I want to do a lot more snaring for coyotes this year. My question is, when I tie the snare off to a tree is 3 or 4 ft extra cable too much?

Just more chance of entanglement

How many coyotes have you snared?

1 my 1st year 2 last year. This is my 3rd season trapping.

Sorry, was asking NTO.

Good luck snaring this year, Spike.

Oh, yea I'm trying to figure this snareing thing out. Don't know if slack cable will cause a miss or if it's ok..

All length does is let them get a run at it and tighten the snare down. I snare open ground and run 5-6 foot snare with a 6-8 foot extension. It will not hurt a thing.

And so it begins... again.

Great. Thanks, appreciate it.

Yep. I like a long snare. Especially with kill springs and triggers. Also gives me a better chance they'll entangle around something off the trail and I'll be able to reuse the same bottle neck.

Likely not enough depending on how big the tree is and how far the tree is from the snare

Misses with a snare is more of a function of a sloppy snare support or bad loop height off ground or too big a loop. Snare length isn't a factor unless it leads to the former sentence.

Little o how many coyotes have u snared???

Spike, I’ve probably asked before what part of VA are you located in? Newt on here might chime in, he also seems really knowledgeable on snaring. Eric

I live down here in DeWitt, Dinwiddie County. I have a bunch of coyotes that I can't seem to get with a foothold trap. But I have gotten 3 with snares. I figured maybe snaring them is the way to go. I just don't know a whole lot about it.

Thanks Spike, I’ve never snared so I’m no help there. Eric

This is 8 hours and 25 Min too soon!

Length is good. When I remake my snares I go longer than what I used to. Check your laws, is there a maximum height you can anchor your snare or is there laws there about entanglement.

Lots of different factors in this question.
Do you have entanglement laws and need to use relaxing locks, or can you use kill locks?

Here I prefer a 13ft (7ft snare and 5ft extension) snare with my cam locks and kill spring. It’s the longest length I can run before I start getting coyotes blowing out my 285lb breakaways. I prefer long snares when running kill locks as it will usually get the coyote away from the snare location and tangled up dead which allows me to hang a new snare in my pinch point. In open county length gives the coyote time to build up momentum to “set” the kill spring.
Length of snare should have no effect on catching coyotes, just make sure that once snare is hung the loop has to close completely and a fairly good force applied before cable moves from your support wire.