I’ve wondered about their value. Dribbling a line of fish oil or vegetable oil mixed with fish oil from a travel way to our traps may not be bringing them in. Recently I spoke with a trapper whose trail cam showed the coon concentrated their time on the trailing scent and never got to the DP. Darned those cameras are revealing!!

For those who use them, what do you think is happening? Are they good or are they actually pulling coon away from your sets?

And finally, would we be better off putting some sort of calling lure a couple feet above the set to create a second scent line in the wind?

Funny you post this. Had 4 DP’s around a feeder with a shellfish/salmon oil from the feeder to each DP. Coon came in and set right under the feeder eating corn for about 3 pics, then gone. Just knew he had to be in one of the DP’s...nope. Trailing scent did make a difference. Think at my next property I going to dig a small dirt hole and set my DP in it! They don’t seem to mind clogging up coyote dirthole sets!!

Wanna Be,

Jonesie wrote an article in the Trapper’s Post a couple months ago about digging a dirt hole big enough for a DP. The article said to put the DP at a 45 degree angle below the rim of the hole. Also, make the hole big enough so the trap can go off and finally have the spring at either the 3:00 or 9:00 position. This will give you a horizontal trigger. You can stake outside the hole or use an earth anchor in the hole. Then put your bait in the bottom of the trap with grass stuffed lightly around it to fill in the edges.

I’ll bet the baits they wont take from your stand up DPs will work fine in the buried traps.

I like to use everything in the cage when I can to avoid the chance of a coon hitting a trail and bypass it. More times than not if the odor got them there, I find they will commit to the trap. I base this off of the coon I trap year round, those who believe you need to do other things that work for them may have a different opinion. We use cages though and all that talk about you need to position cage traps in all types of funky ways and cover the bed of traps, then squirt the trailing scent in a particular way is a matter of opinion. I'm a firm believer in that, if they want what you are offering, they will go for it.

I make and sell a great trailing scent. If it helps you catch just one single more coon, you have more than paid for the whole bottle. After that its all gravy! I won't set a DP or a cage without it.

Does anyone have video footage showing coon hanging up when encountering trailing scent or following it to the cage/DP/foot trap/thru a snare or bodygrip?

ADC, I know I’ve caught coon because or inspire of my use of trailing scents. But, is the odor an enticer or a destiny unto itself?

O’Hern recommends a drop-drop-drop out from his traps. Obermeier suggests a liberal squirt above his water sets. I guess there are no absolutes in trapping. I’m beginning to understand the value of calling scents a couple of feet above the set. That way they should follow their nose instead of fixating on a spot on the ground away from the trap.

Do you own a trail cam?

I’ll have to see what happens this summer and fall with a trail cam and then post the results. Right now we have 36-inches of snow on the ground with more scheduled.

Back to trailing scents. For those who have experienced hang up, do you think it may be because the scent line is too concentrated? Would we be better off with an ounce of fish oil in a pint of vegetable oil so the odor of the trailer wasn’t stronger than the odor coming out of the trap?

Has anyone tried a weak odored trailer instead of a concentrated one?

When i stopped using trailing scents my Opossum catch went down and my coon catch went up ! But the real KEY is use Two traps, good bait, and play the wind !!!!!! A coon has a better nose then what people give them credit. If the spot is good for one set it's good for TWO. KISS

After being on Tman for a while, I now do 4 sets per location for coon.

I have used trailing scents for many years very successfully for fur trapping and ADC work. Some odors and blends of odors will get good interest from most all furbearers and mammals in general if you get traffic. Very few scents are really target specific. This means you will catch any animal that finds it attractive. That includes opossums, skunks as well as your target animal.

Not many scents are totally specie specific. You will catch what ever gets there first and what you have as far as the most frequent visitors in numbers. Trapping isn't all about catching just one specie as much as we would like it to be that way. A trap does not discriminate as to what fires it first. You will need to separate the wheat from the chaff that is trapping.

You can short lead or long lead them. It is very interesting to play and experiment with various ways of getting an animals attention and promoting their curiosity to follow. Trailing scents are just another tool to use to add catches to your trapline.

I don't use the T. scents every where but I know when I feel it will help a setup or just to show someone else how they work.
I first started using trailing scents for fox / coyote then eventually cat trapping. They work well for me to pull animals to a more secure location in some sensitive but good locations to help hide catches to reduce theft.

The same system can be used for coon and mink when helping to pull land or bank traveling animals not at water level especially when the wind is not in your favor in some locations.

Drops applications are generally plenty of scent from my experience. Squirts and lines of trailing material are over kill and wasted material and not needed in my experience. As noted you can initiate too much interest from the animal to the heavy scent trail when applied too heavily.

I don't want to hold them on the scent line with all their interest as a result of the concentrated odor. I want to promise them the gold at the end of the rainbow type response by only giving them an interesting but curious odor enough to invite them to investigate further along this slight scent trail.

Yes trail cams sure can educate you to what you think will happen and what actually happens when the animals respond to odor applications.

I use fish oil for a trailing scent, it works well for me. I also use a trailing scent, the for fisher too.

When coon hit on a scent and then walk away from it, could mean a variety of things, curiosity factor is satisfied is a big one. What if the coon isn't interested in the bait that is placed in the trap, and it's only there for the trailing scent, regarding your comment on odor coming from the trap? What if the odor from the trap due to previous catches is what the attraction was and the coon stumbled onto your scent trail?...it could happen. Back to trailing scents?....are you assuming that nothing will interfere or prohibit a coon from "investigating" a scent when it approaches your sets? Whether you're adc'n or fur trapping, things happen in the field and animals are unpredictable. I have yet to find an ingredient that only a coon will hit on, and doubt I ever will. Are you adc'n or fur trapping?

