Experienced cat trappers ???

Gerry seen what he thought was cat tracks a week ago, he wired a beaver carcass to a tree and today we find the whole beaver covered up, I uncovered the tail for the pic, neither one of us has ever caught a cat , was looking for suggestions on how to set it up, Thank You for any help that you can give.

Cat trapping tip patients . And lot of it sometimes lol . One day they trap as easy as a muskrat next time they a cat can be Houdini lol.
Personally I do not use bait at the set. A lot times a big bait a ways from your sets like 40 feet or so and a couple lured walk thru sets is about all I use anymore . Oh you off to a good start if set where you seen the track ime.

Uncover it and look at the eaten portion. Cats will leave the eaten area looking like someone eating corn on the cob. Coyotes, fox bite and tear off chunks. If it's a cat let eat one more time remove the carcass and put in a dirt hole with a small chunk in the hole.,

First set is a walk through dirt hole set with apple road bait in the hole and fox urine, the second set is a natural cubby in a brush pile with a whole beaver carcass staked down inside. Sets are 20 yards apart and caught consecutive days and the 2nd set had a track on the frozen pan the 3rd day. Can't win them all. It rained a lot during the day and was supposed to stay warm. Got down to 20 ,snowed a little and froze the water on top of the trap.should have been a cat there today. Both cats caught were female.

The cat will return,make some natural blocked down path and blind set,walk thru's,flashy dirt hole will all work good luck some time they gorged themselves and dont come back for two days ,but they will return.Look forward to your catch picture's.

Thank you for the tips, we’ll give em a try.

I like baited cubbies here they just love to check them out, culverts and grease barrels work well stay away from the larger drums.

Can we cover and block down the carcass that the cat covered, or will it make the cat avoid the area.?

If a person were consistent at catching feral cats, would that make one more likely to catch a bobcat, than not? Asking for a friend.

I’ve caught bobcat, mountain lions and feral cats at my bobcat sets.

Skunks, fox, marten and weasels too.

Do you set the same places every year?
Are they that predictable?
just

Law dog, your pipe set is one I’m trying this year. Think it’ll work fine here.

Someone taught me long ago...a successful cat set should look like it was put together by a 5 year old when completed. Its been a fairly good rule of thumb for me.

This is a example of a set I use a lot of big tree for protection then create a walk thru tree and material for blocking lured and urine down the middle coyote urine as it has equal amount of interest for Bobcats until breeding season.
Merry Christmas to all

Gerry made it back to the woods today, said the cat returned and ate about 1/2 the carcass, he made a cubby set and a trail set.

Has the square thing been proven yet? Was a thread awhile back about it, forgot all about till I saw the sticks in NF1s post!

The taller 30 gallon drums work well also open both ends and put a trap at both ends my go to set here, this barrel blew over a bit in 60MPH winds the cat sprayed and went on his way.

Hey law dog, I use cheap 30 gallon black trash cans here. Lay them on their side, dump a five gallon bucket of sifted dry dirt in them and smooth it out back to front to make nice place to walk in on, and wire a rat carcass in back. Traps bed easily in the dry dirt at opening. I stake mine down so they don't blow around. You can put them right up under low branches of a cedar tree to make a great cubby set thats fairly weather proof. Some skunky lure in back too and shot of bobcat pee back there too.

Vertical sticks imo tend guide better ,,, I tend to consider sticks people call step sticks as stop sticks lol.

The smaller longer 30s bring them right to the trap vs a 55 gallon that they can work from the side easier. I wedge mine in most places that one with the cat spraying was on deep sheltered creek on both sides but the high winds came up the creek and moved both of them around.

Thanks everyone, Gerry is riding high today 22 pound female, Adirondack Cat.

Congrats nice female.

Congratulations

Congrats cats are fun!

Rick I have found a trail that comes out of creek bottom and goes up into a piece of higher ground. This trail is there every year and it is pretty open. No place really to squeeze them down. What type of set to use. Cubby, or can a person fence them down to blind trail them?

Fence them down, or move some branches and brush in to block things down.
This was a trail along high bank of deep creek, timber narrowed to a thin 4' wide or so point along a corn field and the high bank deep creek.
I planted several sticks on each side of trail to block it down tight and hung a snare. About a week and a half later...bingo.

Is the creek bottom fairly open as well?Can you blind set the trail?A cubby,a rub set or a flashy dirt hole should work,you can make a blocked down area for a walk thru etc.I would put in 3 sets at that location if you can,good luck.

The creek bottom is tall grass and cattails. They come up a frozen beaver run that's is appr. 3 feet wide. I forgot to mention this high ground is full of springs, a lot of ice.

PURRFECT narrow down a little and set up blind snares or footholds plus you can make other sets as well,do'nt over look a trash pile set on the edge of the cattails beaver or watefowl would work excellent in the creek bottom.

Sounds good Rick, will give it a try. Have plenty of beaver meat saved from last spring. Thanks!!!

Lots of good posts.

Mac

/\ /\ This /\ /\ Those step sticks cause them to stop ( especially at cubbies ) or gives them a place to step on to in order to step over in a walk through or a reason to jump over.

Keep them walking and don't give them a place to jump from or to.
Think about this long and hard.
Then picture all the pictures you have seen in print and wonder how many cats were missed and never realized were even there.
Your welcome.

Can anyone tell me how far up the front leg to cut to facilitate the turn, I made a short cut just past that little gland, I got them legs turned but wow.

Split the front legs up to the elbow. Actually you do not need to turn the legs as you usually leave them inside the pelt when turning it fur out when selling to buyers or auction.

We cut the legs off at the wrist and do not split them. Then when you turn fur side out on the stretcher (second day) we pin the leg straight up toward the chin and they sort of extend the desirable belly spotting. I put half a coat hanger in each front leg to facilitate drying and leave them pinned forward. I’ve been told they drum better that way instead of sticking out.

Cat came out real nice, quite a few spots.

Good post and cat ... congratulations

Gerry connected on another cat today, thanks for all your help.

Congrats again,our season end next Sunday,the last few years I try to catch at least one.This year I had 1 cat coming to a bait,caught it on the 6th night when it finally came back,it was perfect timing a warm night turned out to be a female so I was able to release her,normally it's too cold here to do that because of a frozen foot.I ended up getting two bobcats that found there way into a coyote snare and a coyote flat set one was a yearling and the other one was this years kitten deep snow and no mother tracks around that was in the flat set it was -20 something that morning so no way to release that one.Those two will get donated to our MTA Tanned Fur Project along with a few coyotes.

Rick I think we caught mom first, this one was smaller, there were a bunch of tracks around there but we pulled the traps two in same spot is enough, any thoughts on the hind foot catches,had the trap close to opening of cubbie with guide sticks and caught both cats by hind foot.

Could be her kittens from last year they stay with their mothers for 18 months some times,could have been an early litter as well their not on a perfect cycle for breeding was it 15 to 17 lbs did the mother still have some what swollen nipples or was her belly milk stained?As for the back foot sometimes they miss with their front foot usually they step in their same track as the front some how missing or not tripping the foothold another thing is cats back in to mark spraying their urine that would get you a back foot sometime.How big was the female 20 to 24 lbs here most of our adult females will be 23 to 25 lbs we have larger cats here.28 lbs was the largest female and 48lbs for a tom,but most adults toms are in that 32 to 35lbs I've caught 12 toms 40lbs or larger that's out of 92 bobcats.

Rick, the big female was around 22 pounds she didn’t have any tities like she had been nursing, the smaller cat , female also, was 12-13 pounds, we use a bathroom scale to weigh them.