I can't give you exact numbers, but my percentage is way higher for boars than sows. In the 70/30 area I would estimate..

I know It's a bit early for the breeding season. But I wonder If the females are living In these buildings year round and the males are just starting to move In for the winter. It's common knowledge that the males do more wandering then the females.

I’d say your on to something Beav, I’ve been mostly catching boars in the last two weeks or so. Probably a 90-10 ratio.

No catch today. Either I have caught them all or It was just to cold for them to venture out last night.

Beav get your self a plain ticket. Jonesie will show you. We still have a opening in our school .SOUTH JERSEY TRAPPING ans SNARING SCHOOL

Newt with the price of coon I can't afford a ticket To Jersey to learn how to catch coon In DPs. LOL



Single digit temps last night. No coon today but I did have one DP sprung. I'm thinking the dry cat food has become moist and froze up and has slowed down the traps action. Probably going to pull tomorrow.

After thinking over my last post I don't see how the bait would effect the trap being sprung with no catch.
I broke all the traps free from the frozen ground yesterday so It wasn't a pull out. Any thoughts on the sprung trap?

Beav I get sprung traps primarily for tow reasons. Mice is the first and likely main cause of all of mine. second and very far second i have seen sign that Mr. trash panda will play with the trap either in the ground or pull the stake out if it is not firm in the ground. Just bumping the dog and trigger will set it off. There are likely other causes but these are my main two causes of tripped DP's.

Makes sense.

Oh and dogs will set them off. I forgot that one. Sniffing around and hit the dog with their nose. In the pheasant ground i trap coon in i get a decent number of traps set off by dogs smelling bait and inspecting while they are supposed to be hunting birds.

I tried waxing my DP's this year and found out real quick that I had to scrape the wax off the dog and trigger contact point. If I didn't, the trap would spring itself, sometimes not right away.

I've also had mice and deer set them off.

This coon is 2nd from this trap, location. Set it right back in catch circle and check it again in morning.

Beav is it the coon are not moving or they are not there or is it the coon are not touching the traps? For me and may only be right for me, when I set up, I always do things so I can see what is going on. maybe I have a camera, maybe I have things to monitor the coon activity ( there are many ways to quickly see coon movement and activity). Just the way the trap is baited can do this. I need to see if I am missing coon (not working the traps) or seeing if they are not there. That is in fur trapping or ADC, I am the same. In fur trapping, If the coon is not there, I don't want to waste time with set traps not catching what is not there. In ADC I have to figure out the circuit so I can solve the problem. In your situation, if you are helping a farmer out with the coon problem then you are doing ADC. You may not think of it this way but you are doing ADC. Your pay is fur prices. If the cold has shut down your coon then I would need to see it and pull with a plan to come back and catch them when things are right. Checking empty sets cost the same as catching, you just are not getting anything in pay. If they are there and not working the traps, I need to see that and figure out why. Teacher has said to me Jonesie you look at coon trapping differently than most. LOL and yes I do. 40 years of doing ADC, catching/controlling coon at almost 50 percent of my income forces me to see it differently. It bugs me to miss a coon LOL and I do miss coon and a lot of coons, more coon has kicked my tail than I want to admit, even though coon are easy to catch, LOL well the 80% are, the 20 percent can make a trapper pull their hair out. In fur, when you miss you are missing 6 to 10 bucks so who cares, skim the cream, right. but for me, if I miss a coon I may be loosing xxx.xx bucks so you can see why I am over the top when it comes to catching the coon, and that same hate to miss a coon bleeds over into fur. If you are now there, to see what is happening and to learn something that you may not know, then think out of the box and set up so you can know if the coon is denned, not there. or not working the traps. See if in fact there is a circuit happing. By the way, I have never not seen a circuit in coon when I took the time to see it. your pay will be knowledge.

Thanks for you input Ron I agree with you 100%.

I caught big boar today. Last nights temps were In the 30s and we had a slight drizzle and a bit of fog. Perfect weather for animal movement.

Some things are just hard to figure out. I have 3 DPs In this beat down trail and It's so beat down Ray Charles could catch coon In It. It runs from the house to the corn field the traps are 10 feet apart. I have yet to catch a double but I have caught 4 coon out of 2 of the traps but the middle trap has never been touched. Same bait same lure It's just hard to figure.

I did have another sprung trap today and I think I got the problem solved. I used sheep wool In several traps and I stuffed It under the trigger. Since sheep's wool Is pretty matted and Is hard to pull apart I'm thinking they had most of It out before the trap was set off and I could see some of It above the traps mouth. I removed the wool from those traps and baited and lured with out It.

I don't own any trail cams but that would be the way to see what's going on.

I had a trail like that and set 160s on TIGHT spots at 3 locations. Nothing for 4 days. Put 4 DP's out, had 3 coon the next night. Maybe I suck at setting 160s in trails, who knows. Maybe the coons (boars) finally made their rounds.

Can you blind set footholds in the trail?

I'm not going to fool with frozen ground and foot holds. I have killed 12 coon of this property so far so I think I've caught the majority of them.
I'm going to make a few more checks and see what happens.

Beav, where do you plan to sell your coons?

I have a private source who Is a furrier.

For those of you that have ever set say 3 traps on the trail maybe within 15 or so feet of each other. this is not absolute, but I will catch 2 or 3 sows and or first of the year coon, in those traps in a day or so of each other until I catch an older boar. I have seen in those spots (just from memory, not notes) that it seems, if I catch a 2-year-old or older boar in the first trap and also the other end trap, I can't remember catching anything in the middle trap for a few days until the 2 end sets air out or rain /snow. This also holds true it seems, again not absolute, if I have 2 traps leading from a den site. The first trap (Closest to the den) catches a boae and the 2nd set out if it is close to the first, may not catch anything. Also in my area, Except coon with early family groups, my coon is solitary after a year old. So unless I have a bait station or deer feeder. single coon is walking the trail at the same time. I believe that if the big boar is caught in the trap first, then the sows and family groups coming down that trail will walk out and around the caught boar and avoid that spot for a while. 2-year-old boars don't care and will actually be attracted to the spot. When I have a hard run trail and the coon are there and not on a circuit, yet not working the DP traps, I dig one in or set in a mound or pocket set, and that will most times get the coon working again. until they go on the circuit again. I Just my thoughts many will disagree especially those that have more coon then corn stalks LOL

Good points Ron. A lot to digest when It comes to DP trapping coon. Maybe you need to set a fresh trap just outside the catch circle like when trapping coyotes. If I hadn't already caught 12 off this location I might be inclined to try some different set ups but you can only catch them once.

No coon today but I did catch a really nice grinner. And groney isn't buying grinners. LOL