I think your 100 percent correct, when it comes to coyotes you never quite learn it all as they are probably the smartest predator we face. When it comes to trapping I never put all my eggs in one basket. I never use just dp’s when dealing with coon , 160’s in trails , 220’s in boxes and even a 1.5 in a trail or a pocket. With beaver in my area that is made up of a network of creeks and drainage ditches, it seems like they show up educated. If you go at them with one type of trap or set construction you will find yourself humbled very quickly. I use 2 types of sets for coyotes unless you count all the variations then it would seem more like 5 or 6 lol.
All of that being said I use a lot of different flat sets and 3 types of dirt holes . Yet my dirt holes seem to out perform all others . Yes I have confidence in the dirt holes but I can’t help but think it’s more than just confidence. If so many of you think the flat set is far superior to the dirt hole then maybe I need to work harder on perfecting the flat set. Maybe I’m a little off in my trap placement or maybe it’s the urine or lure placement. The other side of the coin would be that you folks that are not having any luck with dirt holes are doing something wrong , lol I’m not trying to pick a fight here and I mean that. I would love to be more productive but I can’t catch more coyotes than what my area will produce . Last year I was out of coyotes by Christmas, I can’t catch what’s not there. I’ve been at this for over 50 years and over 30 years of it has been geared toward coyotes. I still get asked to trap a few beaver and coon every year . And it should be stated that I don’t keep notes, that being said it’s pretty easy to remember that I set 3 traps at each location at the beginning of season . One flat set , one dirt hole and maybe a different dirt hole or a toy ( pipe ) set and yet it’s pretty easy to say two thirds of my catches come from dirt hole sets while maybe 20 percent come from a pipe set. I should point out that the pipe accounts for close to 20 percent of my catch it is only about 50 percent on the first approach by a coyote.
Have I had coyotes approach dirt holes without a catch the first time ? Yes but it’s probably less than 10 percent of the time , it is almost 100 percent affective when it’s a double dirt hole. I’m not trying to brag about my double dirt hole I’m trying to figure out why one third of my sets are flat sets but they don’t account for one third of my catch ?

I would have a few marking scent placement objects that would stand out along that roadway with other lured and baited sets.

Yote and Golf, do you guys have a lot of deer in the areas you trap in?

The vast majority of my blind sets are made on deer trails.

Some of my best locations for BT sets are game trails that run through open pastures.