One thing I know is the sence of smell in humans carries powerfull memories. I'll get a wiff of something that will take me back years and years.

I can't say the effects would be the same for coons and k9s, but I'll bet if they smelled something and associated it with danger or associated it with just stinky hole in the ground (been there, done that type of thing) they may well remember it.

However there should be an influx of new critters to most areas each year that haven't smelled it before so your catch may or may not drop off depending on how many young of the year and how many others move into the area.

Unless I'm reincarnated as a coyote I may never know for sure though. lol

~ADC~

Once again I agree with ya Gary. I use many different lures for land trapping and some would say that I dont need that many but each one has its own place and time on my trapline. Each animal is different and it takes different things and thinking outside of the box to maximize your catch. I like what you said about trying to determine why a catch was or was not made. IMO its that kind of thinking that makes a trapper the best that he/she can be. At first I would go up to an empty trap and think " ah man that stinks". I'd reset the trap and walk away with my head hung low. Now I walk up to an empty trap and think " well that stinks, I wonder why that happened". I reset the trap and try to correct what I did wrong and move on. My trapping skills improved when I started playing detective like you said.

yeah during the peak "migration" there is but after an animals territory is established ya will see the refusals .... not that im tellin ya any different than ya already know

I'm guessing that the smells remind them of something, The smell is too strong, the smell is not natural to the area, too many smells in one area, they just don't want the smell you have laid out, smell is not strong enough and the list goes on. It's hard to say. I've never had a lure "burn out" but I have had lures not catch me anything no matter how many times I've tried it or how I've used it or how long it's sat at a set. The animal will walk right past the lure. Even tho there may be alot of animals in the area. Everyone of them seems to pass it up. This doesn't happen all the time just once in a while with certain lures... If a lure has worked atleast once for me I figure it's served it's perpose but to not catch me anything the entire bottle or two that's not a well made lure in my opinion and I wont buy it again. ~Dan~

I like to use visual attracters like feathers,bones or burnt wood alot also. I try to take advantage of as many senses that the animal has. If an animal walks by a set and the wind is blowing the smell of the lure the wrong way he may never know that the set was there. A visual attractor will many times get the animals attention when the wind isnt in your favor.

thing is there are alot of people that have fallen into the burnt or black wood these days when a simple large object will do the same

It appears that 2 separate reactions are being conflated.

1 – lure burn out

that being when the animals do not exhibit any interest in a lure to which they have previously responded, i.e. the animals travel by the lure as if it weren’t there or pause but do not work the set.

2 – lure avoidance

that being when the animals avoid the lure and/or the locale containing the lure, i.e. the animal changes its line of travel to avoid the lure as in a fox or coyote detouring off a nice smooth trail to make a big semi-circle around the lure back to the trail and continuing to travel on the trail.

One thing I know is the sence of smell in humans carries powerfull memories. I'll get a wiff of something that will take me back years and years.

Yep!

When I was real little, I have no idea how old I was. But, I got into dad's lure and played with them. Mom and dad used to talk about me doing that, but dad never said what lures he had I got into.

In 1970, I bought some Dailey number 4 fox lure, if I remember correctly, it was a food lure. When I smelled it, I had a very vivid memory of pouring this lure into the mouth piece of an old crank-up telephone. It was that lure I was playing with! The memory of doing it was very intense.

How long an animal will remember a smell, I can not say. I doubt they have a very long memory.

Perhaps if everyone tested the lure/s they use, they could get a handle on what is happening between the lure/s and the animals in their area. Charles Dobbins wrote a very good book on how to test lures. After doing the test, as he wrote, I got some very real eye-opening results.

Some animals will walk by a set and the next one will get caught. Who knows what the animal that walks by was thinking at the time. Also, where they were going. I wonder if they are following the trail of some other odor that is more appealing to them at the moment.

