So, hopefully this will start some discussion. And let me preface this by saying, I am well aware that you will not catch, or even catch the attention, of every canine or cat that walks past your sets. So, what have you found that can increase canines committing to working your sets and therefore having more foot movement and higher chance of a catch? The reason I ask, I'm not new to trapping, started when I was 10 and 35 now, and pretty much always have focused on land trapping, it's what I enjoy. At the same time, I have never considered myself a "great" trapper. I can catch critters, yes, few fox and a couple coyotes every year. But it seems the last few years have been way off for me, even with relatively low numbers every year, they've been way down from normal.

I do not belive this to be caused by a small population of animals as we always have plenty of sign of canines, tracks, scat, etc.

What i have noticed, through tracks in mud, snow, and on sets, is most often the animal will either pass by and not break stride, or appear to come up, take one sniff, oftentimes close enough to leave one track on the set, and continue on its way. This leads me to believe that the majority of what I am catching are simply hitting the pan on that first step, not necessarily committing to and working the set. Again, I am aware not every animal is going to break stride to investigate a set, I've always said that animals are like us, my lure may be offering burger king and they're in a McDonald's mood. however I feel something may be going on that they are not committing to the sets. The lure im using is from a reputable lure dealer, and same with baits. When setting and resetting I'm spending as little time as possible at the sets, although I have never completely bought into the human scent issue. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with possible reasons, and about the only thing I could possibly narrow it down to as a possibility is contaminated wax, although I am not convinced that this is my issue.

Again, hoping this will start some discussion.

Use bait and or lure that they want to eat.

Hard to say, here are two good examples in the snow. One they just took a sniff and one they worked pretty hard. That was a dirt hole and the trap was froze down due to freezing rain. Luckily I had a bone set about 10ft away that was still working and nabbed him by the back foot. I think that was enough weight to help set that trap off. On the one that they just took a sniff I had already caught 5 coyotes at that spot all on bone sets. Always good to have a couple different sets available for them, but even then they are unpredictable, which is why I love the challenge of trapping them!

I've seen very popular lures and baits that weren't very popular with the coyotes.

We use baits and lures as attractants, if they aren't doing the job then they aren't doing there job.

Two scenarios
1 the coyotes are just simple onto the trapping thing or
2 the baits and lures aren't that good
Or a bit of both.

This is assuming your on a good location and the coyotes are passing down wind from the set and smelling it. Which from your description it sound like your good there. Obviously the hungrier they are the bolder they can be but I feel like a good bait or lure work despite how hungry they are.

Most lures are designed to attract trappers, not canines. Beaver castor being the exception here. I use loud skunky lures at marten sets, but never for canids. I set blind mostly, but urine is the go to for me if anything

On HobbieTrappers stick bait post.That fox just about devoured the end of that stick.Thats the kind of bait or lure that you want.When they do that all kinds of foot placement then.

We have a yard cat that came home with a trap mark on his paw, I have caught him before but it wasn't me this time. I didn't know anyone else was trapping around here, still don't know who caught him. Who is your competition? Does anyone really know?

The sets are on good locations, setup so the animals are passing downwind.

As for lure and bait, I have tried many different over the last few years, and finally this year decided to keep it simple and run a few from Carmen. Having said that, it's possible the canines just don't want that.

This could be part of the issue as well, competition. We don't set our first trap of the year until after deer rifle season ends, so by that time I'm sure many of these critters have walked past many sets and smells, plus being still worked up from deer season. I know no one else traps the same properties we do, however I know a couple very reputable local guys that trap properties very close by, and they get in earlier in the year than what I'm able to

This is very true. A friend and I were talking the other evening, and he made the comment, "being a successful lure maker nowadays is just as much marketing as it is lure making", and i believe he hit the nail on the head with that.

Using cameras show a lot of different responses, I have cameras on my own land and not very many coyotes . Once the dumb ones are caught it may take a couple months to catch the wary ones. Now some there's no way to tell em apart from others unless you can see something to distinguish it. Last winter had a coyote show up face had a lot of white on it, he was going by 4 locations with 3 traps per location daytime and nighttime never stepping on pan about every 3 days. Lots of different baits and lures different types of sets . Now I have a lot of different baits and lures and I mean alot , so I got more different baits. Then I see one bait he was showing more interest in. Than anything else so I started using it in a newly made set same location caught him at 10 am in February his teeth were half gone. In my opinion give em something different is all you can do but some coyotes cannot be caught.

Some days they walk right by and some days they act like they can’t get in the set fast enough.
As you can see from the comments there’s one on here that would catch every coyote on the planet, but apparently he doesn’t trap so take responses with a grain of salt, lol.
When you find the “magic” lure and bait that catches every coyote that comes by, please share your findings.

I almost decided not to respond to this question because a year ago it was this type of question that an individual got personal with me and I was banned for a year so I’d rather not get myself in a confrontational position again but-

I had 3 people contact last week alone asking the same question as the OP. Here in MI we have a firearm deer season the extends from Nov and 2/3 of the way through Jan! Just outside the City Limits people are dumping deer carcasses, there are wounded deer, the woods is full of non-stop gut piles and a ton of deer/auto roadkills on top of everything. It’s been my experience that food-type scents don’t work very well here at this time of year but neither does gland scents and curiosity scents are marginal at best. Yes, there are no “silver bullets” but there are scents or a combination of scents that will change a coyote’s mood to one of desire. The old “I want it, I need it, I gotta have it” mood. Sort of like my old beagle who just had to do a shoulder dive into a fresh cow pie. She didn’t want to eat it but she’d change from a hunting mood/mode in an instant to a different mood and she just had to do the dive & smear! I think it was in Gary Jepson’s video that he mentions this time of year and the coyote’s lack of response to scents.

