So cheap baits for Coon?

So I was thinking of something in bulk and cheap, like Sweet Feed and Corn with a bit of fish oil sprinkled on them?

Page 7. https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/10/1/water-trapping-archive

Page 2 for bait. Page 5 for more coon specific information. https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/8/1/general-trapping-archive

There’s info on buckets cubbies, lure, all kind of stuff in the archives.



Owl

Get a cast net. Get a seine. They last a long time.

Cheap dog food mixed with fish flavored cat food is my cheap Coon bait. I use homemade sun rendered fish oil by the set, but not within trap circle.

floating catfish food sprayed with liquid smoke.50lbs for 20.00

Marshmallows

I like to use the burnt breading sludge from the bottom of my VFW Post's fish fryers. Nice and stanky and the price is right.

Marshmallows are good, I got so annoyed with em nuisance trapping in 90*+ weather and ants I've gone away from em. Catfish food pellets with liquid coon trailing scents or canine bait solution is my cheap bait. Too many cats around for me to use

Sour mash....5 gallon bucket half full of deer corn, some cheap pancake syrup from the dollar store, fill it up with warm water and cover, but not tightly. It'll ferment in a few days and raccoons love it. A half a cup or so of the fermented corn in a bucket set or in a DP.

Back when I used quite a bit of coon bait I did the following. We have a lot of high moisture corn around here which is fermented and cracked. I would get a 3 gallons from a farmer and buy about 4lbs of the farm type molasses which sold for 20 cents a lbs. and mix those together with 4 cans jack mackerel and stir it up. Smelly, sticky and all edible. As I moved more to blind setting trails I used less and less bait. Rats came to those sets too.
Easy to get into a PVC pipe also.
Bryce

Dry cat food

I thought about that but a mix of Sweet feed and Corn soak it and then add molasses that I can get a 3.5lb pail for 20 dollars and add some after.

I should add I'm using buckets.

I remember using just sweet feed and some supplements for old horses that had very few teeth and making a mash about of it. Kinda the same idea but geared for Raccoon

Carp, carp and more carp!

NW Oregon, timber country. Are we talking 220's in buckets ? Where will these be placed ? Always be aware of your non target possibility.

In the forest on private property with no houses near by.

Apples are just to see what comes not hunting over them.

Good deal, is that a pile of apples ? I'm not a bucket fan, so prob should just not comment.

Raisins and fruit flavored jello powder. Mix in a large zip lock. Raspberry is what my fur buyer recommended. A little goes a long way. I put it in the back of buckets. About a teaspoon will work. Works for the dumbest coons, then switch to sardines. I was never a high volume guy.

Cheap cat food sprinkled with the mornings bacon grease.

And catch every possum within 40 miles.

Yeah it's apple's

This is sweet feed, what makes it sweet is the molasses

Go to your local bait shop and ask him to save all the minnows that die. Especially the shinners.

I don't have freezer space otherwise I'd have 30 fish head in my freezer from the last 3 weeks

Do they like fish?
Back in the 70's when we used to target mink for big money we would net suckers by the hundreds each spring,throw them in burlap bags in the freezer and use them for mink bait in fall.
Big redhorse suckers cut in 3 pieces rendered a lot of fresh fish bait for mink.

fruit loops is pretty cheap.
just

About a year ago, I got interesting in learning to use 160 and 220 sized body grips for coon, even though they are frowned upon around here for dry land. You can use them, but very restricted. As in 6 feet off the ground INSIDE a building. That still works for me as I have ID as many as 15 different coons in the barn in one night. Got em all trained up. They all come for less than 1/2 cup of residual cat food the barn cats don't clean up. First come, first served, so are pretty aggressive into the food when they get there. Otherwise, they get nothing.

Anyway, set up some tests......4 short pieces of 2" PVC pipe stuck in a row in a board with different bait down each pipe. Figured if there was a preference, they would always seek it out. Bait was cheap dry cat food (aka, "barn kitty"), then laced it with a variety of scents. Fish oil, liquid smoke, sweet bbq sauce, vanilla, anise, bacon grease, etc. Then some concoctions that required mixing. Cat food + bacon grease + bits of licorice. Another with pasty bait with sardine base, flour, Certo, anise, etc. And lastly plain old dry. The result? They always went for the first one they came to. So you can lace it up if you want, but don't need to. Something about the balanced diet of plain old cat food, they instinctively know it is good to eat and good for them. To a coon, must be more addictive than crystal meth.

Did observe that once you brought fishy into the equation, barn cats took notice of it. They didn't pay any attention to anything else, but once fish showed up, they were in it.

Dry cat food in a soup can, with bacon grease poured on top......then can and all down a dirt hole will attract anything that wears fur. Coon, skunks, possums and red fox take turns lining up to try pulling that can out, where they will wallow it around until it's gone.

Coon trained to dry cat food are like shooting fish in a barrel with a cage. About the same with DP's or a CS. Body grips, a different story. Watched game camera videos of dozens of them work the bucket and box sets with BG's (jaws wired so trap would fire but not close) and could not believe how deep they could get without setting one off. Not good. With late summer kits, some could even get deep into a 5 x 5. Some could get in and out of a 220 and never fire it at all. Likely as not, would have suitcased most that were caught.

Best configuration I found was the vertical box, with opening at the bottom. Opening spaced only 4 to 5 inches off a solid deck. Coon would crawl / squeeze under, but to get into box from below, would have to be pushing forward with back feet, pushing up with front feet when their head reached the triggers. Would get a perfect neck strike every time. Coon and trap dropped out the bottom of the box, and that is where you would find them. DRT.

When I was still trapping, my brother and I would shoot 100's of carp and buffalo throughout the summer. We would fillet them, and cut into 1" pieces and freeze on a cookie sheet. When frozen, pop them off, and put into a quart bag. Individually frozen pieces would be tossed into a bucket, dirt hole, or DP and move on. Some carp would yield 100-300 pieces depending on size. 100 sets or more off 1 fish is pretty cheap.

Another favorite of ours was to take a 5gal bucket 1/3 full of corn & cover with stale beer. Once it plumps up to nearly a full 5 gal bucket, we'd take a tuna can and use that as our scoop. This worked great for pre baiting stations and bucket sets.