People are the same, if they are doing something that is important to them, they will ignore other things at the time. Animals could be the same.

lol ....as far as memory .... take a dog treat and tease ya dog with it and give it a lil taste .... weeks later pull out the same treat and hold it up and ya will see a response .... canines arent dumb and hold memory quite well .... im not talkin yrs ... weeks ... and at the same time to cover both .... next time ya do that scold ya dog ... and THEN break out the treat ... a whole diff response .... like i said earlier i have seen no big change but i have seen a change and could write a book bout it

Thats right, In humans the olafactory senses are supposed to be the strongest memory stimuli we have,even more so than vision.It no doubt is a built in survival instinct from prehistoric times,ie,sabertooth tiger is hidin waitin to pounce on ya,cant see him but smell him. I would think that animals,especially canines are the same,I know a deer wont always run from what it sees or hears,but let it wind ya and see what happens.
Everyone has made a valid point,my experience has been like Garys,but in some places it was like Asas, Some places hawbakers red and grey 200 pulls in every fox that comes within smellin distance.Other places it dont. I have learned not to depend entirely on any lure to catch animals but rather as a tool to enhance a good set.When possible,like with coon,otter,and when we had some,mink I prefer a blind set with no lure at all.

True, but for me the wood is much lighter to carry around and I can find it anywere. Plus I have almost zero competition so no one else is out there using the same things as I.

Certain call lures which are generally formulated with a lot of similar ingredients to be strong smelling and invoke curiosity could possibly be ignored by a passing canine that satisfied his investigative nature on a previous set visit. There are other types of lures that it would be practically and naturally impossible for any canine to ignore just because he smelled it too many times before. These lures are like my Nature's Call line of lures which incorporate the animals nature by appealing to the call to urinate, to establish and check out other species territories, bring out passion callings and invoke curiosity. I have never seen a fox or coyote pass this type of formulated lure. This is why I generally make group settings, all of the hole sets lured with curiosity call lures except one post, flat or blind set lured with the Fox or Coyote Nature's Call. I have continually noted over the years, especially during Summer bounty trapping where pups were still running with their Mother, that the pups and young coyotes would head right for the curiosity call lures and the Mother who might possibly have more lure education would generally be caught at the Nature's Call lured set. This also reminds me of an old top notch bounty trapper who told me his secret to such noted success. For example, during the bounty era I remember 22 trappers stringing traps over 13 miles of sand firelane forest road where coyotes run the road. The old trapper told me that he would make subtle looking sets right between all of the others and lure it with Coyote Nature's Call. Another luring method to overcome posible disinterest of attractors is to make a simple blind or post set with nothing but plain fox, coyote or bobcat urine. To ignore this basic calling an animal would have to give up its very territorial nature that they thrive on. Ace

ASA:

What do you think of just using Sardines for Raccoons ?

I think there is alot of BS in this post from guys that "think" they have it figured out...lol

I can see why ASA stopped posting in it.

Lure burn out?
Poor set constuction, unclean equiptment, an area thats allready been trapped, etc.....are some of the reasons you get refusels and or a walkby, not from good quality lure.

If your using a proven lure, I don't care if your set was froze solid and a k9 came by, dug out the hole, licked his lips, pee himself, etc., he will be back when there is more lure down that hole, regaurdless if he's tasted/investigated it before.
Aslong as he didn't get snapped on the toenails when smelling that lure he will be back time & time again until caught.

Will a k9 avoid a smell that gave him a bad experience? Sure, short term....but come back 1 month later and you'll have 1 chance to get him again (especally after a rain fall, as they get dumb for whatever reason).......WILD k9's have a short memory and this is proven when you catch them with missing toe,etc. (not talking about fido here, that has been under our influence for many a year...you can't truly use fido as an example of how coyotes react as they arn't even close to the same)
I caught a late season female with a bad break in her left shoulder...I let her go....7 months later setting the same ground (not changeing a thing or the lure) I caught the same female again and know it was her when skinning left upper shoulder was healed, but basicly crippled and could see how the bone had repaired itself.....
So why would that female get caught in an exact d-hole with the same lure only 7 mths apart?
Must be a dumb one rite?

