to make. This helps me to pick out the type of backing I need whether it be a rock or tuff of grass, etc. #4 Last but not least, that 6th sense of what feels right. You can't explain that one or teach it as a short cut. Experience is what develops that 6th sense IMO.

That right there is beautiful!! Well done my friend!

Because snow is very humbling, things you thought you new and understood end up being different. When you see a Coyotes track quartering away from your set 50 yards away until he hits the scent and does an about face, or when you have trap frozen in the ground and you see if a fox really want's what's down the hole he will dance all over it. To say the types of lure or application of lure is not really that important is pretty reveling IMO. Of course location is the biggest piece of the puzzle, but certainly lure usage or type should not be discounted.

Disclaimer....... Of course I'nm not putting barrel swivels on my traps either.