Home Schooled Yotes?

It's been about 50 years since I tried my hand at trapping coyotes, but now that I'm back to living in the country amidst varmints galore, thought I'd try my hand at it again. Got started to late for this year, but not too late to make some fake sets to see what happens. Goal for now was to find where to set for them. Goal next fall will be to put steel down and see what happens.

So back when, neighbor came and got me one day and said he was going to teach me to trap coyotes. They raised sheep and he wanted help. He showed me what I now recognize was a basic hay set, but after a month of checking traps and nothing......I got discouraged and gave up. But i rememberd a few things about what we did and followed that for now.

Test ground is the farm across the road from me. About 240 acres of pasture and woods. I've got permission to access the property, but no permission to trap it. That may change next year, but for now, I'm just using it as my classroom. I know there are yotes there as I hear them all the time.

For my test location, I concentrated on only 40 acres of it, and during the past month or so, a few days after each fresh snow, I'd do a lap around the track to see where the tracks were. Found one place that consistently had high traffic. Was the intersection of a cow path and ditch that was upstream of a 2 acre fenced pond that is high traffic location for everything with hair that walks. Lucky for me it's only 300 yards from my back door, so easy to check and monitor.

Found a promising spot where I could put up a game camera and made my test site. Backing was basically a 5 gallon bucket of heavy manure laden litter out of my chicken house. Lure was a small dab of Cavens Canine Force.....only bait I used was a few bones from some chicken wings tucked under the litter pile. Coon got those within 4 hours on the first night.

About 24 hours later, this is what showed up.....



Followed by these guys......



And this guy a day later.....hard for me to ID them all, but I think at least 3 different animals and maybe 4.




And of course also coon, skunk and a big ol doe. All that inside of 48 hours. I'd say I got the location and lure factor right. So for this lesson......maybe a B+?

With about 40 photos to study, interesting to see how and where they worked the set. Without a bait down to guide them, they were all over the place. And within 15 minutes of first guy showing up, had a pile of fresh turds and urine spray all over my hay pile.

Lesson B is going to be baiting some dirt holes and pipes to see if I can get a paw print on a mock trap set.

BTW, this is the cattle trail that bisects that pasture.........lot of tracks on it suggesting they use it a lot.....in places it looks like I-70 traffic.



Seem to recall someone talking about making blind trail sets using a stick across the trail to guide their feet......so I tried it and that worked too.

looks like a coon highway!

My thoughts as well nice job getting out and finding places.

Just a suggestion; If you want to “trap”the yotes with out actually setting traps and making it impossible to “fudge “ your results. Obtain a foot of six inch clean PVC, cut 5/8” rings off of the pipe. Use the rings in lieu of steel to make “sets” blind, dirt hole, flat, pee post, trash mound etc. If you can get a track inside the ring on a consistent basis you are pretty much there. Luck to ya and have fun.

That is some great advice right there!

Yup.......a PVC ring sounds like effective target practice, and that is a good way to look at it for now. Target practice. With fur prices being what they are, I can't see me getting too excited about skinning a bunch of anything, but would be nice to know you could catch something to skin if you wanted to.

Most of my trapping has been done in the context of nuisance control for myself and close family.......coon, possums and skunks in barns and around chickens.....rats doing damage to pond dams and septic lagoon berms. Cages, DP's and a few body grips. Been pretty easy to nab most of them, but they are aggressive animals coming to me. Moving into their world is a different story and requires some skill to pull off successfully. Well the coyotes anyway.

I would give you an A because you are thinking properly about it.

My suggestion be give them a 2nd set of a post. Could be anything a tuft of grass or small stick maybe a rock that stands out..
Place it 20ish ft away from your hay set on the uphill side. No lure or urine just a straight post for them to pace up to as they try and figure out what's up with the hay set...

Put a smell at that post and you create the next thing they'll pace around trying to figure out but no smell they'll run right to it and pee..

My experience with a hay set on yotes they always work best right after a fresh snow..

Having gone over all the photos of them sniffing around my litter pile, the idea of giving them a post to mark makes sense. For every pic of them actually at the litter pile, there are 5 pix of them standing off about 10 to 15 feet, circling and sniffing. I had already given thought about making a flat set about that far out, then using 1/4 cup or so of dried ground meat scraps scattered around over the trap. Something to sniff and work for.

BTW, that hay set isn't just hay......it is heavily manure laden grass hay litter out of my chicken house........that alone might be a pretty good attractant........but adding the lure does make it louder. Downside is the lure seems to attract as many deer as coyotes. Another observation........if you were able to graph visits over time, as per the camera.......the visits to this set peaked around 48 hours after the initial set......camera was left up about 6 days........and interest in later days dropped off a lot. Still getting visits, but not many. Either they scratched their itch and got bored with it, or else the rain and snow we got over the past several days washed the scent away. But seems to me, best chance of catching something came on 2nd night when set was still fresh and new. That was also the first night the wind blew from the set to the direction of the woods and draws where coyotes mostly hang out.

