I have caught coyote with a 7" loop across and 10" of the bottom of the loop to the ground I also went with 11" from the bottom of the loop..In Iowa you can not go over 8" across on a loop and a deer stop. when not with in 30 yards of a water way or pond. Like Newt stated what a deer will do and they will do it on a trail.

If I worried about catching deer I would never hang any cable. A trail Is a trail and you never know what's going to travel It.
If you catch a deer so be It.

More bait.

X2 I try to avoid them with a leaning stick at times but nothing is 100%. I have mandatory deer stops on all my snares but I add a BAD to coyote snares for this very reason. They help most of the time.

spot on.

It's kind of strange. I had caught 1 coyote In that trail before I caught that doe and killed her. Well the snare killed her.

So I just left her there well she did end up missing a few parts. LOl And the farmer had lost a sheep so It was dumped In the same area. Guess what 2 days later a coyote walked right over the sheep and completely ignored the deer. Nothing ever touched those 2 critters as long as I was there. I did catch a coyote about 80 yards from the site.

Thanks for the information. Keep it coming. I plan on setting tomorrow morning!! I will not set on any trail with deer tracks. (we got snow 2 days ago).

One thing that keeps popping in my mind is loop height. Are you better off going low so if a deer comes past it hits it with their brisket or staying high so they duck under it? Last year, I set a 10" loop 8" off the ground and did not catch a deer but had knock downs which is fine with me compared to the other option.

I use an 10-11" wide loop (8" is max legal width here unless you are within 30 yards of a pond, lake, creek, drainage
ditch, stream or river so I key in on these locations) and set it between 10" and 12" off the surface of the trail to the bottom of the loop. Most of my loops are 12-14" tall. Snaring is a numbers game. You can't set 2-3 dozen and expect to catch more than a couple a day at the very best. You need to set a couple hundred if you want to catch any larger numbers. The only exception would be if you make big bait piles, then you may get several at a time, but they are going to run out pretty quickly.

It sounds like you are going to be really upset if you catch a deer, in that case, I'd take Beav's advice and not set any CR's.

I'm not going to be upset, I just want to avoid the situation at all cost while still attempting to catch coyotes. I don't want to loose a piece of ground because of some button buck being caught if I can control something that would stop it from happening. I want to learn as much as I can and be as prepared as possible to have the most success and fun.

You won't get all those knock downs If you do like I said. It's all about your stabilizer and the position of your lock. And that my friend Is the bottom line.

Correct Beav, I plan on really working on my stabilization and lock location at 11 o'clock.

Just an update on my concerns. I went in and set 3 dozen cables up but did not open the loop. According to state law, these still need to be checked so I drive the area every day and have been keeping an eye on the deer movement. I'm happy I didn't open them up because the deer are still there. I will keep checking on them daily and watching for deer movement. Last year, they moved out around Christmas and I was able to start catching coyotes then.