I do remember quite well the running joke about the good old blue bucket…
But my question now goes to the serious side of things.
I’ve been hearing about guys using blue PVC or blue objects as attractions for coyotes…supposedly they can see blue pretty well.

Is anyone here using this technique? Can anyone tell the difference if it’s really true?
Been thinking about trying a few after Christmas.

Blue is harder for other people to see. That would be the only reason I can think of to use blue for yotes.

My opinion is you catch coyotes by their nose not there eyes. Eye appeal is a tricky thing with coyotes, it can cause refusals as easy as attraction. The guy that made pvc popular with coyote trapping has made the point many times he puts the pvc in enough cover the pipe itself cant be seen. There a reason for that. Again my opinion is there's a time and place for eye appeal but I think its a smaller piece of the pie than several other things.
If its just about getting them to see it, hang some sort of flagging above your set they can see movement better than anything.

Apparently blue stands out really well to animals that see in black and white
I heard it explained once, but can't remember the reasoning. That's why you don't want to wear light colored blue jeans while hunting.
I suppose a blue bucket/pipe sticks out well for a coyote; add a little lure and so much the better.

Maybe it’s because they see in the blue/green spectrum.

The same guy who has made pvc pipe popular and hiding it well in the grass also uses Tbones sets for the eye appeal they offer, true story. All that aside, every method works when it works, same as people, hundreds read this post asking about blue pipe, 4 of us "worked the set" so far. I would say trying it on coyotes will tell you more.

One thing I seem to notice about trapping any critter, hard work out catches gimmicks season after season.

If everyone remembers correctly, Zag perfected the pipe set because of the poor trapping conditions found in central NYS. It keeps the sets working in all types of very poor trapping conditions.

He has mentioned that the gray colored PVC seems to break less often than white while pounding into the ground. And yes, the pipe gets driven in far enough to not be exposed.

The bedding of the trap as he does it is the other half of why it works so well.

Nothing to do with blue.

I never tried blue pipe. I tried pipes one year with mixed success.
Maybe I left mine up too high?
In a flat picked bean field the short length of black pipe stuck out nicely . But so did a beached white bone, and so did a peeled fresh beaver stick. Was never sure if it was about the eye appeal in a flat field with little feature, or the bait, or the shot of coyote or fox pee.
I ended up going back to Mr. dobbins trick from his land trapping book just using a simple fire blackened piece of wood as my attractor and bait or lure holder, worked pretty well and was fairly natural.
Jim

Here is how I was using black pipe in picked bean fields. Be sure to collect em back up after the season so as to not litter the field for the landowner.

I tried Gray pvc one season when pipe set was the talk. Why Gray? because I had gray. Wasn't to much of a test because I didn't run many. Did run them where I had caught coyotes in past. Caught a couple coon and opossum no coyotes.
In my situation it didn't seem to work and just as easy to put in stand dirt hole.

Mac

I heard about blue.

Made a bunch of getter heads with blue wraps. I’ll try anything twice.

I don’t think they killed a single coyote.

If they can see it better, it certainly didn’t seem to attract them!



I stick to contrasting colors for my eye appeal. In the world of nocturnal vision movement and contrast is key.

It only works in democrat states/ regions….

a piece of pipe sticking out of the ground where coyotes normally travel will make them detour there was a study done on this on several species (if i remember correctly deer coyotes fox and raccoons) so what they did was take a pylon and put it in a travel corridor and seen how animals reacted deer approached cautiously coyotes detoured raccoons just went about their regular routine and fox i think acted similar to coyotes but the coyotes did inspect the area as soon as the pylon was removed

Doesn’t matter . IMO the pvc pipe makes the animal work harder and is more likely to get caught

The first thing I read on blue was a hunting article concerning camo, etc. Not sure of the science behind how they determine the color perception of critters but I remember it pointed out that deer were able to key in on blue and canines were more in tune with the lighter range of blue thru yellow and light greens. I see plenty of plastic molded bones on the market lately and some are already colored blue. So colored objects could be working for folks.

Do you have any experience using visual objects to begin with? If so what have been the results? Always alot of well meaning opinions/experiences shared here but only you can truly answer the question. I'd pound some into the ground in various settings and watch. In the right locations you may be able to see what coyotes tell you they like, dont like, will tolerate or won't. The one arena where pipe generally can shine is in horrible rain conditions. There can be a time and place for everything, just a matter of figuring that out and sometimes its the most minor of details that might be impactful. And just because you get a certain result for a year or three doesnt mean that things will stay that way forever.

If coyotes clearly see the color blue it could have opposite your desired response. How often have you ever seen a blue pipe sticking up out of the ground where the coyotes roam? Coyote's are neophobic. When something new and foreign suddenly pops up in their area they tend to shy away from it. There have been studies on this. Like seeing how coyotes reacted to a scented traffic cone put in an area they frequent. They were curious and would circle at a distance but would not approach. But when the cones were removed the coyotes would then check out those spots. (There is a concept of the disappearing object set.)

If you want to use a visual attractor for coyotes I suggest you use something not overwhelming but natural to their environment, like a bleached bone or small patch of staked down hide, or a small piece of charred wood.

I ve caught some coyotes utilizing the gray pvc . I would always try to hide the pipe in a clump of grass or weeds and make the coyote look for the source of smell thus as others have said, the coyote is moving the feet around more.
If my chain stakes and pipes were frozen in i would mark the spot with a ribbon and return in the spring after ground thawed. More than once coyotes would visit the set after I removed the trap from chain to investigate and would dig and chew the pipe breaking it into pieces. I think almost all sets are visited in the months after a set is pulled as their is lingering lure and bait smells.