So starting this off season, I'm trying my hand at making my own lures. My target animals are cats, coyotes and grey fox. Any tips or pointers for the beginner?

Read every thing on this forum and everything written by Nick Wyshinski and Russ Carman. On this forum pay particular attention to threads and responses by Bob Jameson - tons of excellent info in them, but many of them will only make complete sense if you have read the books by Wyshinski and Carman.

Oh ya, a little warning - once you go down this rabbit hole there is no turning back!

Reading is "great stuff", but lots of things/methods look good on paper, applying them is the kicker. "Tip", understanding why you're adding an ingredient is worth a lot more to your bait or lure and will benefit you in the field come testing time, than buying what is supposedly the hottest item on the market. If you need proof , just look at all the guys who have shelves of bait and lure jars along with bait & lure books/videos and are still asking for the "best" bait and lure or ingredients, I know some buy for the tradition and trend of the industry etc. No technique or trapping methods when it comes time for field work? Even better "tip", Learn the habits and behavior of the animals you are after, I don't think anyone can learn it all because they are unpredictable animals, but wrapping your head around them and having an understanding on what drives them will make your bait and lure methods a lot more simple. One more "tip", bait & Lure ingredients or products made from "experts" wont make up for a lazy trapper. Numbers come with work and population. jmo

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good post

2X to TDHP. Also remember there is NO secret “potion”. Just hard work, experience and applying knowledge.

As Anthony stated be warned , once you start down this road it might get more consuming than u thought it would be. My advice is start simple, keep your bases to one or two ingredients and test each step from there. Mixing stuff together is the easy part, testing is the hard part if you really want to learn how to make good stuff. Advise is sometimes helpful in pointing you in the right direction but ultimately the animal grades your work. I read a lot of well meaning advise that didn't pan out with the animals. Start with the natural stuff, meats, glands and other animal stuff and leave the synthetic man made stuff for the back end of the formulation. My experience is that stuff can ruin a formulation if you don't know what your doing with it. Test the commercial lures and baits do you have a benchmark. Test, test test. You might be surprised what you can come up with.

Sounds like trail cameras are gonna be a must.

Make sure you get ones that don't spook coyotes. IMHO you would need alot of trail cams if your doing very much real testing and your depending on trail cams as your sole source of testing. I like at least 10 or so test sets before I even think about if it works or not.

You don't need a lot of cams nor do you need a bench mark from other commercial grade bait and lures. What is the point of using a bait and lure that gets little to no action for you as a bench mark? Odor? What? Trying to copy a formula is a complete waste of time if you aren't receiving personal instruction on how to handle the material and the exact ingredient that they use, and you will spend lots of $ in that attempt. Even then, good luck with that. 10 sets? In what months? Year round, constant testing will give you a better shot on an informed opinion on how your product will do. jmo

You can do a lot of testing without a trail camera. Lots of top notch bait and lure made back in the day when they were still taking pictures with big old film cameras. If you can read tracks and sign you can tell how a critter is reacting to your test lure. Trail cam video is great but not needed. Like TDHP said you need to fully understand the critter you are trying to attract. This will help you read the sign and also help you when making a lure so you get the reaction you are looking for. The base you use for a lure is super important. I think people get too wrapped up in the add ons and forget that the base is well, the base of the lure. A good base will hold the interest of a critter on its own.

Anthony hit on the foundation for building a good lure. Take my Dig'r for instance. The base for it is actually my Beaver Meat Medley that is about 10 years old. After that amount of time it has gotten soft. So, I ground it with a fine plate and tested it to make sure the canines were still attracted to it. They were, so that started this formulation. I slowly built on it, adding one ingredient and testing, then another etc. I had to back up a few times to eliminate an ingredient that had no or little effect on the critters. What I was looking for at this point was to make the target animal stay and work the lure, rather than approach, smell and walk away. Each ingredient was only considered a successful addition if it increased the animal's response.

I use to punch a hole in the ground with a 1/2 in piece of rod, place my lure in this hole and sift dirt for about a 6 ft diameter circle around the hole. Then I would read and interpret the sign left. Since trail cams, this observation of the animal's response has become a much easier task. With a trail cam I can see what animals didn't even enter within the 6ft diameter circle I would have used before trail cams. The visual of those refusals taught me a lot that I missed with the sifted dirt.

Thanks for sharing that Paul. Good stuff. I think a lot of new guys dabbling with lure do a whole lot of mixing of ingredients and never even consider the slow process that assures everything works the best.
Again, thanks for sharing.

Mac

A simple but very effective lure I make and use is; slightly aged ground mice, mink glands, glycerin and a pinch of skunk. It works as good or better than just about anything I have bought.

Aaron if you ever make a batch without skunk , I’m interested in buying a quart to try.

Go to www.fntpost.com and pick up some bait and lure books & DVD's from them.

I’ve been happy with a similar mix

Rotted down mice
Mink gland
Glycerin

have ya looked here? https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/11/1/lures-baits-and-urine-archive