The only burn out that I know of is TRAPPER burn out....when one gets sloppy and or lazy.......its not the lures fault...look for another reason (someone beat you to the punch, your set constuction is unexceptable, your traps are dirt, you are dirty/sloppy,etc.).
A good lure is good year after year in the same area (unless you made him a smarty) but is only a temp. smarty.

Gary..you've made 2 posts saying you could write a book about it......well, I'm all ears

I see ASA is back...:)

Canvassback asked...
What do you think of just using Sardines for Raccoons ?

Sardines do a decent job getting the attention of most coons but from my experiments one will do better by adding something sweet such as anise oil, spearmint, honey, molasses or whatever to the sardines or other fish. Ace

Well I'm glad to see that you got it figured out then...lol

One thing I've learned over and over is that there's nothing that I've ever used that will get the attention of every coon that comes by.

One coon will climb a tree for fish and the next coon may pay no attention whatsoever.A coon has an attention span of maybe a few seconds at best.

I've fed coons at my house for years.Yelp.....fed them.Sows move in during early spring to raise litters out on the ridge west of me.They come to the house looking for cat feed etc.We've fed these coons to help them in raising a healthier litter,produce more milk for kittens etc.I've watched their reaction to many different kinds of food......and lures.

Fish isn't high every coons list.Some go for it like a starving hound,others pay little to no attention to it at all.It has been a first class learning experiences.

Burnt wood, and black wood are two different things. Black wood is a block of wood. a wood post, a rock, brick, or concrete block, whatever, that has been painted black. And yes, these objects can be good attractors.

Burnt wood is just that, wood that has been burned in a fire or on purpose. Burnt wood is not unusal in the field. A wild fire, a controled burn, burning out fence rows, burning over stubble, or burning urine posts all these things create burnt wood.

In addition to being black which is an attractor in itself, the benefits of burnt wood are, first of all, its odor is different than a painted block of 4X4.

Second, it is charcoal, at least in part, which retains lure and/or urine odors better than a painted river rock.

Third, it is gatored. Gatoring takes place in most all wood fire, and is an indicator to arson investigators of how hot a fire was, and where the point of origin was. The advantage of gatored (burnt wood) is that it increases the area over which the odor spreads, and functions with the charcoal to hold and protect (as in hard rainstorms) the lure/urine odors.

Fourth, it is natural in the field, something a painted concrete block is not.

Adios,
45/70,

tim first of all i have never claimed to know it all .... second i used the "FIDO" thing so people could relate to conditioning ... to say a good lure will have a positive response everytime is ridiculous ... as far as the yote with the bum shoulder ... have ya ever thought that she was hard up ? thats the only thing i could think as i am not a yote ... lmao .... i have caught quite a few PEG-LEGS in basic dirtholes and i could care less if they were DUMB or not ..... and to say a yote will work the same set over and over again is again ridiculous .... again i am not a yote but i do see sign that they leave ... my first post was the start of that topic after an animal has worked a certain set it is less attractive ... if i have this happen and have a miss i will punch in a new set for the one that didnt get caught ... this is YOTES ... fox will work sets over and over again intil they are caught ... just like ya say FIDO is much diff than yotes ...same with yotes and fox ... and like i said i could write and write about this topic ... but see no reason to do so here ... but if one day we run into one another at a convention or what not id love to sit down and hear ya theories on things as i LOVE to hear others ideas and thoughts and i dont try to attack sumbody for thinkin differently than i do ... i was just puttin my thoughts out there for others to read and THINK about ... not to change anyones methods .... all i do know is people tend to fall into ruts and is great to hear others views to maybe re-think things they are doing ... thats why i love this site so much ... alot of ideas and alot of great conversations