Also...I'm relating this to coyotes.

Back when we had good numbers of grey foxes, it was a given to catch doubles every time during the 1st night or 2.

… you’re gettin it … only other advice I’d give is alternate wind direction on down the road

…. But you would have caught the mate in the remake anyhow

This^^^^ Yep!

Wind direction should be considered at every set.

But, I have historically made messy-looking dirthole sets intentionally for eye appeal to maybe overcome changing winds. Those messy sets are more attractive to the bobkitties too.

That is 100% correct. Greys are suckers.

… I got a fairly decent battin average tonight lol

I would always set at least 2 or 3 sets at a location. I'm not a big coyote trapper but with skunks, coon, and deer visiting sets plus the occasional double on coyotes, I figure more is better. Red fox are making a small comeback around this area also but I been releasing most of them.

Always at least 2 sets. I cover all the wind directions for the anticipated travel route. Lots of "trash" critters where I have trapped, nothing like rolling up to a set to find a coon caught and coyote tracks all around it. Almost always like to have a clean set in the location as well. And as already mentioned you cant catch doubles or triples without more than one trap set.

.. a little more pan tension and a little less salt in your attractants would work wonders

Yep,your right on that Savell. I don't use urine much anymore and been using factory MB 550s and don't mess with pan tension much. Some of the reds up here are good size. Coon can push the upper 20s on occasion. I know heavier pan tension helps keep most skunks out.

Always 2 at each spot within 15 yards of each other, but theres reds grays and yotes here. My limited experience is i am more likely to have 2 foxes than 2 coyotes caught though. Have had coon fox doubles, yote fox doubles but never a cat canine double

…. Looks like a lot of gang setters here

fair point.

but we also have 44,000 licensed furtakers in Pennsylvania waiting for that same coyote, red fox, gray fox, bobcat.

I don't know much about your western coyotes or your trapping conditions, mostly what I know I've read here on Tman.

It seems to me that you have a much larger area to trap than the twenty or thirty, 40-80 acre farms that I trap. In between those farms are other farms that I don't have permission to trap but my competition does. There's even three farms I have to split with another trapper (because he was there first).

The home range of both reds and especially eastern coyotes is bigger than nearly all the properties I trap. Throw in dispersal and later mating season and those dogs are traveling! They are spending at least as much time on my competition's farms as they are on mine.

So it's unlikely that I'll catch those same fox in a remake or down the road in single sets. If I don't make at least two sets at each location, three and even four sets at the proven hot locations, then I feel as though I'm just giving critters away to the trapper on the next property.

I like to catch multiples when I can and like I said, you can't catch gangs if you don't gang set.

…. Yeah lugnut I’ve got thousands of continuous acres

… you’re technique in your situation sounds effective…thanks for sharing

Everything is bigger in Texas!

Depends on the time of the year. When pups are still running with their parents i will set quite a few traps on good location. I want to take them all on the first pass through, if i can get the female the others usually fall like dominoes.
Once the family group breaks up i don't gang set but generally i will have a dirt hole and flat/post set at each stop.

Well Lugnut, your reply was very descriptive of my territory. Yes, trapping those small acreages can become competitive but only in your mind’s eye BUT not all of your competition’s properties are stamped-out acreages of yours any more than the trappers are carbon copying what you do! Too many nuances to consider when trapping canines regardless of how heavy your competition is! Most all of the properties my competition were on I would not have ask permission to trap anyway!!! LOL Just because they have some acreage tied-up meant nothing to me if I didn't especially want it to begin with! Never let competition force you to do anything! Play your own game and choose properties carefully with tools you have and set them not to fight or guard against your competition but to use your acreage to it’s utmost potential as to capitalize on canine inherent behaviors.

Trapping smarter and better than your competition doesn’t necessarily mean more sets IMHO, it means making appropriate & effective sets in the right locations on your acreage and THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY OF THEM! Maybe your competition doesn’t recognize the “right locations” maybe they don’t know chit about canine trapping!. LOL

Back in the late 70’s-early 80’s I learned that red fox are the muskrat of the fields., so aggressive in nature that a trapper couldn’t help but catch’em. I mean, heck, if you missed one the 1st night, you’d have another chance the next night and until you caught the fox. Heck, many fields back in the day when everybody & their brother was trapping fox here, I’d be setting in the same field as another trapper. That’s right, the same 40 acre field! Property owners here thought of trapping as deer hunting so the more trappers the merrier! LOL If my competition was seen to be setting on poor locations I made sure I was setting on the CORRECT locations with the appropriate number of sets and spanked my competition’s butt, in the same field!!! That’s when I really learned that choosing location was so important not the number of traps in the ground and that not everybody either had good locations OR could choose good/right locations so I quit worrying about competition and paid even more attention to inherent behaviors as I could see that knowing the animals inherent behaviors was the answer to my success and my competition or paying attention, just putting in dirt hole set after dirt hole set but not knowing why, just more sets equaled to them more catches, was why I quit concerning myself about other trappers.

You are absolutely right Seldom. It's all about location. On most of the properties that I've been trapping for any length of time, I've narrowed down the top locations to where I can set one or two locations on sixty acres and be confident that I'm catching at least 80% of the fox that travel that farm.

I'm still going to make at least two sets at each location, three and four sets at the proven hot spots. I've caught enough doubles and triples over the decades that, to me, it's worth the extra effort of making and maintaining those extra sets.

I always set two traps at certain times of the year.

March and April, if you’re not setting two you’re probably doing yourself a disservice.

If I get a bred female pinned down first, it’s almost a guarantee the dog will hang out till he’s caught, if there’s a set there to catch him.

Pinch the dog first, and she may very well light out for the territories. Not always, but usually it seems. Wimmin.

That time of year it is not often I have a bred female in a trap and not have her man right there too. If I have a single, it’s either a yearling un-attached dry coyote, or the male.




A live coyote at a location is a big attraction at a location most of the year, and certain times of year a HUGE attraction.