Those of you that snare and put out large piles of bait, what are you looking for when making a bait site ?

In general, my large baits (road kill deer, moose, etc.) are placed in areas surrounded by thick cover shrubs or trees in an accessible location. The junction area where roads or trails meet is usually a good spot as coyotes and wolves often travel these systems.
Baits in the open, will out produced baits in thick cover. Coyotes/wolves want to see, both approaching and while they're on it, if there’s danger from other predators, thus the best sites are in the open and ringed by heavy cover to hang snares in. All you basically need, for the ideal station, is an opening large enough for “large birds of prey” to land directly into, thus no walking in on trails with snares, and coyotes/wolves have the protective cover going to the bait.

Nailed it.

Snareable cover.
Open location.
Place that’s already seeing target animal movement.

^^^^^^

That's It In a nut shell.

I have placed whole deer back In heavy cover and coyotes never touched them. I once placed a road killed deer up In heavy cover on a hill top. It sat there for 4 weeks and then the coyotes actually dragged It down the hill before they ate It.
Keep It out In the open then snare the coyotes where they enter and leave cover.

Agree on the open areas and will add that I like the side of hills, a survey cut, or if you can find a bowl. K9's love running the high ground looking down and I knock the dog snot out of them.

I going to say 'not always'.

I've driven a pickup truck full of barrels of fresh scraps from processors in cover that was as high as the top of window.
Just drove right into the middle of the weed field and stopped, opened the door and had to climb in the back of the truck, over the side rail of the bed.
I then opened the tail gate , from inside the bed,(of the truck) and dumped the barrel, right off the end of the tailgate.
At 400 plus pounds, it was far to heavy to drag anywhere.

Now I drive this trail 2-5 times before I dump the barrels. I want the trail worn down.
Most coyotes will make their own trails, what I call a sneaker trail, but some will lumber down the tire tracks.
There's no way a coyotes can see through a weed strip with weeds as tall as 5-6 feet.
It won't be no time before they hit the bait piles and they don't stop until they're cleaned up...or I kill them, whichever comes first.

I have hundreds of photos of animals, mainly coyotes snared in heavy cover.
I've seen wounded deer crawl into briar thickets and die, only to have coyotes crawl in on their bellies and drag them out.
Same with foxes, except they just feed on them.
If coyotes were afraid of high cover, they would never hunt game in standing corn...and they most certainly do around here !

For wolves,fox etc ,a big bait pile is a draw.Not the best place for snares,although you can catch some,but they tend to go dead.
I like to set my actual snares at what I call satellite sets with a lot less bait about a 1\4 mile from the draw.I will have several of these in all directions off the main travelways to and from the draw,and may or may not set them all at once.

Tall grassy areas or weeds like LT Grey says

This deep draw is right along my private road. It is going to be an archeological site in a thousand years. I have thrown every carcass imaginable in there for the last ten years. I start in bow season and keep tossing until the end of trapping season.
It runs into a larger creek. I snare anywhere from 100 feet of the bait out to 800 or a 1000 yards. It is generally good for 15 to twenty coyotes a year.
Most of the snaring is on cow trails through sage that is about 24 inches tall.

I kind of like the ones that are close to the edge. I get a couple each year that try to bail off.

I have a spot like that on my line. Except it’s vertical. They don’t fight much!!

I like to put my draw bait at the intersection of old winter skid roads/trails.

All of your information is appreciated. To receive this detailed information from experienced snarers like you is pure Gold. I have had the problem of coyotes not hitting winter bait piles in deep snow. Thanks to you I now have the answer to that problem.

Thanks

Kent

I've been wanting to try this, will cable restraints work for this? I have access to multiple hog floor carcasses. Dead pits are becoming a thing of the past here. But I can make my own miles from the hog operations. My thoughts are to set up in crp fields.Due to our entanglement laws. I realize my trails will get destroyed.That being said should a guy start close and work out so approaching predators don't get the opertunity to see a burn circle?After this season I need a different approach! Cables don't mind wet soil or freezing ground.Snow will be the only thorn in my side! I hope this thread keeps going

I,do it differently from most above. I like very thick young pines in a very heavily wood/bush area. Pines maybe upto 15 feet hi average with a patch of thick young pines somewhere within. This cluster of pines I like to be very near a pretty open swamp. I use primarily road kill deer. My sold trail to and from goes within 5 yards of the bait and then beyond.

It's very easy to find and use the different trails the critters make. Cats love scraping along tree to tree, wolves either use my sled trail or come in perpendicular to it. One or the other it seems. Foxes and fisher like more open paths. The occasional coyotes here use whatever, not enough left around to pattern. My cage traps for cats blend in these young fir trees really well. Snares a piece of cake. Very easy to place 6' or so pieces of log across trails and set traps on each side, anchored off to the log. Deadly on fisher and fox. The logs partially buried in snow works, whatever jumps the logs must be able to see the ground right up to the log on the far side, don't make it too hi.

As thick and deep in the bush as I put these, all animals find them. The tight quarters keep the big birds off. The purpose of the nearby swamp is the transition edge that all animals seem to like to travel.

Osky

I like to snare 5-10 acre sage fields and we normally use dead chickens from the abundant poultry houses here. We have tried piling them in the center and scattering them and both ways work but it seems we do better doing multiple small piles in different parts of the field rather than just one large one in the center. We normally pre-bait for 2 weeks and are looking for those heavy tunnels through the sage to appear. We have 2 such places we are working on now. We also set a few foot holds around the perimeter of the field. In these 2 fields we have picked up 20 in last four weeks.....12 in snares and 8 in the foot holds.We have 20-25 snares in the field and typically 4-5 foot holds on the edges. We have clobbered fox in those few foot holds this time. We have picked up 13 grays and 3 reds.. We also have most of our snares back off the bait a ways. We seem to have a lot of snares moved over close to the bait piles. Our belief is that they are either changing their head position or slowing way down and starting to sneak as they get very close.