I talked with the trapper responsible for the following numbers.
He first started searching for a dog-proof trap because all the neighboring farms had coon hounds running them and he wanted to get along with the houndsman.
The trapper first bought 6 Black Holes.
- With those 6 Black Holes he caught 126 of the 500 coon he trapped for that season.
He then purchased 250 Black Holes.
- The 2nd yr, running 80 stops/day on a 24 hr check he caught 450 coon in 9 checks.
- That was 450 out of 700 raccoon trapped that yr.
- the Black Holes were catching at least double what the other Dog Proof traps were. So he decided to use only Black Holes the next yr.
The third yr he caught the same amount of coon (700) using only Black Holes but with 6 weeks less effort.
- It was very muddy that yr and he didn’t like losing time resetting traps that were a mud-ball.
- So he bought 200 more Black Holes so that he had a fresh trap ready to go after a catch, not unlike running conibears. The mudded up ones are then cleaned up back at the house and ready to rotate.
He has used Red O’Hearns coon bait and a fish bait of his as well as fruit based baits and lures.
He has yet to catch one cat.
3 years, 1,276 raccoon and no cats.
He has seen cats sitting next to the Black Hole watching it like they were expecting the fish to jump out but that is it.
Perhaps consider giving Mr. Bill Rudy, the inventor of Black Holes, a call at (402) 737-3397