In the late seventies I was out north of town, there was a pasture with several hundred sheep next to the road. I was looking them over and watching a bunch of new lambs bouncing around running and playing strengthening their new bodies. Over on a ridge half a mile or more I could see some eagles setting. Pretty soon a big golden eagle took flight did some soring circling above, I was watching it as well, when it swooped down hit a jack rabbit grabbed it in its talons flew up with it to around 50 or 60 feet and dropped it. It then landed on it and began eating. Over the next several days I observed this behavior several times by the golden eagles in this area. They were even picking up young lambs and dropping them from heights. I at this time studied the remains of these kills and noticed that the birds of prey didn't eat the intestines and stomachs. things that were hard to tear into pieces they left. At the same time, I looked at four-legged predator kills and noticed that the fox and coyotes were eating mostly the stomachs and soft tissues of the lambs and other kills, things that were easily digested and easy to carry back to young pups that weren't weaned yet. Another clue in the who killed it was shown to me. At about the same time I watched as a red fox chased a bigger lamb, the lamb ran and was fast the fox made a grab at it caught it by the tail. The tail popped off the lamb ran away, and the fox didn't get its meal. Over a couple of years, I started to notice in several pastures that older lambs would have part of their tails missing and that in these areas I would take fox dens several lamb tails were often found at these dens. Yet more of a learning experience and things to look at when you get a call from the producer that's positive, they have a coyote problem. So, I saw your guy just setting and not out killing my coyote problem he's a worthless lazy person. Maybe and just maybe he really is working to solve a problem by observation. Not all things are plain to see with just a glance, don't jump the gun and come to conclusions take the time study and learn then take care of the problem as fast as you can with the knowledge you have gained. Go out with an open mind not a predetermined conclusion, you will fare better in the end. After some time and effort, it becomes so much easier to find the truth of what is going on.
Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
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trapper1954
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here ya go
www.dailymail.co.uk
Video: Man accidentally traps mountain lion and then releases animal | Daily Mail Online
A trapper from Utah in the United-States accidentally caught a mountain lion that got its paws caught in the trap, and then had to release the furious animal.
HRM Johnny
Well-Known Member
Great video.
Catch poles are worth their weight in gold. Cats usually don't take long to run out of oxygen and lay down. I did one time take too long with a bobcat and it didn't wake up. The lions that I have caught were either very young or very, very, old. Badgers don't choke down well at all. I used my catch pole on a potbellied pig once, it wasn't in a trap but had been turned loose by its owner who couldn't care for it. That was a sad story, she needed help mentally, was abandoned by her husband, and ended up freezing to death in her trailer because she couldn't afford heat or food and wouldn't seek help.
You have to have a Catch Pole to Trap in GA. Used it several times to take out Vultures.
trapper1954
Well-Known Member
I've been there brother, and once I discovered the situation I fed that lady till her family finally came to haul her to a facility, Mata was her name. She was gone in a month. They should have been arrested for human neglect............ Just my opinion.
We have exposed bait laws here to help us not to catch scavenger birds and birds of prey. There are limits as to how close you can make sets to any animal carcass, the types of animal parts or carcass you can use for baits or such. You are limited to the types of flagging you can use as well at your sets. That's the reason that I went to mostly flat sets using a good gland lure and no baited sets even dirt hole sets. The use of a cotton ball for a lure holder and as a flag at my cat sets. I started making as simple a set as I could to save time. When you have to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time it only made sense to me to go with simple methods, make a set and get away from it in as short a time as I could. When using snares, I look at the size of the hole and the sign left by the animals using it. Some people are fooled by the underfur that antelope leave as well as deer but if you combine that with prints, the size of the hole and a few other indicators you can determine what is really using a hole mostly. If you think you just have to set a hole up with a snare then you can use rocks, sage brush or other thing natural to the area to close it down, but the coyotes will most likely stop using it for a while too. I don't use trail sets with any type of catch device traps or snares they catch way too many nontarget animals for my liking, if it's a good place for a trail set there is a good place for a really good flat set with lure on a backing close by as well, or two maybe three. Watch your dog and see how many times he pees in a small area, this coyote peed here so the next one does too, but it has to one up the first one and mark another spot. There is a reason that I stopped using urine at my sets here all of the deer, antelope, sheep and other animals want to investigate a urine marked spot if you aren't using a good quality urine from one animal not a collection of several animals from a pee trough of caged animals. When beaver trapping, I collected bladder urine and mixed it with beaver caster the same as the beaver does, to mark its territory. I studied the way animals do things and started to imitate them more closely and take a more direct approach, the path of least resistance. The way that I do things work for me, but they may not be the way that you want to do them. keep it simple and quicker for me is the way I think about it, get it done and move to the next project.
trapper1954
Well-Known Member
How many steel traps were you provided with.
