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Trapping Coyotes

SEIowaDeerslayer

Well-Known Member
First off I want to preface this post by saying that I understand that you cannot get rid of coyotes permanently. That isn't my intention. I'm dealing with an overpopulation problem and need to kill a whole bunch.

I typed up a whole crap ton of info but I didn't want to bore anyone so I hit delete and will give a brief summary. Need some advice from the experts.

Picture: Ideal 80 acre deer property, tillable converted into CRP, hinge cut overgrown pasture for bedding, TSI & hinge cuts on good timber, 3 acre centralized feeding area, 100 apple/persimmon trees in centralized feeding area + early & late food. 8 mature bucks on trail cams during the summer, handful of small bucks & a family group of does with NO fawns.

2014 Timeline:

June trail cam picture of a coyote with a dead fawn. I run 3 cams on this property and coyotes on cam every single day.

July neighbors call and say they lost two sheep to coyotes. Sheep carcass found weeks later in our CRP.

September 15th card pull shows one of the local mature bucks I named "lefty" getting chased by 3 coyotes. I never saw him again on trail cam. Pretty incredible trail cam photo.

September 16th I find another dead fawn while going in to trim out a set for my lone wolf & sticks.

October 15th card pull has the usual coyote on camera every, day fewer deer, farm hasn't been hunted yet. I hunt the farm for the first time on Nov. 1 and miss my #1 hit list buck I called the perfect 10 at first light. 10am 2 coyotes come cruising through, no shot presented. Farm was hunted one more time on November 15th and 4 coyotes were spotted cruising through mid morning. Late season hunt yielded no deer sightings or sign, lots of coyote scat and I was able to kill a big female with my muzzleloader. 3 hunts the entire year.

By now you know where this is going. I imagine we have 30 coyotes using our property on a daily basis during fall and winter months. Based off trail cam data, pack howling at night, and lack of deer sightings on ideal habitat. My dad and I have hunted them the last 2 years and we've killed a few, but every year they get worse and its time to start trapping them. I have no interest in money for their pelts. Their corpses will be discarded into the ditch, I just want them gone and I want them to fear being on our land. I've purchased 20 #3 leg hold traps and have already night latched them, degreased them, and dyed and waxed them. They are quick and efficient. Just need to get them out there and have a dog step on them.

I'm new to this trapping game. Need to know if trapping year round is worth it and/or legal. I figure with a combination of trapping and hunting I can put a dent in the population and save a few fawns plus keep the deer around on our land after the coyotes start to pack up.

What are the best methods to get a coyote into a trap? I'm burying 2 or 3 traps around lanes where I know coyotes use daily.

Any other advice would be appreciated. Again, I want to kill as many coyotes as I possibly can in a short amount of time. I want to get coyote numbers in our area down to where they were 10 years ago, or scare them from using our property as a den property (I found the den). I've even considered using the sponge trick though I don't know if it works and my conscious tells not to because the animal would suffer.
 
First off trapping them has a season. I think it's through the 31st.
Head over to trapperman and look in the archives for dirt hole and flat sets. For a foothold that is the best way to get rid of them and make sure you stake them solid.
And to up your odds I would hang a snare on every possible trail in the timber and crp. Read their tracks and set accordingly. Snares are cheap and have been the most effective method for me in the crp. You can put a dent in them real quick.
And forget discarding them. If you have a fur buyer around you will probably average close to 15 or 20 dollars on carcass for them.
 
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First off trapping them has a season. I think it's through the 31st.
Head over to trapperman and look in the archives for dirt hole and flat sets. For a foothold that is the best way to get rid of them and make sure you stake them solid.
And to up your odds I would hang a snare on every possible trail in the timber and crp. Read their tracks and set accordingly. Snares are cheap and have been the most effective method for me in the crp. You can put a dent in them real quick.
And forget discarding them. If you have a fur buyer around you will probably average close to 15 or 20 dollars on carcass for them.

10-4. I'll read up on snaring and set 20 or so of those in the CRP. For the leg hold traps I'm using 3' fence posts driven all the way into the ground. The stakes didn't look solid enough and I heard a strong coyote can rip those out. He's not going to get a fence post out. Bummer on the season, I wonder why they close it so early.
 
