How many keep track of catch rates (number of sets to catch target per day)? I've kept track of overall catch rate for the total season but some I've talked to keep track per lure. Any one do it per type of set?
When I hear discussion about best set or best lure/bait it gets me wondering who really keeps track. Shouldn't a trappers success be measured by catch rate? I know where you trap and what you trap will have a huge affect on this rate too. How do you measure improvement without knowing catch rate?I'd be intrested to hear what is a good catch rate for you? What's your guys thoughts? I understand their is a lot of variables but a guys got to measure it somehow. In past years 20 to 25/Traps per day to catch one coyote was normal here for me. This year with a shorter line and some changes I was somewhere around 12 to 13 traps/catch/day. Be intrested to hear others thoughts. I've rode traplines with others and followed what other posts when guys give us a ride along on here. It has intrigued me the various catch rate I see.

I've ran predator lines with 150 to 200 sets scattered over several properties and many miles and after 10 to 12 checks had a total (all critters) catch rate of only 15% to 20%. Calculated # of sets made divided by # of predators caught.....for that particular run.

I've ran small lines on a couple of properties with 20 to 30 sets and had catch rates 50% to 60%.....sometimes higher.

I've calculated season rates (3 month season here in Ga) by dividing total sets made all season by total number predators caught all season. More than one season my catch rate per number of sets made was around 10%....season total.

I've always told folks that I have to set a bunch of traps to catch a bunch of critters......lol. And it is true when the numbers are crunched.

I feel pretty good with my efforts if I can maintain a 2 coyote a day average on any coyote-target trapline for 10 to 14 days before pulling. I have done 3.5 (or better) per day average a few times here in southern Georgia on coyotes. These were all on 10 to 14 day runs...then pull all traps and move to other properties and do it again.

I asked a well known beaver trapper (that is on this forum and used to boast his daily and annual catch numbers...without pics btw) how many traps he had to set and maintain DAILY to have those high catch numbers that he said he caught. The guy never answered me and basically shrugged the question off. To this day I pay no attention to any posts this guy's makes about beaver trapping.

Heck! Anyone can brag on the dang internet! As long as I've been doing this...this ol'coon dont buy into much bullscat!

So I am a beginner trapper, but am always interested in data, this was something I have always wondered about with hunting, fishing and now trapping. I think the very first factor is not what bait or lure you use, but understanding your area and knowing where the animals are and what part of their movement they are in. For example this previous hunting season, I killed 2 deer, but I could have killed probably 30, and thats all with maybe 35-40 sits total. There was only a few times that I didn't see deer, I almost always saw at least one. Now I understood where the deer groups were, and kept track of their general movement based on what I saw.

Now on to trapping, I have looked far and wide and I am going to say that if you tallied up the total overall % for almost everybody it's somewhere between 0%-25%. However that curve isn't linear in my opinion, because I think there is a trade off and that is mainly how much time you spend on each set. Here is the big assume though, if an animal is going to walk by your trap, how much time you spent putting it in, will generally dictate your catch rate percentage assuming you understand what your doing. The hard part is getting the animal to actually walk or move by your set, everything works in cycles and so if you wanted to net the highest percent, you would stay in tune with the feeding cycles of the animals. Getting off on a tangent, but mine is somewhere around 10%-15% in creeks though I am sitting at a lower percentage. Not sure if that helps or makes it worse!

I was told your very best trappers will have a 15% or higher catch rate.
Your good trappers will have a 7-10% catch rate.
Your average trappers will have a 5% catch rate.

But all that can be skewed by how many days spent on the line. Let’s say you decide to trap a property for a month because it’s easy and the money is good. Generally the first two weeks are your prime catch numbers, then after that things slow down a bit. If the areas around you aren’t being trapped then those predators will eventually move in and if you’re still there you stand a chance of catching them. While you’re waiting you may have several days with no catches.

The numbers can be even more skewed by whether the property has been trapped before. The first year I hit this property I’m on now, I did it as a favor…actually for a turkey, lol. Told him one week and I was moving on to paying work. On 200ac +/- I took 22 predators off the place in 7 days with just 10 sets. Have no clue what I could’ve done had a stayed or put out more sets. But it was good enough to get a paying gig the following season and still trapping it.

I think weather can also play into your percentages as well. Get 2-3 weeks of 70-80 degree temps and numbers go down. By the same token get some unseasonably colder weather and numbers go up.

I’m average at best, but really enjoy trapping and learning.

