I've got a tough one. I've been trapping skunks for 20 years and have always had great success with fresh sardines in oil. This year I caught three of them right off the bat but this last one that's out there is a smart sucker. Either that or he just doesn't like seafood. I changed it up and tried cat food. No dice. Then tried a mixture of peanut butter, jelly and a little bacon grease. Still nothing.
Wondering if anyone has an old family recipe that might help me to finally catch this sucker.

Thanks,
Jeff in Vermont

Cheese

Nilla wafers are good suspended in a container so the bugs don't eat them... bbq sauce, cat food, etc if you got the trap near them should work.

Had one like that. Got it with Wilson's Green beaver lure. Yep sure did

asafoetida tincture in some scratched up dirt

Thanks everyone!!!

That's a good one. Fish oil, a little essence?

Tainted hotdogs are great on skunks.

I use cherry pie filling

I've been using grubstake, marshmallows, and cheap knock off Oreos.
With either a fish oil/shellfish oil mix, or a peach preservative/vanilla mix as a trailing scent.

Caught the two transients on a job in within 2 days of one another.

They love cookies

Can of pork and beans was one of my old mainstay skunk baits in cages, seriously. And I have no idea why or when I started using them except I remember it worked awesomely around old barns and farmyards. The barn cats wouldnt touch traps baited with beans, but skunks loved them.
I tried it on a a couple problem skunk jobs and did really well on just pork and beans. Even in DPs I caught skunks with them.
Jim

DP's ???

I just baited the trap with sardines in a different kind of oil. If that doesn't work I'm trying your pork and beans suggestion next!! Thanks Jim!

Hey Jim, No luck with the sardines last night. I'm going to try your pork and beans suggestions. Question......which type do you use? The tomato based or the pulled pork and beans in brown sugar?

Thanks again,
Jeff

No dice with the tomato based pork and beans last night either. Guess I'll try the Wilson's Green Beaver Lure stuff next.

Have you actually seen or smelled the skunk lately? It's really odd for skunk to not respond to bait. They usually travel a circuit and be gone for a week or sometimes more before they return.

I would suspect there's nothing out there to catch and that's what responsible for your empty traps.

Well I thought that too at first because I hadn't smelled him as much but the last couple of days the smell was back and there were fresh dig marks close by.

Try cookies and fish oil.

So here the latest update. The pork and beans were a total failure so I've now moved on to Oreo cookies. "One for the skunk, one for me, one for the skunk, one for me". I'm now convinced that this an old veteran because when I went out to check the traps this am, two of them were flipped upside down and the cookies were gone. In the 20 plus years that I've been catching skunks I've never had one of them flip a trap over on me. Just to add insult to injury this guy then proceeded to come right up to the backside of the house and tear up the grass pretty good. I think it's getting personal now!

Hey I'm looking at the bright side. At least I know he's got a hankering for Oreos! Can't wait to finally catch this sucker. I'm wagering that he's gonna be a big one!

Funny thing is that there was no skunk smell whatsoever this am or last night so now I'm starting to wonder if I'm dealing with a raccoon but they tend to rip large chunks of turf up rather than leave small holes everywhere.

Whatever it is it's very smart, knows not to go into a trap and is relentless in digging for grubs!!

I think it's time to set up the game camera now that I know I can get him to smile for the camera if there's oreos around! At the very least I might get a chance to finally lay eyes on what the heck I'm dealing with.

Sounds like a coon to me.
Put some kind of weight on or around the traps. Or stake them down.

I've never had a skunk or a possum roll a trap, but if they are not staked down a coon won't mind picking a small trap up and turning in upside down to dump out the goodies.

The pics above are from a current job I'm working and today I had another skunk waiting on me.
The brick keeps the critter from flipping the trap no matter how much he digs around.
Wally world cheap Oreos and fish oil skunks the skunks. I also use some of Bob Jameson's skunks bait on the hanging marshmallows in the back of the trap.







Sorry for the photo bomb, cookies work

I'm dusting off the game camera tonight! Maybe we'll get a glimpse of this sucker and finally verify that is in fact a skunk!

Hey Ken, thanks for the great pics!! Do you typically cover the trap when you set it? I used to but I've gotten away from that and wait until the am once I've caught something. The first thought that hit me this am when I saw two of my traps flipped over was to stake them next time. Guess I'll tackle that tonight too! I just want this whole nuisance to be over. Gettin sick of baiting traps every single night and coming up empty in the am!

Yes I do. I use feed sacs and cut them down to size then use wire to attach them to the trap.
This skunk really tore up my bag I'll need to put a new one on after that guy

"Law Dog", has some "Cookie Mix" for them nice smelly Skunks to snap onto! lol, ask him' a ??,

He may tell ya' he uses Dirt! maybe!

I think you should get a bigger trap and maybe stake it down and you will have him caught

Wow good luck. Yes you might try a bigger trap maybe he doesn't like to squeeze into that small one for some reason.
Cookies, what an awesome bait idea!
They love a lot of different baits I'm really surprised you don't have him by now.
Got one in a cage once with a handful of fruit loops and a squirt of molasis. We were trying to avoid cats and got the skunk that way.
Jim

Thanks again! I'll keep on trying!!!

No sign of anything last night. Nothing on the game camera, all four traps untouched. This guy is playing with me now!!

VICTORY IS MINE!!!!!! Finally, after several weeks of frustrations and with all of your help I caught not one but TWO white stripers last night!! These suckers were pretty big too! Hopefully theses are the last two that I'll have to worry about for a while and the same ones that have been terrorizing us lately!!! We'll see!

For the record, Oreo cookies was the ticket this time!!! Unfortunately my game camera never turned on so nothing to review.

I was going to take a photo of these two after pulling them out of the tank to share with the group but then it occurred to me that it might be a tad bit morbid.

Thanks again everyone!!

Jeff in Vermont

Great job Jeff!
Experience breeds confidence.

Good job

I was rooting for u. Thanks for keep us posted.

woo hoo! Success!
nice work!
Jim