Sw I get trimmings from smoked meat from a restaurant. I get them hitting it and then set. I have set on sign using it and have caught with it on the first night.The biggest issue I have is fire ants this time of year.

I'm experimenting with some old baits I had on hand.

Commercial bait: 1) Lucky (made by Rusty Johnson)

Made by me: 1) Smoke liquid mixed with ground beaver tail, 2) Nelson-type with bobcat meat base, 3) ground/tainted deer meat with no additives.

Four locations. Dug holes straight down 15" deep in logging roads. Dumped about 8 to 10 ounces of bait in each hole. Camera on each hole. Camera have been there for months. Coyotes have no fear of the cameras at these 4 locations.

Been out 6 nights. Have had visits at 3 of the 4. Only one with no visits is the Nelson-type bait. Several pics of them walking by after the 1st and 2nd night. NO DIGGING at any of them....yet. No aggressive interest.

Gonna add ground fish and some skunky stuff in a day or two.

Bait hole is located where the coyotes with their nose to the ground is.

And how about the 1st pic? Bait hole is between the rabbit and the coyote...lol

Bobcats paying zero attention to the bait holes.....

Swamp do you have any issues with ants if so pour a large amount of used cooking oil that you fried fish with. It will keep the ants at bay for a day or two.

Yes....ants everywhere. Will try some fish grease, too. I think i have some in my shed.

Odd that no coons or possums have visited...yet.

8 to 10 ounces???? Are you trying to feed them or test the bait? I always test using the same amount i trap with. The amount you use definitely can affect your results.

I've tried lightly tainted ground deer with no additives other than SB to stop it, and glycerin to keep it from freezing. While I did catch a coyote on it once, I had very little interest in it when using golf ball to baseball sized gobs. Yet use a quarter of a deer and I would get a lot of interest. I took a gallon of that ground deer meat and added 8 ounces of a lure I discontinued making (due to its extreme attraction of nontargets) and that bait elicited a lot of interest. More so than the lure alone (although I never tested the lure down a hole, since I designed it as a flat/post set lure, so not apples to apples comparison).

It was old prepared baits......not lure.

Not really testing as it all caught many coyotes over the years.

Just putting it out there to see if it generates a "digging to get to it" response. Never get to know that with a trap set.

So far, none of what I've put out has generated that response on May coyotes. They are doing the "curiosity" stop and sniff, but no digging to eat it.

For me if they won't dig it, it doesn't have enough attraction. Ive also caught a good amount of coyotes on baits and lures that were mediocre at best on the attraction scale. Not hard to do if you got good number of coyotes.

Also the reason they will dig for it isnt always to eat it

The farm store had Brownings (I forget the exact model) on sale back in 2015-16ish.

Got three of them I think for $89.99 on sale.


Wish I would have bought a dozen!

Agree^^^^^

The coyotes I'm messing with trot these logging roads nightly. They may not be hungry enough to dig for anything as peak fawning time is upon us here.

I have a few partial containers of various baits and I figured I'd see if I could get digging reactions. May not happen this time of year with what I'm using.

For draw station set ups I use a 3" auger hole down a couple feet if possible, and pour in a gal or so of our leftover trout fish paste, sludge / juice and mix it in with feed grade bulk oatmeal. I put these out placed over all of my trapping areas in pre chosen locations.

The oatmeal gives the juice, bones and residual trout oil some substance. It absorbs much of the fluid.

We get lots of digging and a variety of animal visitations. Put out in the Spring before the pups begin to run around with the adults. Once they all locate the station it will get marked up significantly with urine and feces.

They will keep coming back until they are caught or get spooked from the area if you set up too close to the station.

I rarely run cameras anymore for coyotes.

I always feel guilty if I’m not doing my 100% best to kill the coyote. And cameras definitely can have a negative impact on that endeavor.



So I’ve started testing lures on M44s. You get to see a lot more, especially if there’s snow, sand, or mud.

Making a passable trapping lure is easy.
Making a great trapping lure is harder.
Making a passable getter lure is hard.
Making a great getter lure is impossible.

I will out trap guns 10-15 to 1. With the same lures even claimed to be good on guns.

Never thought of oatmeal. I used cheap dry dogfood . May give the oatmeal a try a try.