Woodchucks. Bait?

Need to remove chucks with live trap. Is there a better bait? Shooting is no go.

A farmer told me they are attracted to poplar bud oil on lettuce when it comes to cage traps. But they are easy to trap in trails or with body traps if legal

ive had success just slicing an apple up or using cantulope peelings in live trap

I use boards to funnel them from the hole to the cage trap with cantolope or apple, trying not to disturb thier hole too much

When you do that, you dont even need the bait. I dont do that much with single door traps but occasionally I run out of double door traps so I just fence in a single.

I had great success with hawbakers coon lure. Seriously. Removed a ton of woodchuck from barns with #1 longs springs bedded in front of a stick dipped in it. That was on a tip i got years ago from Dennis Vicars, and it was spot on. No clue why the licorice smelling hawbakera coon lure was attractive to them, but it was.
You can also guide them easily with some scrap boards too, funnel them right into cage traps. If you have the hole or tunnel where they go in and out, aittle spade work and you can make a channel from the hole that will exactly fit the the small cage trap and cover the trap and tunnel with a piece of plywood. They funnel right into the cage.

Thanks for answers.

They snare pretty easily too along their little trails and holes networks.
That spade trick works too if you cut a square channel from home along trail from hole...make it just big enough to stabilize a 160 in the square channel and cover that with plywood.
Jim

Just dont set the snare too close to the hole, unless you want to do some digging to get the sucker out. Especially, dont do that under a building because who knows what kind of lines are nearby for the thing to wrap up on.

Goat feed with cracked corn oats and molasses mixed in works great and bugs don't carry it off to quick, I think just molasses on some fruit would work too

For the few that I've caught, I just wait until I see them, and then chase them back down into their hole. From there, I just set a cage trap up so that it's their only way out. Just make sure to block off any other holes they might have hidden, and it's basically a 100% sure thing.

This question was just asked last week
I rarely use bait in a cage trap.
Reason - catch one right away and the others see it and no more.
I have photos of them walking between baited cages.

I use Comstock cages and catch them entering or exiting.

However bait is: apple, pear, cantaloupe, watermelon, cabbage, brussel sprouts, sweet corn, carrots.

I had a city slicker fella call me to come over to dispatch some groundhogs he caught in a cage trap. He didn't have the stones to kill them.
He wore them out, setting on a path heading to his garden. I never saw any bait in his cage traps when I came out, so I asked him what he was using.
He told me Reece's Pieces!
I suddenly realized on that day, that I did not know ANYTHING about trapping. I told him that he was lucky that he didn't catch an ET. They are galactically protected.

However, you catch them ..their droppings urine and body odors left behind in the cage is a great attractor.
Re set that trap...lol

Same with striped skunks after you catch one. You can just reset cage and you'll have another.

Some of the best traps don't use bait at all.
Check out the Tomahawks that fit right over the den entrance or Comstock's 'walk through' traps.
Nose cones can be added to most cage traps for a specific target animal.


You don't need bait or lure to catch animals. ( ask a blind set man who traps mink )

They are vegetarians. I make up big containers of salads that I munch on before my noon and evening meals. Mostly cabbage, lettuce, apple, onion, carrots, cauliflower, olives, tomatoes and other stuff. I toss a handful of that in the live trap and it has worked quite well. For me they seem to be harded to cage then coons, but then during summer they have no shortage of food.

Bryce