I wasn't provided any I bought my own. I had a dozen old Newhouse #4 long spring, 3 dozen long spring victors, 2 dozen off set round jaw # 3 victor coil spring. 2 dozen off set #2 square jaw Northwoods, 4 dozen #3 offset square jaw Northwoods, 2 dozen 110 conibear, 6- 220 conibear and a dozen 330 conibear and various other smaller traps and gopher traps. At the start of fall I started off with 100 snares and made more as needed. When I worked for the county, I supplied all of my own equipment when I worked with the USDA I started with 4 dozen of their snares but supplied my own M-44's and foot hold traps. I had 4 dozen M-44's of my own. They supplied me with lure and bait if I needed more. I supplied my own rifles, ammo, and truck it's all in being a predator control worker in the non-government sector and contracting to them. I was licensed through the pilots for gunning from the plane and helicopter, and through the state for M-44 use. When I first started using M-44's the state was the supplier that I bought my supplies for that through but in the end, I had to order them from the USDA supply depot in Idaho. The first old bottle neck M-44's were bought from Bean Brothers supply out of Texas, after the coyote getters were banned for use in Wyoming, I probably have a couple hundred of them laying around some place, I never liked them they scared the he88 out of me to set and pick up using a loaded 38 shell with cyanide turning your hand backward from you and working off to the side of it screwing it on a lightly set firing device, wearing a good leather glove, fitted in a tube notched by a spring clip and driven in the ground. I have had more than one go off while setting them or picking them up especially if an animal had mouthed them but didn't pull them, when an animal did pull them, it scared the he09 out of them and they ran at full speed as far as they could before they died. When I retired in 2016 I gave all of that stuff to my replacement, that was legal to still be used, I even gave him my single shot 6.5x284. When I started again last summer, I started with 4 dozen snares a 223 and a 6.5 Creedmoor. And just do a limited amount of it for a few people that ask for me to help them out, that I used to work for. It's in my blood, an addiction if you will, and I just don't seem to be able to get away from it all the way.
One of the old coyote getters that scared me to use. I had some of the ones that had surgical tubing in them that you would take a hypodermic needle to inject hydrogen cyanide liquid into and when a coyote pulled up on it, they got a mouth full of the cyanide. I gave them to my area supervisor for his collection of devices that people have designed for coyote control work. I will look around and see if I still have one of those around. In 1972 nearly all toxins were taken out of use legally and a lot of people that were trying to do control work tried to find alternative methods and tools to use.
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In 2000 I decided that I wanted to shoot a coyote at 1000 yards. That year and the year before played a part in that. The year before I had a coyote killing lambs, she was living in some bad lands across an interstate highway from where she was killing, I tracked her back located where she had her kids and when I called her, she would show up and set out several hundred yards. I finally got close to her pups, and she slipped up. That is an example of why I don't use puppy sounds indiscriminately! I at times have to use them for a killer that has to be stopped. The following spring, I had another female coyote come in that was killing lambs I got her at 643 yards lasered. It was then that I decided that I wanted to build a rifle that I could depend on for longer shots as I was having so many that were not willing to come close, I had a lot of others out there using e-calls and helping me educate them. I did some research and decided to go with the 6.5x284 and run some 120 grain bullets in it. I located a Savage F Class for an action it had a 30-inch barrel with 1:9 twist for a good price that didn't have any rounds fired in it. I bought it took it to Bison barrels and had the barrel cut to 26 inches and a Sendero Remington tapper put on it then bedded it in a McMillen A-5 stock. Then I bought a Lepold 5.5x25 scope and mounted it on the rifle. I developed a load for it by using Nosler brass and 120 grain Nosler ballistic tip bullets, 4831 SC at 50.2 grains and seating them .100 from the lands. It carried a group of 8" at 1000 yards with my bipod. In a gusty wind they might drift side to side some maybe two feet in a 15-20 mph full force cross wind, but it still held top to bottom 8 ". I never got to shoot a coyote with it past 450 yards, but I did shoot a few prairie dogs out to and past 300 yards with it. I gave it to Gene when I retired, he has killed a few coyotes with it a couple out to 800 plus yards.