My catch rates are always on the lower side as I tend to set heavy and move quickly. This shows up more in coon and canines for me but does impact my rat percentages as well. For canines pulling in a week with several sets creates a lower percentages as cycles are longer, but I set those lines to correspond with my coon and water lines for the most part.

Bryce

You guys talking percentage are u talking % of set to catch for the whole season or percentage of set traps that will catch each day? I look at catch rate on a per day thing. Like if I have a hundred traps set if I am at catch rate of 1 target animal per 20 sets I should average 5 catches per day. Or another way to look at it is how many days on average for one set to catch. Both ways of figuring it should come out the same. I figure days have to b figured in for an accurate analysis. If not a 100 set for 60 days will look a lot better than 100 sets for 14 days.

I put out 28 sets saturday sunday had three coyotes 28 sets monday three coyotes 1 coon 28 sets today 1 coyote same farm.

I set 34 beaver traps overnight once and next day had 31 beaver and an otter and a muskrat.

This equals out to 8.3% on coyote and 9.5% overall. I think this is common. Going a longer stretch will drop the percentage typically. There will be some trappers average over 10% but most of us will start there and go down. My first week this year was 11% but ended the year at 4.8%.

Do you have competition in the areas you are trapping? I always wondered about 2 trappers in the same proximity, what the effect would be if they just happened to never run into eachother.

I do have 4 guys surrounding me. Our lines weave together.

That's won't happen here in these swamps. There are untrapped/unmolested beaver populations scattered across the southern Ga, but ususally the beaver have turned their habitat into a quagmire of nearly inaccessible wetland...cant get to em....except at a couple locations....cant even find or walk/wade/boat to the dams.

...this is what most places I trap are like...anyway.

I do pay attention to catch rates as a matter of curiosity to me. It also helps me plan out my activities trapping wise when I know how many beaver 20 traps will likely produce.

So, I tend to set only on fresh sign. I focus on the best spots and bypass lesser ones. And finally I will go with 3-4 checks and then pull the line and move to the next virgin territory. For many years now I have no competition from other trappers.

When the weather is cooperating and river levels are not jumping all over the place over a 3 check run I will average around 35 to 40% I am very pleased when it is 50% and is basically what I always strive for. Often on the first check it is well over 50%. In particular when you throw in the odd nutria, coon or otter I pick up as incidentals.

I'm in the same range as beaverpeeler trapping uneducated beaver. I've set a few beaver traps before and came back to a beaver in every one, but never when setting more than five or six. Canines on the other hand I'd be extatic with a 5% rate. Heck, wolves I'd happy as a lamb with two mothers with a 1%.

I compliment all of you on one thing...thank you for being honest.

Most times I calculate catch rate by number of checks.

Let's say I have 100 sets out for traveling beaver.
I set on Saturday, check Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday and pull on Sunday.
Sunday I have 27, Wednesday, 35, Saturday 33, Sunday 19.

114 beaver over 400 trap checks. 28.5% catch rate. But it was 5 days of work so I averaged 22.8 beaver per day.

12.00 per beaver on the carcass. 273.60 per day trapping. If I could add in nuisance beaver contracts to that, my price per beaver would go up, but my number of traps set would go down, catch rates would likely increase due to setting on colonies.

Paying attention to catch rates helps you determine how many traps to set.

Sometimes setting less traps catches you more fur. Setting less traps and having more fur means less work for more profit. When it comes to setting a lot of traps, increasing the catch rate in any way you can helps drastically, especially when the open market is on the cusp of collapse.

I usually shoot for 5-10% catch rate per day and stay pretty consistently in that figure for coyotes. Personally I look at traps out to animals caught per day. We have a 24 hour check here. Those percentages can be up if it's the first night or two on places with higher populations of coyotes cattle feedlots/hog units etc. When I was trapping raccoons I would expect a much higher catch rate. I guess it just depends on the number of target animals available and what you are trapping. It also depends on how much ground I am covering. If I only have a short line with a dozen or traps on a couple locations to keep me happy while working or if I'm covering 150 miles a day. There's definitely a difference.

Interesting discussion. Lots of variables such as weather, set chosen, lure choices, animals trapped before...

I would almost think that the catch percentage (calculated as Yes Sir described and WadeRyan uses) would stay relatively the same no matter the size of the line. I would expect times where that percentage might be higher or lower but over the long term I'd think that average would be relatively consistent.

I wonder if the catch rate should or would be better on a nuisance job.

