I trap in the same areas.... set many traps in the exact same spots.... as I did over 50 years ago. Although some sports have changed and many farmsteads are long buried ( a D 9 cleans up an old abandoned farm quickly) many spots are just as they were back in the late 60s and early 70s. Born and raised and been in the area for all my almost 65 years. I farmed, raised livestock, and a big plus was working at the local grain elevator for 15 years. Got to know all the farmers for miles around. Times are really changing though. Many of the landowners I had a relationship with are starting to pass away. Young heirs are selling land to absentee or non local owners. And if there is water under a farm many get the bulldozer treatment of every tree or building or pasture left on a farm and a pivot and well gets placed on it. Years ago a family lived on 80 or 160 acres, and made a living. Now many are farming 2000, 3000 or many, many more acres. Some a bunch more. And yet still can't get enough. Necessity? Want? Greed ? Don't really know.

I was going to do a piece last year during my “ride along” videos but never got around to it.


The picture below covers two properties. The one in yellow was the property my great grandparents owned and where my grandparents lived when they moved here from Brooklyn, Md. My dad was 15yo at the time. They shortly purchased the place in white. I caught my first coon where the white arrow is, my first grey where the grey arrow is and my first red where the red arrow is.




The family no longer owns the property but the current owner does not live there and has us tend the property. I still trap it and it’s my first stop. Some of you may know it as the stop with the Power Line pole.

Still trap the same ground that I did in late 1980s and early 1990s.
Can't trap where I did growing up...too far a drive and not even sure the old pasture and creek along the blue river North of Wilber even exist today.
Jim

Here is coyote from about 1990, this was a cattle pasture back then on right side of fence, field on left side. Same farmer owns both sides of the fence. Note the little drainage creek/waterway behind the coyote about 20-30 yards.



Same spot...about 10 years later. I think this was 2001 and i know it is same spot. Was still a cattle pasture on this side of fence. Though at this time the old barb wire fence was gone and he just had electric fence around it to block off his field you can't see to left of this spot.
Drainage creek in background.





And here is same ground last fall and that coyote is within roughly 50 or so feet of the spot in the old pics above. Today as you can see the pasture has been tilled back into farm field, fence is gone, but the drainage creek/waterway is still right about where it always was. It now serves to also divide two different fields on this same farm. And as you can see, coyotes still travel it today. This big old empty stretch of farm ground with this little weedy waterway creek through it is sandwiched between to properties that are full of big weedy NRD lakes and stands of mature trees. If you can't trap the ground with cover, trap the crappy ground next to it. That has been my approach for decades.
This is the most nostalgic area for me on my line and this little waterway is literally a highway for coyotes going between the two properties with more cover. I know i average 3-4 coyotes a season from this stretch along this weedy drainage waterway over the years. Over past 30 years it has to be my 100 coyote spot. Gave up a lot of dogs very consistently over the years.




If you guys want me to, I still have a bunch of #2 and #3 longs that I used here back in 1990. I can set a couple here and post up the catch pic.