Howdy Folks!

I run trail cameras for deer in the late season to pattern them. There's a spot about 300 yards south of where I live where an old wagon road used to be. At a point where the wagon road intersects two CRP fields, there is a great place to put a camera. Anyway, I've been noticing that every night, or every other night, coyotes are passing through this spot like crazy. Not just one at a time, either. The wagon road itself is several hundred yards long and they cross it at many different places. I think the reason they like it is that the road actually sits lower than the fields on either side.

I can't stand coyotes. They are super hard on our deer population, not to mention all of the bobcats we have running around that are illegal to trap or hunt. That being said, my dad and I decided to try trapping this winter season, which is in until March 15th. I watched every video and googled every forum discussion I could for about a week. I'm sure I am still missing lots of information, but this has been my process so far:

We purchased 3 MB-650s, 3 MB 550s, and 1 Bridger #3 dogless. I purchased peat moss, sheep's wool, a jar of RK's predator plus, Caven's violater 7 lure, and some red fox urine.

We placed coyote sets at various places along the wagon road where the coyotes could not access from the backside to work the set. 2" auger for the hole about a foot down. We bedded the traps about nine inches in front of the hole in a little peat moss, hammered them in using native dirt from the sides, covered with pan screening, packed with peat moss to cover, and then sifted native dirt over the top to hide and lightly brushed. I tried to manipulate any coyotes with sticks, dirt clods, and little rocks as seen on instructional videos. I used a teaspoon of RK's Predator Plus, a Q-tip amount of the Caven's lure on a stick, and a few squirts of the fox urine. Bait went down the hole with wool and lure was placed using a twig in the backing grass.


Day 1 Result - no coyotes, traps had not been messed with.

Day 2 Result - 4" of snow over night and freezing temperatures made me nervous. Now the sets were covered in snow. However, warmer rain was on the way so I just went back home and did not disturb anything.

Day 3 Result (today) - 3 of the 5 traps we set on the wagon road have been sprung. No hide or hair in any of them. 2 of them have tracks of some kind approaching them (too much snow has melted for me to be able to tell what it was), and one of the traps has zero tracks coming or going.


Can anyone tell me what they think may have happened? Can rain/snow pop sets if the pan tension is too loose? It has been freezing in temps the last 3 nights, but I'm just surprised they were tripped like that. All three of them were the MB-650s, which is ironic to me. I honestly don't know if an animal tripped them, or if they just sprung on their own. I would have thought there would have been more evidence of disturbance had an animal caused it, but I'm new at this.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

try again with no peat moss, i find that some animals, grey fox in particular, can be very wary of peat moss. I still use it often, but I make sure to cover it good with native dirt. Also, deer are very attracted to urine, could be deer springing the traps investigating the urine. Last, maybe most important, is bedding. traps not bedded properly will get dug up more times than not. put one of your trail cameras on the trap . . . you will learn more from trail camera videos than you can imagine. good luck.

I wish you had a pic of the sprung trap to show us. It would be a great help. Were the traps sprung in place where you bedded them with the peat and pan cover still there or were the traps pulled out of the beds?

If pulled out I would guess deer stepped in them and would suggest you make new sets nearby and don't use urine. You know it's a high deer traffic area and urine attracts deer. They will mess up your sets.

If the traps were tripped in their beds, given the weather you described I would guess they were stepped in while frozen down. They either sprung slowly so no catch, or sprung after they thawed because the pan was depressed. Remake the sets and hope for the best because you may have educated the coyotes.

Did you boil, dye, wax your traps and wearing clean rubber gloves?
Always mask human sent when trapping coyotes.

Yes...going to put cameras out now for sure. Thanks!

I should have taken a picture. They were still in their beds with pan cover inside. No disturbance around. It is a high traffic deer area though. Not using urine is a good plan to start with.

My dad and I want to boil and dye in the future, but just ran out of time.

I put in the dishwasher, then used the full metal jacket (dipped 2x and let dry for 24 hours).

Did you set the pan tension ? 3# or so would be good if you are targeting fox and coyote . Not saying you didn’t have a deer go through as I’ve seen first hand a deer step in one of my traps , jump straight up and leave my sprung trap setting right in the bed. I’ve also seen a 650 with no pan tension go off in the trap bed while I was setting a second trap, in my opinion these traps were ment to have tension on the pan !

I made a little device (piece of iron with some protective tape on it) that weighed 4 lbs. and adjusted it that way. I'm sure it was well under 4lbs. when I set it. I'm going to try to increase the tension and see what happens.

Freeze and thaw cause steel to contract/move and no tension traps to trip. Just do the remakes. A deer is a possibility always.

sounds like deer to me.as someone else said skip the urine. still in its bed and closed means slow shut. frozen. wax dirt, antifreeze, something. the dry soil wicks moisture during the day and freezes at night. a shut trap does not educate a coyote. getting his toes pinched does. they are not capable of logic and will not associate the trap with danger until given a reason to do so. like having his foot in one and getting out. if its still in the bed nothing got pinched, deer or coyote it was off the trap before the jaws closed or the chain would be pulled out. try try try and try again. and start saving your money because the first time you walk up on a song dog that you caught youll be hopelessly hooked and in need of more traps.

sounds like deer to me.as someone else said skip the urine. still in its bed and closed means slow shut. frozen. wax dirt, antifreeze, something. the dry soil wicks moisture during the day and freezes at night. a shut trap does not educate a coyote. getting his toes pinched does. they are not capable of logic and will not associate the trap with danger until given a reason to do so. like having his foot in one and getting out. if its still in the bed nothing got pinched, deer or coyote it was off the trap before the jaws closed or the chain would be pulled out. try try try and try again. and start saving your money because the first time you walk up on a song dog that you caught youll be hopelessly hooked and in need of more traps.

Your getting bad advice. Lots and lots of it out there. If you realy want some relief for your spring fawn crop hire a trapper to kill them in the spring. You will kill lots of pups and potential pups that time of year and you will not have near so many new coyotes moving in till about Oct when your fawns are lots bigger

In the bed, pan tension is to light, out of the bed they were either dug up or dragged out,

When out of the bed, could be scent, bad bedding our actually step on and missed.

In the bed, cold makes them move, freeze will make the pan move if there is a lot of snow on it when it starts to melt, light tension is usually the cause,
Solved my problems early on when I was learning !

If they were still in their beds I'd bet they self-fired.