sportsman94
Senior Member
I have trapped for roughly 10 seasons so far after skipping last year. I try to get better at something each season. I have had seasons where I put more effort into beavers, otters, bobcats, coyotes, snaring beavers, exposed pan sets, etc. This year I think I’m trying to improve on learning what the animals are telling me. Some of this is stuff I’ve picked up on in the past, and others are thoughts from this season. I wanted to use this thread to mention some common sense or out of the box thing I have noticed about the animals we pursue and see if yalls experience matches it. Would also love to hear what you’ve picked up on that May or may not be common sense.
1) Coyote and fox seem to move better for me on nights 45 or below. It could just be where I set or my style of trapping, but any time the weather gets cool my confidence goes up. I don’t really much feel like I’m in the game if it’s hotter. Anything above that I count as a coon/possum night.
2) water critters move heavily when it rains. Doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s hot or cold. When it rains the beavers and otters will generally move for me
3) wind is important. This one has a lot more to unpack and I am still learning. The best set in the world only does so much if the wind isn’t in your favor for the predator to see it. I also made an observation today about it that May or may not pan out, but I plan to experiment with. I had a dirt hold dug out from the south side. My trap was on the east side of the hole. Now it seems that we just started getting north winds for the first time since I’ve had traps out in the last few days. I took the wind helping them find the sets into account, but I never thought about how they worked them once they found them. My hypothesis is that they are pretty much only willing to work the set with wind in their face. I’m going to try to test this theory by looking at the weather for the time I’ll be trapping a certain property and setting my traps on the predominant downwind side. This may be common sense to most, but something I just picked up on and look forward to experimenting with.
I will put anything else I can think of in this thread. What are some of the things you’ve picked up on over the years that May or may not be common sense?
1) Coyote and fox seem to move better for me on nights 45 or below. It could just be where I set or my style of trapping, but any time the weather gets cool my confidence goes up. I don’t really much feel like I’m in the game if it’s hotter. Anything above that I count as a coon/possum night.
2) water critters move heavily when it rains. Doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s hot or cold. When it rains the beavers and otters will generally move for me
3) wind is important. This one has a lot more to unpack and I am still learning. The best set in the world only does so much if the wind isn’t in your favor for the predator to see it. I also made an observation today about it that May or may not pan out, but I plan to experiment with. I had a dirt hold dug out from the south side. My trap was on the east side of the hole. Now it seems that we just started getting north winds for the first time since I’ve had traps out in the last few days. I took the wind helping them find the sets into account, but I never thought about how they worked them once they found them. My hypothesis is that they are pretty much only willing to work the set with wind in their face. I’m going to try to test this theory by looking at the weather for the time I’ll be trapping a certain property and setting my traps on the predominant downwind side. This may be common sense to most, but something I just picked up on and look forward to experimenting with.
I will put anything else I can think of in this thread. What are some of the things you’ve picked up on over the years that May or may not be common sense?
