Hey guys. I'm new to trapping and have a question. Due to work schedule and family stuff, I'm kinda restricted to setting traps Fridays and pulling them on Sunday. I only have a State Forest to trap, which surrounds my place, and a little private land around there as well. Question is, would covering traps Sunday and uncovering them Friday work for canines? DP's I'll just snap and leave for bait. Thanks for the help.

How you going to cover them up, a set trap is a set trap. I would just set for coons this year with the DPs and set and reset them each week.

Check your mail box

My regulations say I must pull trap or check every day. I would check your state regulations.

Same here

I'm in the same boat you are. My DP's don't stay out longer than 3 days at a time and when I can put them out. I only had footholds out for a week last year. I basically have to start getting up 330 to check them or check them at 8PM if I want to trap anything but coons. dog(deer) season is over next week so I'm going to put them out for a couple months and see how that schedule works.

I used to do all my trapping at night because of work, used a light like coon hunters wear on my head. I could see as well as daytime. Not a problem at all, put it on charge when I was done and it was ready to go the next night.

Thanks, guys. I'll probably just use quick links on the wolf fang anchor cables so I can remove the traps on Sundays and remake/reset the traps on Fridays. Surprised I didn't by think if that earlier. As much as I like working 4 10 hour days, trapping might be easier if I worked a regular schedule.

many of us cover the trap with a lid from a 5 gal bucket and a weight on top OR just a disc or cultipacker blades...then cover with local debris.

I just dont sleep much in december. Run em at 3:30AM and back in time to shower and off to work. Rinse and repeat daily. Weekends are a treat when I can go at sunup and dont need the flashlight and headlamp.
Season comes once a year and I make the best of it.
Jim

If you are allowed to cover you could buss brake rotors because they are heavy enough to not move easily. That is if you are trapping out of your truck. I use them for weight on beaver sets. Any mechanics shop should have plenty since no one turns rotors anymore.

Some kind of portable bait holder would be good too. Maybe pipes or grass wad wires to end of sticks. At end of weekend pull the bait/lure holder and cover the trap or pull it too. A set with bait or lure but just a covered trap will get visited all week by animals in area but after time it may lose its interesting appeal to them. But it the bait and lure could also disappear from the set during the week...then reappear when set is remade the next weekend it would be interesting again to the set visitors. Just a thought. That's what would be good about the DPs for coon. Bait and trap go with you when you pull at end of the weekend and the set isnt interesting to visitors during the week.
Coon especially are curious but if you satisfy that curiosity they wont be back. Take the bait and lure with you somehow and make it reappear when you reactivate the set later. I think some sort of bait and lure holder that's portable would be important.
Jim

Pretty much this. Run your stuff before anyone else is awake. It’s peaceful. Get a good flashlight and headlamp.

I don’t know what your check laws are, but out here I run my sets and do remakes and stuff on weekends and then check after work once or twice during the week. We are only required to check “ in a manner such that the fur of trapped animals will not be wasted” so i could legally just check on weekends, but I try not to let mine go more than three days, and if work allows I’ll check daily.

Up at 0430 during the week to check traps before I have to be at work by 0700. Make resets and afternoon checks after work. We are a 24hr check here. Hate checking before daylight, but I do what I have to do. Even find critters caught in the afternoons that are apparently caught right at daylight after I’ve come through. Weekends are my sleep in and great photo time, lol.

We have 24 hour checks here in The Peoples Republic of New York. I have to be up at 4:00 to get to work by 6:00, not getting back home until 5:30. I just got my truck fixed so I might start setting traps on Thursdays after work. That will give me Thursday - Saturday nights, and pull them Sunday afternoon. I'll have to see if we can cover them instead of pulling them. It would make life much easier.

Checking traps b4 work would seem especially hard. Most jobs require a person to be well rested and already require getting up early. Plus, when I check traps I rarely know exactly how long it's going to take. But I give credit to those that can get up and get it done
A person just has to do what works for them