Going to spend a few days a lake with family this week. Wanting to rot down some fish ( bluegill, bass, catfish ). In hopes of making a draw station, milling, or rolling area. Not sure how effective something like this would be. Just trying to find an edge for summertime work. I do have 2 questions though. Should I use all the fish minus the fillets or should I remove guts? Also do I need to add any water to bucket to aid in getting the breakdown process going?
Thanks in advance

Keep the filets, chuck the guts no water needed.

Yep this ^^^

x2

You guys are prepping for a great year of skinning skunks and possum.

Love skunks, possums no so much lol

With the hot temps where you live I would think the ants and bugs would work that material over with the buzzards pretty fast and the rest will evap pretty quick.

Let the ants eat all they want. I’m just trying to get some stink in the air to get a coyote in the area.

My idea is a strong fish juice that soaks into the ground and gets a coyote milling around area. I guess I should of been more clear in post. No intention of using at set. Thanks again

coyotes love to drag around a deer hide. i dont know why and dont really care why so long as can take advantage of that fact. tie one down so it cant be drug off. dump some rotted fish stink on it. hang lots of snares. you will get a few coons but you wont get possums and skunks. they will go under. might knock some loops down but you wont have to fool with them. stay back 10-15 feet you wont catch any buzzards. that hide and that stink will last a good while.

chop up some carp whole and freeze a couple days.. drill a small hole in a five gallon bucket lid and stick one of these in to vent it. freeze the carp to kill any fly eggs, put the frozen chunks in the bucket with a lid on and set it out in the hot summer sun for a month to get your stink

https://www.amazon.com/Pawfly-Cylin...Y2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Thanks Danny that’s a good tip

Without substance to support the odor predators won't linger about very long typically. The ones that investigated early on to the odor placement may not return. New coyotes to the area may visit and do the same in the next go round.

If you know a few dairy or beef farmers ask them what they do with there dead cows. some still drag them out to the back 40, Or maybe you came across the bones of one in your scouting. Some times its just one, some times a regular cow grave yard I found three and it took two trips with the jeep to get them. Doesn't matter how old they are either. you can use the stinky ones if you can stomach it but wont matter to the canines. Save a couple boxes of the smaller bones and teeth to place at some of your sets. Take the big leg shoulder hip and rib bones and put then at your desired draw station. The canines Will continue to return and mill around urinating and it will become a regular hot spot. If you can find where pack territories overlap and or migration travelers pass through and do this you will have a top notch location that will continue to produce Collect all these bones you can during the summer. If you can't locate cow bones check with your local warden.Tell him what your planning and see if he can direct you to some road killed deer bones or maybe they know where a farmer has recently lost some livestock to predators. There's a win win situation,
If you feel you just have to put something out for them to sniff before the season use Good Urine (on the bones). It wont spook them or make them wise and they just have to check it out.

It’s my hopes that some spots I create will become like the old dead cow that coyotes just gravitate back to check out, pee on a bush or roll in it. I’ll set these up on location so I won’t be trying to draw coyotes from long distance.

Ive seen where coyotes kept returning to bones. They will return to drag around an old deer hide tossed in a pasture also. Heck they will chew on shotgun hulls somebody was to lazy to pick up. For whatever reason rotten fish smells like perfume to them. They want to get it in their fur

We tried bass after filleted in our drop down hog trap just for fun and buzzards is all that came in besides a few deer to check it out and hit what little corn was remaining. Trap sat in that spot for almost 4 weeks, before we got hogs on camera at a different spot.

Disclaimer: We don’t have a large or even medium coyote population due to trapping year round. Just get the occasional roamer.

Old bacon grease, fish grease, old cooking oil....pour into shallow hole
At a good location. Wont attract many buzzards but k9s will dig, dig, dig...

Last summer I took some fish carcasses and buried them in deep dirt holes, then set cameras on them. Coyotes (mostly pups) came in and dug them all out and carried off what they could. After the carcasses were all gone, the coyotes kept coming back to sniff, roll around and just generally hang out. It may be like Bob says that they got the substance (the carcass) so they came back to check it out to see if they had missed something or the bait had been replaced. On the other hand, I've rotted down all sorts of fish over the years and spread it around the countryside with cameras on it. Generally speaking, coyotes showed mild interest in it . . . some none at all, unless I added something to it like rotted snake juice, grease, urine, etc. I'm a firm believer that in my area, fish adds to the attraction of other smells, but as a stand alone, it is relatively weak.