Ha...Me too

I know in my area the #s were off. Only caught 20, of the twenty 16 were males and only about 3 or 4 pups. Normal year I'm more females than males and more pups than adults. We found a couple of dead pups in 2 different locations in October that had died of some sickness it appeared. Plenty of coons so I don't think it is distemper. And we are starting to see a fox or 2 out in the country.

Read the Blog on his thoughts on leaving carcasses laying around. He just won't do It I fact he has gone as far as picking up after other trappers. He has the land owner dig a pit for him and every thing Is buried.

Good for him. Nothing worse than finding carcasses thrown in creeks and road ditches. Sometimes hunters/trappers are their own worse enemies.

Yeah the antis dont need any more ammo against us. Few years ago someone found a skinned carcass in a ditch r something and people freaked out. Didnt know what it was, and then the media tried to spin it as some satanic ritual. Lmao.

Have seen the claim of satanic ritual here too. Another time an idiotic woman from Topeka got a news story after finding carcasses by saying it was from illegal dog fighting.

Agree.

And I have also seen the satanic ritual stuff here. People are so dumb. It must be some sort of urban legend to keep showing up in different parts of the Country.

The satanic ritual story I saw here came from my wife's, niece's , husband. I showed him how to skin a coyote ( about 20 years ago) and he shot a couple the next weekend. Only he didn't skin out the head. He cut the pelt off right below the ears and tossed them in a ditch not far from his home. Some body found them and told the newspaper it was from some kind of ritual. To give the newspaper credit they reported the woman who found them claimed it was a satanic ritual.


To this day I don't know why that Topeka woman thought she found evidence of dog fighting after finding carcasses a friend of mine had dumped. I don't even know how she found them.

That's funny Danny. Years ago, I was putting my carcasses out in a wooed area about a quarter mile from the river, with permission from the LO. Later that spring, I was welding at an apartment building, and one of the guys that was dry walling, said something about a big poacher ring that he found evidence of. Of course I was all ears, and started asking questions. Come to find out, he was mushroom hunting, had no idea whose land he was on, and had stumbled onto where I was feeding the birds and critters! I told him that was my body piles, and he started freaking out about how much I catch. I explained that those carcasses came from a large area, not just from the spot they were laying in. I told him that he was also trespassing, and you only legally have to the high water mark to of the river bank to hunt mushrooms on. Typical city kid that had no idea. He learned a lot that day!

I put my carcasses in the same place I put our dead cattle.

I one time left a decent pile of nutria carcasses out in forest land for the carnivores to eat and some lady stumbled onto them and reported to the local newspaper that somebody had killed 50 otters!

Since those days I do things differently and never leave a big pile of carcasses together. I leave two or three carcasses every 1-2 miles as draw bait for trapping civets/bobcats. Even if I never set a trap. Perfectly legal.

A few years ago the satanic ritual story appeared in local papers and even made the local news after someone discovered a pile of fox carcasses some idiot trapper had dumped in a roadside ditch. At first it was thought they were dogs.

I have a "bone pile" on my property where all carcasses from trapping and leftover parts from deer processing go. Hawks, vultures and various land scavengers love it.

Parvo? Our numbers are way down too but so are the coons so thinking distemper. Fox numbers are up but then so are the wolf numbers......

Back in the late 70’s, I lived on the edge of town with a couple nice trees in the front yard. The limbs were the perfect height for hanging coyotes to skin. After skinning a couple one day, I got busy or sidetracked for awhile and forgot to take the peeled coyotes down. When I got back home, my knives and sharpening tools were gone from the back porch where I leave them. Went inside and had a message on my answering machine to call the sheriffs office. Well, as it turned out, some old biddy had driven by my place, called the sheriff and reported devil worshipping at cat daddy’s house! After explaining the situation to the deputy, he brought my knives back to the house and we both had a good chuckle.

I was up north hunting in a national forest and found where a trapper had dumped a big pile of muskrat carcasses over a hundred. A week later went back and they were gone. Critters ate good that week.

Coons are susceptible to both canine and feline distemper and Parvo so that could be why your seeing a big reduction in yotes and coons.

Bryce

Update.

13 today 12 were good. Setting more traps as I type.

Robert Is saying the coyotes just aren't here and he doesn't know why. That whole area burned about 3 yeas ago so that could be part of the problem. Maybe they just haven't filled back In.

Wonder if area was trapped earlier in season before he was there also? Still 12 nothing to be down about for most men. Sure hope he gets into them yet there

What is the total to date?