Next question........how specific does that set location have to be? I dropped my scent bomb on a spot where I had seen tracks in the snow. But that was a 10 acre field. Would anywhere in that field have worked as well? As is, it's too close to a path the coons are using. Could I move it 100 yards north into an area I never seen coon tracks......but do find mouse hole digs? Wondering how to cut down on deer and coons cluttering up the thing.

The no smell post set will avoid most junk coon possum critters..
Be the same to me if you made a smelly flat set I'd still have a no smell post..

The 10 acre field... Critters normally run the high spot and the low.. So being just out willy nilly probably won't get the results you'd want.. But if theys a reason k9s cross such as 2 points point at eachother a hay set in the middle with a blind post just may be the ticket..

You might want to trap the incidental critters with dogproofs along that cow trail before trapping the yotes. The post 20 ft out would be more attractive if it was burnt wood.

Put up a couple more test sites, both of them no more than 100 yards from the first........and after 5 days.....plenty of mice and skunk photos....one coon, two deer....no yotes. Found a track in the mud no more than 100 yards off (different direction near a fence line) from one set, so I am in the general location, but not on a high traffic travel route. The other was set on top of a ridge near a cattle trail with coyote scat on it and after three days, it had not been touched either.

This got me to thinking about another set of prints I found about a month ago, on a different farm. The one i grew up on. Walked down the driveway to get the mail and found two sets of coyote prints in the driveway. They had walked right by the house and they were fresh. Didn't have time follow the prints from where they came or where they went, but have a pretty good idea of what was going on. It would be along the lines of this below.....



That yellow box is roughly one square mile.......the NE corner of it being part of a neighbor's farm, roughly 160 acres, with a wooded draw of 30 acres in the middle, surrounded by CRP land that is seeded to native grasses like Indian Grass and Big Bluestem, plus some smaller stuff, weeds, flowers, etc. That whole thing supports a high population of deer, coyotes and more recently game cameras have been picking up a bobcat or two. That is there home base. Found one trail coming out of there and it had 5 or 6 different sets of K9 prints on a fresh day old snow.

Deer and coyotes venture out from this home base.......the orange track is what i think is a common coyote hunting loop. They travel from one small patch of timber to another until they get back home. The coyotes that tracked up the driveway were part of that southern loop split........historically, they go north of the house as much as south. My mom and dad's last dog died a couple years ago. While she was around, she was pretty aggressive on them, but with her gone, they have gotten bolder. They have completely cleaned out all the barn cats. The travel routes themselves......going from one patch of timber to the next are generally roads or grass waterways. Sometimes on ridges, but not always.

So I guess my question here is are these travel routes predictable to someone with a trained eye.....or do you have to spend time on each one of them scouting for tracks, trails, etc.

At this point, I'm confident I could make a dirt hole or pipe dream set and have a decent chance of catching my yote.......but only if I set it in the right location. If this is as specific as within a few yards of a travel route, I've got some learning to do.

At this point, what would help me as much as anything is to see similar maps with routes layed out on them.........to get an idea on what to look for as far as general travel routes......and where and why guys picked that exact spot to make their set. The map I made is nearly 700 acres.........from that I got to predict to within a few yards a few places where a coyote is likely to be and why..........and then get him to step down on a spot the size of the end of a soup can. When you think of it in those terms, pretty impressive to anyone who can do that on a consistent basis.

And BTW, that is just one loop of several. The fan out in all directions from there.

Related to this......are there books or websites or even youtube videos that have segments devoted to this level of macro location determination......with graphics? I tend to be a visual learner, so graphics of this type make it clearer to me. I did some searches on tracking studies, but the one's I found generally do not depict travel routes per se. Most only show the entire home range.......with dots showing date stamp locations..........but nothing to connect the dots to show travel routes.

Trial and error be your best teacher.. I do better on yotes out in the open than in tight cover or woods. And like teacher says best way to avoid trash critters is to catch em before they get to you...

Is this what you call sign?



Had a game camera on this trail for nearly a month, and picked up one picture of a coyote. Thinking game camera missed a few.

With first and only tracking snow down a few days back, starting walking, looking for any fresh canine tracks, and on the 240 acres across the road, found 3 fresh road crossings into it. Only had an hour or so, to follow them out, but this is what I found for travel routes........



Road crossings were right where they should be, but the rest......not what I expected. Was a bit surprised to see them out in the open and so far from cover. But eventually, they did what was expected......followed the draws headed for saddles.

Site where I had previously placed bait stations was lower left corner.....just above the pond, and right where 3 or 4 sets of prints passed (purple lines). Prints went directly over the top of all four bait stations I had set up. So location part is coming into focus.

BTW, about an inch of snow. Came in the night, was melting fast by 1 PM. That was a lot of fresh tracks.

Do u have any coyote sets out

Nope......got permission to be on it, but not trap it. Absentee owners and lots of others using it. For now, just using it as my location classroom.

I've had coyotes 100 feet from my back door, but more neighbors dogs and my barn cats than anything else. Traps still hanging in the barn.