Some have been asking about choosing locations for coyote sets. Here is how I do it and some pics for fun. No doubt location plays one of the most important roles in catching fur bearers. I'll focus on coyotes/foxes for this thread but feel free to start another thread on other species.

Now, I like to start looking for sign were several points of interest meet. Once I have pin pointed a location I start scouting for sign. In the following posts I have labeled some of the more major points of interest.
Blue = Water
White= An edge (Like a field edge, crop change up, or path through the woods)
Green = a cross over or funnel point the coyotes were using heavy
Red = Actual set location that connected over the last few years.
Black = These will be points that I have set up in the past that look good but fail to make catches for reason I'm unsure of.

Lets take a look at the first spot:


I catch probably 15-20 coyotes here a year. If you look you can see there are several point that lead to a major cross over. Weather it be water, tree line or crop change ups they focus the movement of the coyotes to a few central locations. The cross over in the woods is a duck-under of an old woven wire fence. I took 6 coyotes in 6 days from that fence. Lets take a look at a few catches from this location.



The next location


I trapped this area because the farmer had several dogs killed and asked me to take as many coyotes as I could. You might notice a lack of points. I basicaly went in and had to look for cross overs from the horseshoe shaped pond and used the road as a main set location. The point were the road makes a 90 deg. turn to the woods was a great place. It was close to a cross over and also close to a wooded area. Here are a few catches from there.
From the road
This was a tree next to the road It was a lone feature in the field

(cont.)


This next spot has produced for me like magic for the last several years


If you study this pic you will see that the access road meets the ditch at a crop change up. This spot is always good for a ton of coyotes. 10-20 over a season. If you look in this catch pic you can see the numerous catch cirles in the back ground

This grizzly old dog was one of my favorites Real werewolfy


In this pic you will see that there are numerous shallow ditches intersected by a road. The one ditch toward the bottom of the pic is a deep ditch. I have caught coyotes on both sides of the deep ditch. It seems though that if I target the coyotes around the smaller ditches at the top of the page I don't seem to do so good. But the smaller ditches funnel the coyotes to the bridge to cross over to my main set locations.


Lets look at a few catches from here

I always make sure to look for set locations around these. This tower is just off the road on the right side of the pic.




This is my fox farm I catch several fox here each year. I also catch several coyotes here.



I have marked the cow pastures because they are off limits. You will notice that I trap (snare) around old den sites. These have been productive to me in the last few years. The land owner is an old trapper. I set this locaion with him in mind because he can look out his kitchen window every morning and see if there is a catch made. He just LOVED it. Made him feel like he was trapping again. The cross over at the right of the pic is my main producer of coyotes. It is a small opening that the coyotes use to pass from one field to another. The white line in the woods is a well groomed trail the coyotes use sometimes late in the season.

Lets look at some catches
This guy came from the opening I discribed.

(cont.)


This fox came from a bait pile I had in the wood on the left hand side.


This one is also from the other post. He was caught near the den site. I caught I think 5 from that den site that year.


This last sight is another gem. I caught 16 here last year. this is the only cross over of this deep ditch of a mile in each direction. Also you have the multiple field edges and crop change ups. There is a nice wide green grass patch there most of the season as well.

That were these guys came from.

This is the green grass strip


If you look in the bottom left side of the map pic you will see a dark spot that I set with a few traps each year. This is an old rotted tree out in the field. It seems like every coyote that crosses that ditch goes for the tree.

This frosty but fox came from the road just alittle off the screen of the pic.


I love to talk location so if you have any questions post away.

Don

great post

Awesome post, thank you.

This is an awesome post! I am new to the sport, and I must say that your quick post taught me more than a lot of books I have read. You should write a whole book about location using this kind of presentation. Cool!

Archives!

Very well done, I also use the sat pic's...they work. Tom

great post. and its about trapping.

i really appreciate the visual given with the aerials, thanks

Thanks for the post,think I learned something.

Great job!!

If someone can do a presentation like this for bobcats that would be fantastic!!!

I pulled up the third location on google, you must be overrun with coyotes catching that many in an area that wide open. I would have looked closer to the timber and water to the east and to the timber in the southwest.
Northern indiana is much the same, small woodlots surrounded by crops with ditches and fence rows connecting the woodlots.

this is one hec of a post. you put it to where the new and young as well as us old poots could make sense of it.

a dandy for the archives. down here it is just the same as up there. we dont have crops but we do have clearcuts and terrain features that the yotes love to follow. took years to grasp this. once i did it has been bad for the yotes and other critters as well.

darn good job FOXCTCHER.

Your pics look alot like we have here in central ,illinois . I have to be very careful were i put my fox/ coyots sets because of bird dogs during the first couple of weeks of pheasant season. Location is very important, nice post .
Foxcatcher, do you use the extra long chains on your sets to prevent them from pumping the stake and do you double stake your fox/ coyote sets .

Nice post. I started using Google Earth after watching Tracy Truman's Gray Fox Trapping Video and it is a great tool! Let's you see the places that you make catches and allows you to look for similar features in other places to make sets.

great post catcher .... hasnt turned out as bad as ya thought, has it

Awesome post. Man are your chains long, I have been trying to keep my coyote chains short with earth anchors.

Otis this is a travel used by transient coyotes. I usually catch 6-7 local population coyotes and then it slows down but pick up several more over the course of the season. This place is not far from my house so I keep it set up all season.

I have progressivley shortened my chains. Most are now about 12 inches. I was having problems with large dogs pulling double stakes traps. Long chains and 24 inch cross stakes kept coyotes and dogs there unless the oil well guys decided to intervein.

The most of the larger dogs are gone now so short chains and cross stakes are working well.

I do use quite a few cables now. Most are on snares but several on footholds.

Gary, yep most are being civil. Hope it stays that way.

Don