While talking with an amish gent while buying feed trapping came up. I told him about my success trapping around my dead pit and he told me about how his neighbor does the same thing. But he puts the carcasses inside 4 cattle panels with just the right gap on each corner to fill with a snare.

Sounded like a dynamite set to me. Maybe add in some foot holds on drags on the inside for smaller varmints.

It would be illegal here due to exposed bait, but I bet it works.

I wouldn't put any foot traps anywhere close, my beaver carcass pile has hawks and eagles walking and fighting each other all around the bait. Owls come in and do the same thing, fight all the time. They want it all to themselves, a bunch of crows too. I have a cell game camera out there so I can see it all. You would catch them all and that wouldn't be good.

Well If the panels were far enough back from the dead pile you wouldn't have to worry about any birds getting caught. And being back far enough would take care of the exposed bait laws.

Yes, you'd have to fence in a 20+' wide square here to be legal and the bait better not get moved out of the center. Then it would be legal. Couldn't do it with 4 cattle panels though like the OP said.

Set I would think that after catching one or two, the rest would become educated real fast.

Well maybe they don't have exposed bait rule In Indiana.
But he could cover the dead pile then he would be good to go on both counts. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Honestly I never read a rule about exposed bait. We don't have many restrictions. Traps bigger than #3 or 220s must be covered by water. Snairs only on private land with land owner permission. Snair loop smaller then 12" unless half covered by water.

That's about it on restrictions.

I'm always going to have a dead pit . I set near it this year with good results. I figured the restricted access would make it more productive and help keep the carcasses from getting drug in a 70 yard radius across the field.

Go for It.

Sorry to hijack your thread but I think this is a good conversation. I had three good deadpiles to trap this fall and did OK on them. However, I found much greater success in creating my own bait piles by dragging cows to predetermined locations and setting them up. If its done right (and there are a couple secrets), a bait pile is every bit as good as a dead pit. Oh, I would never pass up a dead pit, but if I have a dozen bait piles working, I can typically catch 2-4 coyotes a trip at each dead pile. That adds up real fast. Yes, its more work and it doesn't work for everyone in every location, I get that. Just saying sometimes the better option is taking the bait to the coyotes instead of trying to make the coyotes come to the bait. Just sayin.

Eric's "set of the day" he uses logs (old Xmas trees) to make a corral set around a bait.
Windrows and brush piles would have a similar effect too and cheaper than cattle panels.

Coyotes are strange critters. You can haul road killed deer out to where you want them and the coyotes are all over them In few days. And the next deer you haul out to a predetermined location and that deer won't get touched and just rots away.
I found a deer that had been pulled down by some coyotes. It was partially eaten . It was In bad place for setting traps so I moved It a few yards to a better location. That deer was never touched again It just rotted away.

We have a pile we dump hogs...nothing but buzzards touch it.
Found a dead deer and drug it there...gone in 2 nights. That first night it had been drug about 75 yards into some small pines.

I trapped on a farm where they had some sheep. The farmer had a ewe die on him he dragged it out to the back 40. It snowed a few days later and I saw where 2 coyotes actually waked right over that ewe and never broke stride. Nothing ever ate on the sheep but we did catch coyotes In the area.

I agree there is something we don't understand about that behavior. I've seen the same thing -- some animals consumed in a couple days, others never get a sniff. One thing I have found is if you open the viscera of an animal and then drag it, your odds of coyotes eating it increase. Also, if you have cut up pieces -- the size that coyotes can carry off -- they are much more apt to do so than starting from scratch to eat the whole thing. I've also found that if I dragged an animal to a good spot (open clearing area where coyotes can see all around, away from highways and other road traffic) and then left it for the coyotes to start eating on it before I set any traps, not only were the coyotes more likely to eat on it, I caught more coyotes there because of all the advertising done by other coyotes. Like I said, there are some other things at play that we don't understand but if you get them hitting a bait, you're in the clover.

I agree on using a more open area to stash your carcasses. I've placed a deer carcass back In heavy brush and never have them hit It. But a deer carcass laid out 20 or 30 yards from cover get way more attention from the coyotes. I think the coyote feels a little more at ease when he can see what's around him or maybe I should say what's not around him.
But then you find where coyotes are eating on road kills that are still In the ditch along used roads. The coyote study I was Involved In recovered several collars from coyotes that were killed by vehicles while eating on road killed deer. Or maybe they were crossing the road to get to those road kills.

Yup, shot many a coyote along the road eating a deer/cow/rabbit, etc. For every rule, coyotes seem to develop at least one exception.

Shot a coyote off a carcass along the road this winter. The cow had been fed on heavily by coyotes prior to my shooting this one. No other coyotes ever touched that cow again. On the other hand, the same week about 5 miles up the road, I shot at a coyote leaving a dead cow. Missed. Coyotes had been feeding heavily on the coyote. I set it up and caught 7 coyotes there in 3 checks. Who knows?

One constant with the carcass thing seems to be temperature. It has to be cold for them to gang up on a carcass. They seem to always be interested in dead critters all year round, but in order to really pound a carcass, seems like it has to be cold.

But then again that's not always the case. I dumped a few beaver carcasses out In the dead of winter this year and for some reason the only thing that touched them were crows and hawks. And there were coyote tracks pretty close so I know they knew they were there.

My point was that coyotes rarely gang up on a carcass unless its cold; I didn't mean to imply that EVERY TIME its cold, they will consume a carcass. Certainly during cold weather they will ignore a carcass but I have rarely seen them get aggressive about eating a carcass during warm/mild weather.