Teacher, If you remember in the school I showed how to use a trailer with cages and DP traps. I did not call it a trailer scent though but that is what it is. You also remember I said wind and distance from the trail to the trap no more than 5 feet. I don't know if you remember why I said trail and wind current must go together. yes a long trail scent will either consume the coon or the coon will get bored and head off in another direction. If the wind current is flowing with the trailer then the coon will pick up the other odor or odors at the trap and creates an added interest to keep going the small distance. Again as I stated in the baiting strategies talk, the trailer / bait out from the trap Taste/ one lick amount, is an attention getter to position the animal into the air current to get another attention getter. more than 3 to 5 feet is like playing horse shoes, all it gets you is first next throw.

Thanks Ron. I remember your use of lure and bait in regards to wind, trap location, and such, but didn’t equate the lure use as a trailing scent. It would indeed work as a trailing odor in this regard. Having two levels of scent trailing from the trap should open up the scent column quite a bit when used this way.

In the past, I’ve used trailing scents differently. My partner and I aren’t always directly on a trail so we broadcast our trailing scent off in a couple directions to get the target animal (coon) to come to the spot where the trap is located. On a river line, every second or third check there is a coon in the DP so we’ve assumed the trailer has helped. Your use of trailing scent means we should be within 5 ft of the trail, use multiple thumbnail sized baits, literally drops of lures and play the wind more.

You also mentioned in the school ‘method based on location’ and ‘location based on method’. Our method of choice has been to stab a DP very close to the water’s edge knowing the coon use that edge in their nightly foraging. Prop wash obliterates tracks but we’ve consistently taken coon at these locations. We’re within feet of where they’re traveling but our bait choice has been limited to a fish based bait and a squirt of trailing scent in 2-3 directions. That will change in 2019.

My bad. I am getting old!

Your demo was with a cage near a trail. When fur trapping I use DPs and 1.5 coils and I didn’t make the connection that this baiting/luring strategy works for all traps. Gosh, I wrote it all down but I didn’t make the connection. I really am getting old!!! Thanks again for clarifying this.

TDHP, I do much more fur trapping than ADC. Most of my ADC is in barns and buildings and it’s 100% with cages along walls and on/near travel lanes. Without having any real knowledge about how to trail coon to a trap, I’ve always just used a liberal squirt towards the direction I felt they’d come from.

In the trapping and snaring school, Ron talks about the trap as a negative, being it wasnt there the day before. His baiting/luring strategy should help overcome that “negative” aspect. I was intrigued by his understanding of wind direction in regards to DPs and cages. I’ve really only considered wind direction with buried canine sets and figured coon would be curious about the DP above the ground or the cage being there. The school was an mind opener and I’m still processing it. 10-pages of notes and plenty of pictures are helping.

How many class sodas were handed out in the class?

JMO, There is no right or wrong way, it boils down to the way that works for you and seals the deal, animals have patterns, but as stated they are unpredictable as well. If there were a standard then there wouldn't be all these threads about "how to's" there would be one thread and that is it. Instruction could be great for some but when all that instruction fails, and it will at some point and force the student to think on their own without having their hand held, will make or break the catch. Personally think you're putting too much stock in the bait and lure trailing aspect and discrediting your ability to find and make the "set" appeal to the animal, which you will find more often than not..that is what really needs to happen. I've seen coon walk by what I thought to be strong attractive odors without skipping a beat.

Like having a little highway of coon tracks like this, I would bet 9 out of 10 people would set up shop in or near the tracks. Not one coon hit the traps by the tracks. Took one coon before the drop down with my multi call in a bare cage no bedding and on snow with a liquid scent that some call it a trailing scent and the rest were taken on a pallet with no bedding using bait. Some would frown on the setup but I'm confident in my abilities in trapping the critters I'm after. The more you doubt the bait, lure and gear you use, you're discrediting your abilities in trapping the animal by relying solely on that one element. I hope you find the ultimate bait and lure trailing scents for your coon, but you will be hunting them down for quite a long time if your understanding of them don't catch up.

TDHP

Thanks for your insights. I don’t know when these pictures were taken but I like the trail. Most of my fur trapping is in November and December before the rut. I’m dealing with fat, happy coon which may be too full to take another bite. Or they’re just not interested in the single bait I’m using. Or the wind is out of the wrong direction. I can always get them down the trail in a conibear but location limits those choices around pets. Cages are sometimes the only choice.

Jones has talked about multiple smells in his podcasts and in various things I’ve read for several years. The idea that critters are probably not interested in a full meal, never occurred to me. Various smells to make a catch makes sense because I could have 3-4, $40 traps out there, each with one bait and only one connects. DPs are cheap compared to cages so that isn’t as much of a problem.

I took the snaring and trapping school because these guys offered a different perspective. I felt very uncomfortable at times because they offered experiences I don’t see as a fur trapper. But I didn’t go to stay comfortable either. I wanted a completely different mindset I could apply in southern Minnesota to get me out of the rut I’m in. Snaring will be new for me this year. Setting DPs with more than one attractor will be another. Using flags and call lures for lowly coon has been on Tman for several years but now I’ve met people who have made them work and it’s something I’m willing to try, too.

I’m a visual learner and I like to ask questions. In that regard I probably drive instructors crazy. But I’m not afraid to listen to those who’ve been there, done that, and are willing to educate me on different ways of doing things. Just like you do when you post from your experiences. It’s appreciated.

Bill