Whats a good, cheap predator bait that works?

Gophers have worked good for me in the past. Horse or venison is good. Have even used canned dog food with success.

Mice

How would you go about freeze proofing it? Glycol? Salt? Both?

Mice are usually available. Catch a bunch and grind them up whole. I have mixed salt with mine.

A variety of canned or dried cat food, dog foods.

Ground hog works pretty good.

Woodchucks

fish will catch almost any fur-bearer. beaver dont seem to attracted to it. once in a while it will catch a rat. cats and coyotes sure like it. i prefer salt for preserving fish if im not going to freeze it. freezing it is what i generally do. let it get a little ripe then freeze. a little ripe. i dont worry about freeze proof. froze fish chunks are why god invented hatchets. wax paper was invented to wrap it in for freezing. sometimes, especially for coon bait i grind it. whole fish. put in ice cream tubs to freeze it. if it is froze solid when you want to set, dump the froze chunk out on wax paper and give it some whacks with a hatchet.

Ground hog would be a cheap bait right now ! But groundhogs work well also !

Your in Canada and if prices hold i assume you will knocking down $100 coyotes so i would focus more on the good than the cheap.

Good and cheap don't always go together. Lots of things with any odor potential will draw attention from animals. Determine the natural food sources in your area and begin collecting the raw materials.

I think any muskrat and beaver you catch is very good bait, I've had moderate success with fish and ive made a chicken based bait in my garage from scraps at the butcher shop, where I get the leftovers for nothing and that has produced very good results

Here in KS 10 below (f) is cold. Doesn't stay that way more than a few days most winters. Predators are not near starving all winter. They don't need near so many calories as they do say in the rockies where nights especially can be brutal. When its cold, and its been cold awhile, stuff isn't to picky. If its food, put where they can find it, they will be interested.

I do much better down here on a prepared bait. All spiced up. They just dont have to go hungry very often or for very long in this part of the world.

Lazarus on here graciously put this post up. Pretty darn cheap and it works

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3378883/BAIT_...Making_Bait#Post3378883

There are a lot of baits that are cheap to make. Its the time, wasted materials, knowledge and testing needed to develop a good formulation that make it expensive. And yes Lazarus graciously shares a lot of valuable information on here.

Danny I concur with your post. I spent many years trapping coyotes and just about any other fur bearer around here with salted carp chunks. Caught them in summer, which was fun way to spend a summer day when the cotton was flying in late June. Then we just chopped them up and packed them about 3/4 full in clean empty 3 quart plastic ice cream pails with canning salt. I let them cure for a few weeks and give them a stir once and awhile. Canning salt did a great job of preserving them.
I used that bait in cages for coons and cats, in dirtholes for coyotes, fox, coon, badger, you name it everything around here loves fish.
Easiest and cheapest all-purpose trapping bait to make in my opinion, hands down.
Jim