Wild Idaho,
IMO, that is as pretty as it gets! If a guy could only find another hundred like it!! I'm betting you moved some of those smaller rocks around after each catch too.
The Coyotero,
I tend to agree with your summation, but would also add time of year, and local activity ( planting, harvesting, spraying, logging activity) to the last sentence. IME, spraying/fertilizing a fresh planted field really spooks canines.
I don't believe backing height makes any difference, and if available, prefer a tall/ strong backing, especially in coon country. I'm a multi species trapper, if it works my set I expect to catch it. IME, rock piles, stacks of round bales, stump piles, edges of cattail sloughs, roots of tipped over trees, and shelter belts are quite attractive to most any furbearer, most any time of year. If I have to set in an over grazed pasture, a rock will do, but I'll expect some coyotes and wolves to work it from the backside. Trapping in the snow suggests that would be a good idea, and snow doesn't lie.
IME, moving or making a set with natural materials, is not detrimental to success at that location, particularly long term, like permanent cubbies in the bush country, or adding some foot guiding/ narrowing a snare location with a fern, pine bow, etc. Build a fence, leave a bunch of sweat doing so, and you'll get refusals, especially in more remote areas, where animals are not accustomed to human interaction. On the other side of that coin, I bet there are at least twenty farmers/ranchers on this site, that have run coyotes out of the last ten rows of corn while combining, had coyotes or fox in the same field they were haying, or had coon in their barns, outbuildings, or stored machinery. We could also ask them how much grease they go through in a year, along with hydraulic fluid, (you know there is at least two leaking hydraulic lines amongst the twenty), that ends up in their fields, where we are making sets, but worried about keeping our traps odor free!
