This lure sure does great in testing according to the Sherm Blom article in the Trapper World magazine. I know Carmen advises to use this lure without bait at dirt holes. Who uses this lure alone with no bait . Results? What other lures have you noticed work better alone?

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/gpwdcwp/67/
Claim to fame, read your heart out

That's the same as the article in the mag. Interesting results and a good reason to buy and try more lure. Lol

Always have a bottle in my lure bag, been using it since late 80s and still one I have a lot of confidence in.
I've had good luck with it at post and flat sets but I also use it at double dirthole, bait in one hole lure in other. Maybe not supposed to use it that way but I've nailed a lot of coyotes at double dirtholes with that combo arrangement.
Jim

Been a go to for me over the last few yrs. Worked good in dh alone and flat sets. Sure works on the kitties to

Carmen's final touch did well also. Anyone else seeing a pattern of certain m44 lures doing really well in these research studies? Makes sense to me because these lures cause more than one response from an animal.

Great lure one of my go to but has anyone noticed a difference in these lures from say the early 2000s to today’s stuff? Might be just me....

A lot of well known lures have changed drastically over the years. In the body of the lure and performance.

I've been using Carman's lure for more than 40 years. I remember a well know PA fox trapper saying (on here) that he talked to Russ and Russ told him that the CC made that year was very good and it was time to stock up. I do know this there is a big difference in some runs of CC. My knowledge isn't current as I stopped buying it about 6 or 7 years ago. I do use some of Carmen's other lures and about 5 years ago I had three coyotes one night that all were caught with Carmen's lure. My other 40 or so sets that night caught nothing. I'm guessing that I had about 10 sets lured with Carmen's that night.

Did carmen sell his lure line at one time then start back up again? Maybe I am thinking of someone else.

No doubt a lot of things change over the years.

What is the best way to get maximum smell out of a hole using only a small amount of lure? Sheep's wool?

From my memory, Carmen sold his original line of lures and later started some others under different lure names.

CC is a great cat lure.

Your the 2nd person to mention cats Laz, coming from you that is saying something. iirc in his book carmen said that this lure should be in a big percentage of your sets. Figured that for a sales pitch but after this i think i'll be using it more. Thanks for all the good feed back, great info to have.

I wish I had bought it by the 55 gallon drum back in the 80s

I use it mainly up higher as a call lure.

From what I remember and I believe this came right from Russ was he sold his lure line, but then he started the Carman's Pro Grade lure line. As far as I know he still produce's the "Pro Grade" lures today. If you look at FNT for example the first number of lures are just labeled as Carman's, but at the bottom the last half are labeled "Carman's Pro Grade ________insert lure name here." I really had a good response to circle maker with red fox....you don't hear about it much. I also caught just about every fur bearer in Nebraska on Pro's Choice back in the day although the study I put up didn't show a great response to the Pro's Choice.

That makes sense Wade, thanks for clearing that up. Not that it matters but do you know who the maker is now? I remember reading on some of the { whats your fav lure threads} circle maker was mentioned a few times. Both circle maker and pro's choice are sitting on my lure rack, yes i have a lure buying problem. Lol

I believe russ was ill and sold rights to sterling, he may have still been making them though I don't remember. Sterling has people that make lures for them, so that's possible also. The whole story was on here at the time, but it's been a while.
One famous lure maker had a lure that was generally black, I was told he couldn't get color from one batch to match the last batch, so he colored it all black or dark. Another famous trapper told me the same, one batch looks one way, next batch different.

Thanks for the info wr, good stuff. If they made his lure half as good as the studies show it would still be well worth using.

Russ still makes the lures for Sterling Fur. Russ' table is right next to mine at the NY convention and we've discussed it. He sold his lure line, but still formulates the lures. Sterling furnishes the ingredients for him to work with. His Pro Grade line is separate and something he started after he sold his other lure line.