I’ve seen it often during testing when there will be a coyote going through the video doing their 3.4 mph trot, head up and ears forward and that coyote isn’t in a eating mood, or hunting mood, or a mood to (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman), it’s head is in a traveling mood. There are some scents or combos that will stop that coyote and turn it to the set even to the degree you’ed think they had been slapped alongside their heads for a change of mood. IMHO it’s to late for those having commitment problems this late in the season, remember insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It’s too late to mess around experimenting and trying different scents on the line to find a “mood changer” when time is running out on the fur quality. If you are having commitment problems earlier in the season, you best be searching for a better lure/bait or combo that slaps’em but that’s then a nd this is now! There are fewer bold coyotes to be caught since folks have been trapping for a couple of months and of course, if you have night-hunters with the thermals you just flat out have fewer coyotes and none seem to spend much time at old stall-out locations. My best advice to those with commitment problems at this time of year is to quit using scents now and move to blind trail setting and/or Mafia sets and kill some coyotes before the fur starts breaking!

Reasons why coyotes won’t commit to a set.

Reason 1: They didn’t smell it.










































































Reason 149,527: Theyre paranoid from everyone screwing with them and steer clear of anything with a hint of castor, skunk, mink, rat, asafoetidae, tonquin, human, or other common trapping scents.



It would be a LONG book!

This is what makes trapping so rewarding and frustrating at the same time.

I have the luxury to trap 10 months a year. So I chase coyotes in every mood, weather, hunger, sex, etc cycle. Yes, different scents work more at some times than others. But there are always exceptions. I have a barn full of baits and lures. Store bought and homemade.

Our coyotes are shot, trapped, snared 12 months a year. The only easy ones are September pups.

When I’m on a ranch with some coyotes who have seen it all, the only thing that will catch them is a mafia set. I have proven this to myself many times over. They are a pain in the butt to set and keep working. The deer, exotics and cows set them off constantly. But they will catch the tough ones because there is no defense against it.

With other sets, I can let my dogs run alongside my side-by-side. They have been caught too many times in regular sets. But I can’t do it if I have mafia sets in the ground.

I'm not a trapper...only trap racoon, skunk, groundhog that move into hay barn.....with more and more coyotes in area.......am working on a permanent live catch cage coyote trap.....many on this site have mentioned it's a futile attempt.......and respect professional tappers knowledge......but I have to try........as far as bait....I found out by accident with groundhog carcass.....weather was in 90s....too hot to dig hole.......I wired it to post.....when it started to expand.......coyotes showed up on trail cam......6 sets of eyes .....next nite carcass was completely gone......before fall with last groundhog catch.....buried it covering with 6 inch dirt.......camera showed same thing......this coming year I'm going to freeze groundhog carcass for using on my coyote cage trapping attempts.....also in day time they are in hay field at 2 spots where field tile is blown out.....loaded with voles and field mice......what I see decaying groundhog and live voles and mice......coyotes trip over their own feet to get to.........but I've been wrong before........

We are getting lots of thermal hunting going on in our state I am finding out from walk ins to our facility this season. So that factor alone can really impact your catch potential, due to population and impacted animal behavior. Years ago the coon hunting and calling had some impact also back in those boom days just due to the activity in the fields and woods at night.

It isn't what you are doing wrong or what you are using at times. Animal behavior is impacted by many criteria and that is just a fact.

I started running trail cameras over sets and it was extremely humbling!!!! I have watched countless critters from beaver to fox to coons even walk by sets within feet!l on the downwind side !!!!! I always seem to have a decent catch but my rate of uncommitted animals blew my mind!!!

I went through the motions with this same issue. I would catch some animals, but I also missed a lot and a lot of the misses came in the form of one step in the pattern for a sniff and gone. I think a lot of people (through luck or skill) construct their sets where the animals hits the pan the first time in like you said. I’m not that good most of the time so I need all the attraction I can get. As such, I spent a bunch of money on different baits or lures and started punching holes. All throughout the year I would do it and watch via trail cam or just hole reaction. I also kept detailed notes during season. Doing this separated the wheat from the chaff in what I carry in my bag. I still have plenty of misses, but seem to get better reactions and at the very least have a lot of confidence in what I’m carrying.

If you are on places that are conducive to do this, I would bury big baits. Either big in size (whole beaver, deer, etc) or big in volume (pounds of ground meat, scraps). Once they start hitting them you can then go in and set. This is going to congregate the predators to an area and they are going to come in with food on their mind. I live in an area with bunches of prey and a long deer season and it seems to work for me. I’ll often start dumping carcasses and scraps in specific areas to get the coyotes used to working them then come set traps when I’m ready. I only do this on places close to the house, but anywhere you could make it work for you would be good

This all makes sense in my head, thank you for the advice. As I said, we start right after our 2 week long rifle deer season ends, so I know the predators are already worked up from being trapped all season, the. Shot at for several weeks, as well as full bellies from gut piles and wounded deer.

I have tried different lure and bait combos, and to some degree have found some that they definitely like more than others. And I agree on the definition of insanity, which has me making little tweaks each season to see if anything makes a difference.

Mafia sets are something I have not tried very much, as I don't have much knowledge on them, but I will have to do some research and give them a try