So I have 18 traps set on some cattle trails leading to an old dead pit. Been a good spot for me producing a coyote a day every day since I set last Saturday. I drive in on a two track from an unlocked gate that I keep closed. Sets are maybe a quarter mile in from the road but not visible from a pickup. I check every morning for other tire tracks and so far I am the only one driving in there including yesterday morning. (landlord has contacted all other permitted hunters to stay out while I trap.)

I have a set on a trial about 150 yards from the pit. I get up to it, cow skull (my backing) is flipped over, catch circle is scratched up (nothing crazy like a back leg catch will do, but its obvious I caught at least a coyote sized animal. It is 5:00 am mind you so I'm working by headlamp. Well there's no animal around, and my trap and steak are gone-zo...

I came back in daylight over my lunch hour and looked and looked. No boot tracks around, not really any noticeable animal tracks around the catch circle either. I use victor #3 offsets and steak them with 30" long 1/4" rebar with a king nut welded on top. I have not in 5 years had an animal get a steak out. First thought was a hunter that got his dog caught and he took my trap, but I can find no sign to prove it. I can see a yucca and sage plant smashed up pretty good but hey are about 1 foot beyond the catch circle radius, weird. I can also see the hole that my steak came from and it looked like it was pulled straight up out of the ground not yanked out sideways.

So I pounded another steak into the bed to see if it was loose sand and that steak drove so hard its hard for me to think a coyote could get it worked out of the ground. I'm scratching my head here. I am thinking its possible somebody covered their tracks well and maybe just stole a coyote and my trap but you can't see the set from the road...catch circle looked like an animal had been there for a little while.

Thinking possibly a lion got in my trap but I would think he'd power out of a #3 before he'd pull the steak.... I am at a loss here any ideas?

How was your trap chain attached to the stake? And how long was your chain?

I have a washer attached to the chain that I tac weld shut. Chain is 18". I thought maybe I forgot to put a steak in but there was a hole where I staked it...

Wolf maybe? Maybe just a honker 'Yote. I always double, cross stake for any possible large catches.

I'm thinking it had to be a tank of an animal, I'm kind of counting out a human due to no sign.. Never seen a wolf in my area (NE Colorado) but it's possible. I have caught two big yotes at the pit this week and neither of them budged the steak. I'm stumped!

If the coyotes jump they can sometimes jack a stake out of the ground. They only need to bump it up a little to get it started out of the ground. The attachment, in this case a washer, falls to the ground them grabs the stake again, each jump pulls the stake a little, over and over. Also you said 1/4" rebar???

If it was a set that had a previous catch, it is likely the stake had been loosened in the hole and came out easily. 1/4 inch would be very small, likely actually larger??? Long ago I had several instances where repeat catches without restaking resulted in long hunts for animals that eventually hung up in a brush patch. Great big coons that circle relentlessly wear a hole worse than coyotes in the soils I trap and I can often just lift the stake from the hole with almost no effort. If tire tracks and man tracks were not obvious I would discount theft and think you have a long search ahead of you.

ADC that makes sense.... and yes I believe its actually 3/8 or 1/2, my bad, I'll have to measure when I get back home (I made all my own steaks 5 years ago when I started trapping, never had one pulled up, bent ect.) but I can see how one could get it jacked up in that manner.

CO not previous catch at that set it was a freshly staked and bedded trap. I have had steaks worked up a few inches on remakes before like you said where you could easily pull the steak by hand but never jacked all the way up out of the hole..

I forgot to mention that I looked and looked for drag marks from my steak but didn't find any. We are getting about 2" of snow here this morning so I may be able to find some tracks and steak drag marks if that yote or whatever it was is still in the area but that dog may already be long gone by now.

X2. Washers plus a the shorter chain are a perfect combo for stake pumping. Might not have happened in the past, but every animal fights a trap different. Maybe this was a coyote that jumps when caught. Once they pump a few inches of the stake, it loosens everything up, and the rest comes out easier. Double staking or a longer chain will help prevent this. But I totally get where you're coming from. Never have anything like this happen then all of a sudden you get that one animal that acts different. It sucks for sure.

What ADC said....That is why I asked about how the trap was attached to the stake.

Seriously....a 1/4" stake? I assume that is a typo so I will ask specifically, what was the diameter of the stake? And what was the inside diameter of the washer the stake went through? Those dimensions should answer whether the stake was pumped or not. It is certainly possible to pump a stake with that chain length. The only trap I will single stake on land is a DP trap.

How long of chain are you guys running on your taps? 18" is already a lot of chain to bury for me! Let me ask this as well because two sets this week I've had trap chain dug up in front of the front jaw and they avoided the set after that.. sloppy work on my end I know.. Do you all stake and bury chain directly beneath the trap? Or am I just not covering those sets with enough dirt?

Also I must be hungry or something I keep spelling it steak, not STAKE. LOL

Quiet: like I said above it was a typo... I actually had a stake in the back of my daily driver, I just checked and they are 1/2 inchers. The Diameter of the washer I believe is 3/4", but they are pretty loose around the stake. My rebar is not smooth so I can see how it would catch on that washer and get worked up if the dog was jumper. Guess I've just never caught a jumper before.

I can take a pic of my setup for you all on my lunch break so you can see how I stake, and what my gear looks like.

Coyote probably pumped stake, how long was the stake, hard ground?
Earth anchors stop that.
I have had 30" stakes pumped on snares before, but never a 37" one on a snare

Tactical the stake is 30", and yes hard ground. Even drove another stake in the bed to make sure it wasn't loose soil that caused my issue. Darn jumping coyote! don't they know to stay put once they get caught?

Easy to test the stake pumping. Just stake it down and then pull up and release and pull again. Once the stake moves, it does not take much to keep it coming up a little each jerk. And once it gets up a little ways out of the ground, I would not be surprised it the yote bit and pulled as well.

Get you some double stake swivels or chestnut rings and double stake in an X pattern. You can hold them with shorter stakes that way in solid ground.

Stakes are to short I’d rather have to much then not enough stake.

Are you running a shock spring on your set up??

Thank you for the tip Quiet, I appreciate that. I need some double swivels for sure, I figured I'd have no issue with the long stake in hard ground but nature has proved me wrong! Wouldn't mind pounding some shorter stakes when the ground is frozen either!

I had 2 yotes snared 15 feet apart I went to get my camera and turned around 1 was gone, looked things over and the one stake was shaded from the sun and the other the ground was thawed in the sun allowing the stake to be pulled out.

I would highly recommend disposable stakes. Drive easy even in frozen ground. No more lugging rebar everywhere. Isnt colorado a cage-trap-only state?