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That very same scenario is why I built my first 6.5x280AI.
I'm good out to 600yds with my .243 Win and was finding more and more coyotes "hanging up" out past there.
With my transfer to West Texas, I'm learning new areas and slightly different techniques to deal with the coyotes here.
Add in more mountain lions than I dealt with before, rougher terrain, and a total lack of interest in any kind of dying rabbit call, has made me start looking at new ideas.
We're never too old to learn!
Ed
The major difference between a control worker and a pleasure hunter, caller, is that the control worker has to go out and kill the animal that is killing. The average pleasure hunter, caller doesn't have to kill the animal they might get upset if they call and miss an animal, or don't see it when it comes in. It's not as big a deal for them if they are or aren't using the correct call sounds for the location, time of the year ect. . I have been called at home and ripped by pleasure hunter callers because I was killing predators, in the off season that they wanted to play with in the fall and winter, they just didn't understand that the producer was losing their livelihood by the loss of their lamb crop. I was out one day made, my checks of a pasture and didn't have anything. The next day a guy called me in a loud voice he started in how fn long has it been since you checked your sh09, you have a stinking coyote in such and such pasture what the fu09 are you doing trapping this time of the year anyway. Well ----- I checked those yesterday. No fn way its stinks really bad. Calm down and let me explain things to you -----, it's 100 degrees out and only been getting in the 70's at night a coyote that has fought a snare for a few minutes will be heated up when it dies, it starts to spoil as soon as it dies. I'm out there killing coyote this time of year so that they can have good numbers of lambs to ship in a month or so. I don't mind that you go out and hunt them or call or hunt deer and antelope, but I really don't think that you should call me and start cussing and yelling at me for doing a job that the producer asked me to. You can talk to me and ask me those same questions and I will explain it to you, or you can ask the landowner or even call and talk to the predator board. He called the landowner the landowner told him he wasn't welcome to hunt any longer. As control workers we have to be a little more discrete than the pleasure hunter caller because we are there doing it all year long and some people don't understand that aspect of it. Control work isn't for everybody it takes a different mindset to be a good control worker than it does to be a good pleasure hunter, caller. No, you don't have to be a cold-hearted, hardened person you just have to look at somethings differently. An example is taking dens, how the he90 can you kill a little puppy, I've been asked so many times just that question. It's all in how you look at it no, that coyote puppy didn't ask to be born, no it didn't tell mom and dad to kill lambs to feed it. No, the coyote parents aren't doing anything out of the ordinary for them just trying to raise their pups, but so is the livestock producer. Yes, I have to do my best to kill the adults that are killing the lamb crop and taking away the livelihood of that producer, and a part of it includes killing those puppies after I have killed the adults instead of letting them die of starvation, disease or be runted from hunger to me it's more humane than the alternative I try to be humane in what I do, that's how and why.
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Another great post, Dave!
I'm not sure that most hunters, much less the general public, understand the ethics that serious predator control agents have and how seriously they take their work.
We have a moral and ethical responsibility to quickly and humanely take the animals we are killing.
As you have pointed out many times, there is a tremendous difference between recreational coyote hunting and working to kill a specific predator. Once you have taken that animal, you have to immediately start working on the next one(s).
The "off season" for sport hunters is some of my busiest times as I want to take out the adults so they won't have a litter to feed.
The warmer months, particularly late summer, is tough for getting the adults as they tend to spread out since they are not taking care of a litter of pups.
Seasonally adjusted calls are necessary to get the "educated " coyotes.
The same applies to trap locations.
Ed
I'm not sure that most hunters, much less the general public, understand the ethics that serious predator control agents have and how seriously they take their work.
We have a moral and ethical responsibility to quickly and humanely take the animals we are killing.
As you have pointed out many times, there is a tremendous difference between recreational coyote hunting and working to kill a specific predator. Once you have taken that animal, you have to immediately start working on the next one(s).
The "off season" for sport hunters is some of my busiest times as I want to take out the adults so they won't have a litter to feed.
The warmer months, particularly late summer, is tough for getting the adults as they tend to spread out since they are not taking care of a litter of pups.
Seasonally adjusted calls are necessary to get the "educated " coyotes.
The same applies to trap locations.
Ed
