Gearing up for the season and making an inventory of equipment. I had the question, hopefully for the benefit of many trappers, what your favorite snare support is for coyote snares on trails.

I've used all four of these, some more than others, and they all work. the simple 9 wire bent in a U and driven into the ground is simple, easy to hide and effective. The small rod with the 9 wire extension is the same. However they both require a stake or some other attachment for the snare, post, tree, stake, etc.

The stake with the 9 wire gives you the snare support and an anchor for the snare but doesn't get the coyote away from the set area unless you use an extension. Which is not a problem. I like an extension.

The kill pole I've used probably more extensively than any of the others. I had great success with it in the 90s in Eastern Washington before we lost trapping with traps and snares. I snared a lot of sage brush and grass strips, often making weed eater X trails across grass strips and baiting the middle. They worked great in those situations.

I had heard you could snare really open with them and one day the opportunity presented itself to test that theory. I was traveling between ranches on a railroad service road and found a little draw in which the grass and sage brush had been burned up for a couple hundred yards up a small draw. Probably a spark from the train or a cigarette from a rail worker. In the bottom of the draw was a thin little trail through the ash and some coyote tracks. I had to drive by every check so thought I might as well give the kill poles a shot. The set was just a bare kill pole next to the trail through the ashes with the snare hanging out in all its glory. The next check I had a coyote. Thinking that had to be a fluke, I moved the kill pole up the trail a little and hung a fresh snare. Next check had another coyote. I didn't take anymore there that season so I'm convinced I caught the two dumbest coyotes that ever lived.

Fast forward to last season, my first season of coyote trapping after moving back from Alaska. I used the kill poles quite a bit but despite them being fairly well camouflaged, had more refusals than I ever experienced in Eastern Washington. So I had to start using the 9 wire bent in a U and started seeing very few refusals. I was using 5/64 snares just as I did back in the 90s.

I will be trying a mix of all four systems this season but would be curious to find out what is everyone's favorite. And perhaps there are other options I haven't considered. I like all the aforementioned because they are all pretty fast to set up.

I snare pretty open country with some timber mixed in but mostly open wheat and cattle country. I don't snare when cattle are sharing the same field.

The area I snare is high fenced and I only snare the crawl unders. I just can’t take the chance of catching a high dollar exotic or trophy deer. Texas is a different animal, I wish I had an area I could snare open country. My snares are supported mainly by 14 ga wire off the fence wire, I do keep a few 1/4” round rod with 9ga wire supports for creek curtain crawl unders. They really work well. If I can’t tie off to something I use a wolf fang anchor.

Have several t-post rigged up with #9 wire supports but haven’t had a chance to use them yet.

Killpoles are my favorite.

Next would be the "h" supports. If you don't have hard or frozen ground these are the second best you can make or buy because they don't tip or lean or spin.

The best support for soft ground is wood tobacco/tomato stakes. They don't move once they soak a bit of water into them. You can get the wood pretty cheap or free depending on the time of year you buy it. Drawback is that depending on the wood they're made from you will break a few every year especially in firmer ground

I prefer the light weight snare supports. The 1/4" rod with 9 or 11 gauge annealed wire has been a great support system for sagebrush country.

I use #9 wire, double up at bottom 6 inches use Pogo driver to drive that into the ground doesn't spin, quick and easy for me.

I use all 5' 1/2" rebar supports with pigtailed and welded annealed #9 wire. I use a home made stake driver to pound them, and a modified bumper jack to pull the ones that freeze in or are just real stubborn. I use enough wire to get the stake a foot or two off the trail if I need to to get it hidden and they are dipped as you can see, in a good exterior latex paint to keep the rust down and add a little camo.

These are my favorite supports in trails.

https://fntpost.com/product/freedom-brand-snare-supports

I second this, silkyplainscoyot! I like them because they are compact, light, and easy to carry when you wrap the #9 around the rod. A couple of taps with the hammer and they are set.

Just FYI, I have found that spray painting the flat iron bases a fluorescent color is great for finding them after a catch and torn-up circle. If they are pulled, they somehow get thrown off to the side and the paint sticks out. You cannot see the bright color when they are staked down.

Good tip, Coyotero. I've lost a few because I paint them a sand color to match the surroundings. They blend in so well they're hard to find if thrown off the trail.

The standard fnt ones posted above are my favorite on spots where I can cable to a sapling and don’t need a stake. Great thing about them is even in frozen ground when bent up you can easily just tap them in by the flat iron stake part.

I've tried all of these. My favorite is the cold rolled steel and 9 wire with the flat metal. They pound in frozen ground good and provide solid support. The others have their positives and drawbacks. I snare open country, usually grass and sparse cattle trails when things are froze solid. I use long extensions and kill springs.

I use a lot of the rod and wire style when I can get to a natural anchor (I always avoid driving stakes if I can, all my snares have a 6-8’ extension no matter what, and I’ll add two or three extensions if it means getting to a sapling, fence post, etc).

But most of my snaring is open country and done off a 24” piece of rebar with a washer and some some wire tacked to the top. Anchor and support all in one.



With modern dispatch snares there’s no need for a “kill pole” anymore. Wasted rebar and unnecessary weight.

I gotten away from #9 wire, and have gone to old electronic fence wire.
#11 pick it free at dump or this old off road dump has miles of it thrown in it.

Burn it to get galvanized off.

Double it up to about 3/4 way up, poke in ground, and couple wraparound
small brush.
Have just a strand that's visible for snare and Sammy.

Works good in even the more open country.
Still use 9 wire for beaver/ till it's gone.