This season I have caught two young cats and released them. We have a lot of snow so I simply packed it with my feet, set down the bait cup, then cage over. I wiggled the cages in a bit and snow came up thru the bottom which I then tamped down by hand to sort of match the packed snow out front. Cats walked in fine it seems.
I did try putting a sprinkling of used house cat sand inside back behind the pan for that smell. Nothing outside. Did this help, not sure. I did not find any tracks from a bigger mature cat coming around that might indicate a more wary/aged cats refusal.
For me a longer limb maybe 6’ on top back of the trap coming forwards and up a bit, overhanging the front maybe 3 feet a dab of long call on that end. Then teepee it up with whatever pine bows on the sides up and over and the back. Now with winter here the thaw is not really an issue.
My cages have swinging doors so I have to extend the front “tunnel” to make sure snow does not blow in. Here I see the most cats as incidental visitors on my canine bait piles when they are located in tight groups of young bushy pines or deep grassy swamp edges so that is the type of cover where I put the cages and the smell does more than the visual I believe.
I have conversed and learned a lot from Mercer and others, I am still a newbie to this caging so to speak.
I run MB650’s for foot holds and have not had any of them not come up thru masons sand. I do keep it a very thin skim over top of those traps, cats don’t care.
I do wish Minnesota would stretch the trap check time on cages. They are a blast to use and so easy on the cats wether released or not. I have seen in this country in January where there will be 2 bigger cat tracks running together. I don’t think they are actually running together but males starting to follow females prior to breeding. With a longer check time I’d like to do a double cage set, letting hopefully the first caught a female lounge a day or two and draw in the male.
Osky
