That's a great-looking pile of cats. Congratulations. Sure do like the looks of your civet cats too.

What size conis are you using?
That one on the left looks like and older series 1, square cornered coni

Turtle, that is one of MTP's 160's with a kill bar for skunks. Definitely overkill for our little civets but I use them along with regular 120's.

Yeah that little gal had a very bright belly. Some of the toms were a little casty but nicely spotted as well. One or two were very very nice.... I sold a similar one to those last year at FHA's June sale and it fetched $360.

Yeah me too! Last year I averaged $60 on feet on civets at the assoc. sales. Plus $5 for skulls and $50/ for a half oz of essence (takes about 8-10 to get a half oz)

What I do won't work for everybody. But this is the deal: I have a lot of beaver carcasses; so I take them up in the woods and leave then in places that look "catty". One carcass per spot. No traps. Then after 3-5 days I come back and check the carcasses for activity. Cats will feed on a carcass for 3-4 days until it's gone. In the interim they cover the carcass so that's how I know it's a cat and not a gray fox. possum, etc.

SO now I set up the carcass best I can and i can pretty much figure that two checks will get all the cats I'm going to get. This method cuts down on travel expenses as three to four trips and the job is done.

On this recent adventure I put in 900 miles to get ten cats and four civets.

Normally I only get one cat per more or less 5-7 carcasses. But I had phenomenal success with this last batch...10 cats for 23 carcasses!

I will add it's always a question how many days to wait before inspecting carcasses. The longer the time lapse more chance it gets discovered. But if the carcass gets discovered the first night and I wait four nights it might have finished the carcass and moved on. Sometimes I find that a carcass gets hit after I've done my 4-5 day gig so I miss that one too. I often go back and look at failed spots to see what eventually happened. If a cat got it I will see the spots where it covered the carcass.

I often will set up the spot with another carcass (same year or subsequent year) and these end up being higher percentage locations.

Wow, very nice catches. My wife is always yelling at me for driving down the road and looking in the fields instead of where I am going.

I hear ya Flipper. It's what we do!

Am I going to see them cats at Prineville?

John, I got pretty poor offers at Prineville last year so I'm likely to ship this time around. My shipped cats last year did 3-4 times better than what my offers locally were. I am going to the March Idaho sale and might take some there.

You got it figured out partner !

Thanks compadre. I know you do too.

Excellent run. Also, thanks for sharing about your methodology.

So what kind of set do you put in when you discover there is a cat working it?

Do you have any visible bait laws to deal with?

Great catches!

Carl

Awesome catch. Very glad for you.

Thanks for sharing your methods too. I have never had everything come right to follow through in this method but I know it would work.
When I have the time I lack the money or the snow is too deep. LOL
Thank you sire.

DT

Yes, we can't set footholds within 15' of a carcass. Unless it's covered like the cats are kind enough to do for me.

I'm using MB550's and I try to figure out the most likely place a cat will approach the carcass from and brush it in so that they almost have to step on the pan. I certainly have misses. In fact for the day #2 run I made some adjustments where I missed the cat the day before. Since I caught some cats on day 1 I also took advantage and harvested some stinky stuff with a pencil sized stick and used that to help guide them to where I needed them to be.

Half of my catches on day two were back foot catches so I figure they were giving the spot a golden shower.

And thanks for you kind words!

I hear that Mac.

(btw, you don't have to call me sire...my heads big enough already from my big day yesterday) lol.

Last question: So you set the carcasses out and return 3-5 day later. You obviously prepared with traps as you check on if the carcasses were hit. You set up close to the carcass (thats been covered) blindly. Do you check the next day? Daily? How long till you pull em?

Appreciate all the info. You clearly have your system dialed

SO yes, I bring traps with me when I do the first inspection and check within 24 hours. If I were a really good cat trapper I might catch all or most in the first night and be done with it. But it ain't so. When I have a miss I try to see why and make adjustments. Yesterday one of the carcasses was buried in a kind of root hollowed out area. I had the trap set at the bottom of the hollow where I thought it would come in (furthest point from the road). But after the first miss I saw that it was coming in from the side and higher up. Set the trap there and poked some brush around to make that trap the sweet spot and had it by the front foot on check two.

Since my 23 carcass run was an exceptionally long one (235 miles round trip), I already had decided that two checks was the max. I had enough misses and new bobcat hits on day one that a second check was for sure called for.

And yes, I'm often inches away from the carcass. All legal in Oregon as long as it's not exposed.

PS. The thing with carcasses that cats discover is they almost always camp out on that carcass until it's gone. So you should get action in the first 24 hours.