I'm a newbie so be nice please. I just started trapping on the tail end of the TN season. However we can trap coyotes year around, so I'm helping out some farmers and learning at the same time.

I bought some plastic screen trap covers for my traps. One of the farmers gave me some of this thin like plastic fabric which seems to work just as well. He was watching me re-set a trap and I was trimming the cover to fit. He said why not just cover the entire trap with the cover? Honestly I don't know why not except that it might impeded the trap in some manner. I set the trap and put one of the his covers on it and sprung it. I couldn't tell the difference.

Can one of you veterans help me?

Im not a veteran by any means and im definitely not good at foothold trapping but id say once you cover with dirt and your whole trap was covered by the pan cover, when it springs it could fold all of the dirt on the cover into a taco and cause a bad grip on the critter which would probably allow it to pull out

I wouldn't want slippery plastic between the trap jaw and the coyote's paw

I've seen larger covers used before, but they always place the excess under the jaws. Probably for exactly the same reason that Hoss2018 and Robert.d12 had stated above. I will offer this piece of advice, take the time and pre-cut your covers to fit the traps that you are using (use gloves to keep them scent free). I pre-cut mine and put them in Ziploc baggies with the trap size I cut them for written on the front of the bag. This will cut down the time you are at a set, which makes your more efficient and helps reduce scent contamination. Just my opinion.

EDIT
I went back because I remembered something on the trapping tips tab on the home page. It is specifically mentioned on there that to freeze proof sets you can place the whole trap in a Ziploc bag and seal it.

Use polly under the pan, especially if you have coon present, the plastic traps moisture, ya want something that can breath so the water goes thru it. Like landscaping clothe or screen and tuck it under the free Jaw.

If you are packing the dirt around the trap the way you should be to have a well bedded trap you will see why the pan cover needs to fit or at least be under the loose jaw. If you are just sifting dirt over the trap, the cover only needs to keep the dirt out from under the pan. If this is your method your going to have problems !

All of those are good answers. I'll keep trimming my pan covers. The stuff he gave me was that landscaping stuff that keeps weeds from growing. I still have a bunch of the pre-cut plastic screens from PCS Outdoors.

We've caught two coyotes so far! We are averaging about one per week. When I went down this weekend, I found twp traps that could not catch anything. One of them I messed up while tuning it to try and get it flat. I bent it too much, which I fixed. The other trap was the farmer's trap and it was just sprung. It was old and the spring was really weak in my humble opinion. He bought a couple of new number 2 traps at one of his farm stores. I replaced his weak trap with one of his new ones. He mentioned to me that he had lubricated it with vegetable oil. When I was sifting it it SPRUNG showering me with dirt. Scared the garbage out of me.

Thanks for all your help. Your answers all make sense to me. I love the internet for learning

I’ve been using the landscape fabric for several years now. I use the heavy stuff about the thickness of an old pair of jeans and cut it to fit just inside the jaws. Good stuff !

I use rolls of fiberglass screen that I buy at the local hardware store. I think the last roll I bought was around 10 or 15 bucks and I cut about 100 pan covers out of it. Like mentioned in previous comments I keep them in a gallon ziplock bag. I am very pleased with these, they are resilient, they don't get all kinked up, and I almost always find them close by after a catch. I run jakes and k9 extremes and when I set one the cover goes over the jaw that the pan holds down and under the other jaw and then cover with dirt. I used to run #3 dls victors and used sandwich bags for pan covers. If you covered the whole trap you would get the taco affect like mentioned and possibly loose your catch. The landscape fabric works as well. The key is to find what you like, and what works for you so that you can be quick and efficient in making your sets.

You Betcha!



Hey Randal,

As G mentioned, you might consider using poly under the pan instead of pan covers.

I tried window screen pan covers for about a week, and couldn’t switch over to poly-fil fast enough.

I would much rather be setting coyote traps than cutting out stacks of pan covers from a template every week or so.They are time consuming to make, as well as to put in place. The covers also tend to carry a faint odor. Just one swipe across the screen by a coyote or coon and your trap cover is pulled up exposing your trap. On multiple occasions I’ve had both coyotes and coons pull off a pan cover from a clean & securely bedded trap.

