Just completed 20 days of DP trap-only coon trapping on a large pine forested tract. Landowner wanted coon and possums only removed. 2 small creeks run thru property, but coons NOT concentrated anywhere. 1 deer feeder on entire place....over 5000 acres. Never caught a coon at that feeder. I was given access to about 3000 of those acres. It was rough getting a DP in front of a coon. I ended up with 57 coons and 1 possum. Checked a bunch of empty traps daily. Changed up DP baits....multiple times. Kept bait mostly fresh and that helped some. It was a tough job to produce results...but it paid pretty good. Glad it's over.

They can't all be fun with great catches...

Coons down here ain’t as easy as some think unless you can find a serious creek crossing. I’ve caught them in coyote traps where you’d never expect to find a coon.
Good work with DP’s only! I’m about to start a place where he saw a beaver and had a coon the other night on one feeder and a possum on another, lol. This property was high fenced last year and I trapped it twice. Not a whole lot of critters left. They thermal hunt it as well. I’ll give it a week or so and move on.
I can only imagine how you feel using DP’s only and playing the guessing game on coons, lol!

Good Job Swampy-Were you able to salvage any pelts or just not worth it.

Way to stick it out Swamp. Surprised that you caught only one possum. I've caught quite a few in DPs, by the foot and jaw.

Up here we trap a lot of coon around water but there are lots of hardwood coon's too. Some of my nicest furred boars come from the hard wood. Finding toilets around big trees, denning trees and field edges are great spots here. Also any leftover food sources like corn fields are magnets

Boco,
No pelt value. The landowner made contact with some culturally diverse local residents that live on my way home. They left a cooler under carport and I dropped coons off there almost daily. The landowner preferred the meat was not wasted and I agreed...

Some pretty southeastern piney woods but it was TOUGH to find the coons...

Oh...and the right cv axle joint popped on my Honda SxS...so I've been using the Tundra for past week. I highly prefer trapping off the SxS...

Interesting fact:

1) the male-female catch ratio was 75% males-25% females.

2) the adult-juvenile catch ratio was 75% adults- 25% juveniles.

Endeavor to persevere lol

Wouldn't find many coon in place around here look like that. Not unless has major crop land mixed in or around it. If it's all them pines like them pictures.. I'd say you done pretty well.

Mac

There are several 2 to 3 acre deer plots, but all are planted in rye, wheat, and oats. Nothing there for the coons in January...all acorns (what few there were) have long been gone.

I kept track of the male/female ratio on my line for 13 consecutive years ,One year it was 54 % male and another year it was 56 % males 4 other years it was in the 60% range and the other 7 years it was 71 % males up to 76 % males . That ends up being 66 % for 13 years .I have some thoughts on how /why that happens .But the temps I am coon trapping at are far colder than what you are likely dealing with .So maybe my thoughts are way off base .

Lay it on me....I'm always interested to hear what's going on.

I can also add that nearly all the females and juveniles were caught along the creeks. The males were caught about 50-50 wetlands vs the high piney woods. And, I've seen this before during this time of year.

Btw...the coldest night I had on this trapline was mid-30s. Daytime highs hit 80s a few days. Best catch nights were those in the 30s......slowed to nothing when lows only got down into 60s.

Well to start with I do not get to involved with my trapping until mid Dec . That is when rifle deer season ends here in PA . And I run a mixed line for coon, fox, mink , and coyote .The temps can be all over the place It can be 60 and 6 degrees the same week Or pouring rain changing to snow before it stops .So sometimes it may be the start of Jan. until I really get to trapping coon .I also find that the female and juveniles are caught near the water .And the males might be anywhere My theory is on the coldest nights if the females and juveniles do not move much They are denned and might eat close to where they are holes up As for the males with the mating season getting started they will move anywhere anytime to where they hope to find a mate .I was told as a new trapper that coon would den up for the winter and it was not possible to trap them during the worst of the cold months But my records show that is not true for my situation .Some of the best coon that I catch each season are on nights that the temps are in the single digits .And we do not get a lot of days that the temps are that low .If I have sets in travelways and more sets in spring seeps in wooded areas I will catch some coons some days .And if we get a warm spell after 4 or 5 days of colder temps they are really moving and you can add them up pretty quickly .I rarely have more than 35 traps set at any given time but I have 8 to 10 coons in a good week .And in one season I had a least one coon for 13 consecutive days and had about 20 for those 2 weeks .The key for me is to set up sets in places where they sleep and also make some dry land sets in places where they travel .

Sounds like a tuff gig swamp. Looking at empty traps gets Pretty boring

if I have to catch coons, my 220s and white buckets outperforms DPs.

Alot of my dps have hot pink duct tape on them, I started doing that just so they wouldn’t get run over but soon discovered that the pink ones seem to out catch I think because they get noticed better.

I'd of like to had about 4 or 5 dozen 220s and the boxes/buckets to go with them. All my DP are white Zs. I'm positive that helps.

I had / have a job to remove coon at a farm much smaller than this but impossible le to get I knew where they were but they would come through like once a week or so

Easy to see why. Wow!

Swamp I’m surprised those 60 degree nights didn’t have your line filled with possums.

You did very well for what you had to work with, IMO. Nice job!