Good luck just be careful with those snares deer stops don't work like planned. If you know of a den maybe sit by it with a gun on full moon nights hunting. Unsure on the rules of trapping by dens
 
try and get a deer carcass, stake it solid, let the coyotes feed on it for a couple days come back and set snares in the trails leading to the carcass. Footholds can be tough with freeze and thaw conditions. bait pile with snares is the best way to stack them up right now.
 
try and get a deer carcass, stake it solid, let the coyotes feed on it for a couple days come back and set snares in the trails leading to the carcass. Footholds can be tough with freeze and thaw conditions. bait pile with snares is the best way to stack them up right now.

This tells me to strategically place the deer carcass when deployed. Put it in a place where you will focus coyote traffic to it. Maybe against a fence or some other barrier to limit approach access.
 
10-4. I'll read up on snaring and set 20 or so of those in the CRP. For the leg hold traps I'm using 3' fence posts driven all the way into the ground. The stakes didn't look solid enough and I heard a strong coyote can rip those out. He's not going to get a fence post out. Bummer on the season, I wonder why they close it so early.

They close trapping season then because of furbearers start to get rubs on their fur from breeding around that time and their fur is of lesser quality and because when trapping coyotes you will catch incidentals such as fox, coon, badger, possibly bobcats, skunks, and possums and those seasons end on that date. Make sure you bed your traps properly to avoid educating them and cover with something that won't freeze.
 
This tells me to strategically place the deer carcass when deployed. Put it in a place where you will focus coyote traffic to it. Maybe against a fence or some other barrier to limit approach access.

yes fences are good, another thing that is good are small saplings or trees the coyotes tend to use the same exact path thru, once they show there path you can use the saplings and trees to support your snares.
 
Snares are very effective for thinning coyotes. Snare all trails around the perimeter of the Crp. In frozen ground I use a 12 inch rebar t stake. No way they pull that out.
 
If the ground is sandy at all coyotes will pull out a rebar stake like it's nothing.

I have never trapped in sand and I would assume you are correct.

I actually ran out of stakes last year and wanted to make one more set so I used a 60 penny nail and a washer pounded into frozen ground. I ended up catching 2 coyotes, a dog, and a raccoon on that nail. I had a terrible time pulling that thing back out with a 4' pry bar. Frozen dirt will hold any coyote on a rebar stake.
 
Good luck just be careful with those snares deer stops don't work like planned. If you know of a den maybe sit by it with a gun on full moon nights hunting. Unsure on the rules of trapping by dens

Good point on being careful with snares. Fawns have an unhealthy habit of messing with them. I had a wrestling match with a button buck this year to get him out of a snare.
It's best if you can avoid high deer concentrations.
 
High deer concentrations are of no concern. There are no deer because the coyotes have packed up and are using our farm as a bedding area, drove all of the deer out. I'm going to snare the place up. Its going to basically one giant booby trap.
 
High deer concentrations are of no concern. There are no deer because the coyotes have packed up and are using our farm as a bedding area, drove all of the deer out. I'm going to snare the place up. Its going to basically one giant booby trap.

Why not just bring in an experienced trapper to help you learn. Snares don't discriminate what they kill and this scenario makes me cringe.........
 
If you have that many coyotes you may catch a few but you may end up educating more of them than you think.
It would be best to have a known trapper come in and clean house.
One of my most productive ways to stare coyotes has been to drive through crp ground or even deep snow and then follow the same tracks back out hanging snares right in my tire tracks.
If these tire tracks happen to lead to a carcass pile its all the better.
 
Snares and a carcass would be the simplest way to nab several quickly, but you will educate more. If you can stake down a carcass and let them get use to coming to it, then add more to the pile. Try to place it where you can see it without being seen. You can sneak up on it if they are on the pile or watch over it on a full-moon, with snow on the ground it is like shooting in the daylight. Make sure to play the wind.
 
Good luck on the trapping coyotes are not easy to catch at least for me. Very tough conditions this time of year with the freeze thaw cycles. Waxed dirt is the best option second best is peat moss. As for snares the best system uses a 5 foot piece of heavy rebar and a small piece of #9 wire welded to it. The 9 wire supports the snare and is adjustable once snared the coyote will wrap around the 3 feet or so of rebar out of the ground and be choked and dead. Good luck let us know how it goes.
 
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