With a pan cover, high winds can often cause sifted dirt over the trap to shift, thus exposing the cover.My experience has been that the use of a cover actually enabled the wind to more easily move dirt off the trap pan area. Switching to poly immediately solved this issue.

Using poly also lets you get away with less dirt over the trap pan area, as opposed to more dirt for fear of screen exposure.

Unlike a pan cover, using poly under the pan also permits dirt to fill in around the inside of the jaws allowing for much more secure bedding of the trap.

Another benefit that poly has over most covers is that I can shove a bit of poly under the pan and go. With covers, I always found myself tweaking the pan cover this way and that to get it in just the right spot.

For me there are just too many advantages to using poly over pan covers on the line.


(A big bag of poly runs around 8-9 bucks, and will last several seasons.)

Tejas what your saying about poly may be all well and good in your country. Here it will fill with water and freeze ! The wind will uncover a bare pan just as easily as the landscape fabric, if you don’t do every thing right. I don’t use screen of any type because I think it does vibrate on windy days and some of my sets are next to railroad tracks ( more vibration ) !

It’s been said before, use what works for you , if I lived in your area I may very well do things differently!

GB, I was actually making that suggestion to the OP Randal who traps in Tennessee.

I believe the winters there are fairly mild compared to winter conditions in your neck of the woods.

Hence poly might be a great alternative to pan covers in Tennessee as it is in Texas.

Pipe insulation under the pan works really well and is almost the right size for any trap which would be used for coyotes. You just cut it to length, the width is already around 3 inches and can be bought at Home Depot inexpensively. Or pack the trap in peat moss and cover with a thin layer of dirt from the area to blend in the set. Just my .02

Tejas your spot on , no argument here . Just pointing out that we have problems with different things in different parts of the country.

If you use polly with overwaxed dirt thats pack able all those wind vibration issues go away. The coon presents here won't allow screen or landscape cloth. They dig it up but fox and coyotes don't. After the coons hole up with snow cover I'll use stiff screen that slides right in under the jaws in dogless traps to expand the kill area because with snow guiding gets tough.

If you live where its dry and mild waxed dirt may not be needed, and polly works best all season. It only takes a pinch, just make sure none sticks out from under the pan. I cover traps more than most , 3/8"-3/4" and level no low spot over the pan to collect water. I always place sets on a little higher spot so the set drains well. Pipe insulation works well too, but with polly I can just get a pinch out of a ziplock, place and go. No cutting or forming involved.

Before I started using waxed dirt and used natural dirt with salt, I didn't us a cover or under pan at all. I filled the pan notch down to where ya couldn't move the pan without it firing. Just like Mr. Dobbins taught.

If your poly is getting wet and freezing, doesn't that mean the dirt around your trap has frozen, rendering it inoperable regardless?

I used the styrofoam circles that go under the pan this year, and I never had a problem when using wax dirt.

My wax dirt does not freeze . But a lot of my area has clay only a few inches down and the water will come in under the trap. I’ve tried both the poly and the pipe insulation with poor results after a big rain. It never fails here, it’s gonna rain and then freeze, like clock work. I’ve had the best results with building sets on a slight grade, no low spot over the pan and in some cases digging a trench at the bottom of the trap bed going downhill away from the trap. I try and put a good 1/2” of waxed dirt under every 650 and this seems to help keep the trap functional .

Exactly!

I have used coffee filters over the pan and pipe insulation under the pan. I have had good luck using either of these along with waxed sand. After this year, I am leaning more to the insulation. As stated above, just cut to length. If I have time, I will put under the pan at home. Speeds setting up and many times after a catch, its still under the pan. Just have to find what works best for you and your conditions.

That makes sense. I usually use 1/4" of waxed dirt under my trap, and I know someone who use their stake driver to punch 3 or 4 small holes a few inches deep in the trap bed. Then they add the wax dirt, then trap etc. I imagine that would help some with drainage.