I've heard it said that the average annual temperature for San Diego and Death Valley are very close if not the same.

The reason I would expect the average to be higher on a 150 mile line compared to say a 10 mile line would be the number of animals encountered. If I set a dozen traps on two locations that each see 1 coyote pass through every other day I'm going to have a dozen traps with no chance to catch a coyote some days so my catch percentage will not look very good at all as you can't catch what isn't there (but when I do that it keeps me happy while I'm working). When I used to trap on vacation I'd usually only have a couple traps per square mile spread over 100-150 miles of loop. More encounters, more coyotes, and better looking catch rates.

Wade
5 to 10% catch rate per year is a pretty big swing for coyotes from one year to another for me. a 10% catch rate per day average would be awesome (never done it). 5% and I'd need answers as to what went wrong that year (I have been there before). Thinking about catch rates makes me focus more on what is really working and dial in decisions that I make on the trapline. I think I'll start breaking it down on a type of sets and lures/baits in the future also. It would be great information if when someone suggested a particular set or lure/bait they could reference a catch rate like " Joe Blows super skunk extra long call has a 9% catch rate per day for me and my overall average catch rate is 6%" or " a double deep triple dirt hole had a 4% higher catch rate for me this year than my average ".

I ran a very small trap line this year. All but one week I stayed within a half mile of my house. Best catch rate ever. But I chose this area because it's the very best spot. 12 coyotes within a half mile of my house. 25 total for the year.

^^This^^

Now if I could just work out a better way of keeping notes on all of this I could figure it out (of course I'd have to set some traps too).

I guess I missed the part where we were concentrating on coyotes for this "Catch Rate" topic. Lots of variables makes it hard for me to generalize catch #'s. If you are going to specialize on one species, with locked gates - no competition, on big acreages, and moderate weather variability - then a lot of these percentage estimates makes sense. I would guess that the vast majority of fur harvesters are part time semi hobbyist types that get real serious when the fur price is up. There are probably over a hundred trapping licenses sold to hobbyist trappers for every one sold to a "pro" trapper. I also guess that most of these hobbyist operate on farmland or mixed farm livestock land with a little public land to keep it interesting. So keep in mind the statistics from those types of situations before we go comparing wilderness Canada to wilderness Georgia. And these guys are right on with their percentages so don't think I am criticizing them in any way. The animal species they are harvesting may be pretty select whereas the fellow in Ohio, is getting a 50% catch rate on muskrats and 30% catch rate on coons. Plus he is happy to add a mink or a skunk and opossum to that # and count that. You need to include the "Therapy Rate" that most get from catching (and utilizing) all critters from a trapline in my view. Keeping a rate high is knowing how much harvest the area you are working in will provide and working efficiently to move your harvesting activity when needed (Swamp Wolf touched on his ADC aspect). And unless you take a muskrat hut or beaver colony count its a guess on your experience and observations on what kind of population you will start with. So that "Therapy Rate" sure gets a high peg in years like this for me ! ! ! ................. the mike

If I figure in "Therapy Rate" my percentage jumps to 100 the minute I leave the house with traps in the truck.

Definitely can have better percentages with small trap lines if you pick and choose the locations. I guess when I have a hobby line to feed my trapping desire it's usually a location close to home so I can get in and out then back to work. Sounds about like you did, living in a small city close to home usually equates to lower total numbers of coyotes per square mile where I am. If I go 20 miles south I can get into larger groups of coyotes but it doesn't usually work for a line before work. This year especially I've been doing about 10 hours in the office and an hour drive each way, it just didn't make sense to trap. If I wanted to set a 1/2 dozen traps on a hog unit for a night I'd be disappointed if I didn't come back to 2-3 coyotes the next day at least. Locations like that would definitely skew your catch rates as do the locations with just no population. When I am trapping for 10-14 days straight covering ground it's usually just above the 5% rate per day and that's kept me happy.

I looked back at notes from a five day run on a small before work line that was 3 square miles, 16 traps out target coyotes.
First night: one bobcat (didn't count him early and let out) five coyotes =31.25%
Second night: three coyotes= 18.75%
Third night: Blank= 0000%
Fourth night: two coyotes=12.5%
Fifth night: two coyotes=12.5%
Pulled for deer season.
Overall 15% for five days. Cleaned out a hog unit. Definitely higher than normal catch rate.

Pretty good #s Wade even if it was a short line. Definitely would scratch the itch. Thanks for sharing