Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
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Airedale56
Well-Known Member
Anyone who wants to comment:
I got some old "jump traps" from a friend's estate.
And some double long springs. Both sized for coyotes.
Have you ever used either kind and have an opinion on either or both for coyotes? I primarily call, spot and stalk and snare coyotes.
Does your state approve or disapprove of their use?
It seems that "Best Management Practice" here does include either style. Two and four coil springs get the nod, if I am remembering right.
Calving season is around the corner up here.
Jump trap
Double long spring
I got some old "jump traps" from a friend's estate.
And some double long springs. Both sized for coyotes.
Have you ever used either kind and have an opinion on either or both for coyotes? I primarily call, spot and stalk and snare coyotes.
Does your state approve or disapprove of their use?
It seems that "Best Management Practice" here does include either style. Two and four coil springs get the nod, if I am remembering right.
Calving season is around the corner up here.
Jump trap
Double long spring
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The jump traps, the spring sometimes would hit the pan when tripped and give toe catches before it closed the jaws all the way, by slamming the pan upward on the bottom of the coyote's foot. Long spring traps take a bigger bed to bed them; they get slow faster with frosty ground, as they have to push the springs up through it, the springs get weak, but you can put a piece of pipe in them and hit the end of the spring with a 4 lb. hammer, driving it down on the pipe to open them up some and add strength to them that way. I kept a few of them just to hang on the wall in my garage, some of them had an add on to them that looked like a saw blade to put teeth on the jaws. The dog chain would get kinked and bind up causing leg breakage at times as well as shortening the length of the chain giving the animal more power to pump the stakes out of the ground. In muddy ground the long spring traps would pack full of gumbo and make it heaver causing leg damage and help the animal pull out. Both of the examples shown are smooth jaws not offset jaws which also causes more damage to the animal's foot and leg. The days of learning and trying to make a better trap. There are a few things that can be done to help them be a better trap, such as turning the jaw tips up and setting the pan and dog up to hold each other with a notch so they don't have any creep.
Back a couple of pages I said that James Mast made a bait for m-44's and that I at times would put a couple of drops of beaver caster in it. Beaver caster has a couple of things going for it in that use, it has a sweet smell that is calming, and it also acts as an aroma carrier, thus why it was also used by the perfume industry. Smells that are calming to animals that they have never been exposed to are a curiosity smell, as well as a comforting smell. When an animal is comfortable, they let their guard down more readily.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
Jump traps were the "compact" trap of yesteryear. I believe their production was halted sometime in the 70's. After using #3 Jumps for otter in 1980 on Kodiak Island I retired mine for nostalgic reasons. They remind me of my youth. The 3's and 4's can be difficult to set in snow or uneven ground. The smaller sizes I used to set by putting the chain behind one knee and squatting allowing me to compress the blade spring. They are definitely an antique. Double longs are still sold but the ones you have I bet are Victors or Blake and Lamb and deserve to be displayed.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
We had -41 week ago last Thursday or Friday night. I don't recall seeing the tail looking very white but it certainly wasn't dark. Will they lose the tail fur when it gets frostbiten? This one was front foot snared. Quite alive when I ran the line. Had to go full pistolerò on the poor boy. First foot snared I've had. Destroyed the bottle neck unfortunately. The previous check I had one dead with its front arm and head in the loop. I barely use chin ups because of that. I'm thinking my loops are getting too big. I don't know. My locks and torsion springs are from Marty Senneker from Hays, Alberta.
trapper1954
Well-Known Member
Nix on this stuff Just hangem on the wall for decoration.
trapper1954
Well-Known Member
Dead is Dead in my book, any killer dead is a good thing. Front foot catch,, Ive targeted the front foot on educated coyotes that paw the snare out and been happy when I caught that booger. I caught a 45# male Monday , front leg and head, 32", 5/64, 1x19, cam, dead as a rock and it was an important coyote and made the land owner extremely happy. There are what I call crawlers out there that have developed a knack for disabling a snare, flip it, move it or closing it, Use their education against them Dont be afraid to set 2 snares in a hole, a slosher and a regular loop, they cant count. 10 4
The V in the pan means it is a victor so if the picture is of one of them it would be a victor. Donneric, you said that the skin was white and clean that is why I asked if it was frozen. I kind of figured it was dead in your snare and that its tail might have frozen after it died. My money would be on it having mange. Frost bite kills the tissue, but it would take time for it to slip the hair and the tissue would turn black because of it being dead tissue, and it would begin to dry out and shrivel up. There are several reasons that you would get a front foot catch. A few might be the loop closed for some reason, so that its foot went into the snare, like wind knocking it down, or having been brushed by another animal, the lock was too fast to slide down for one of several reasons, as the animal's foot went into the loop, the loop was too close to the ground, these are just a few things that might cause a front foot catch. At one time people were telling of foot snaring by putting the snare next to the ground in trails, I personally didn't think that was a good idea as I don't want nontarget animals caught by the foot. The use of any tools to catch coyotes is a complex subject that has with it so many variables. I can show you or tell you how that I do things and even the best student wouldn't do it exactly as I do, every situation has its own set of variables, conditions change every second of the day or night. We just do the best that we can and learn more as we go along, for each new occurrence, we ponder on them and try to figure out what went on that caused it to be the outcome that it was, so we then have added more to our collection of knowledge and have grown more ourselves.
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I was working on a highly secured facility that would not allow traps or snares anywhere except the perimeter fences.
I was having a devil of a time dealing with my snares being pushed out and my traps dug up at the slides under the fences.
Someone had educated the coyotes so that any, even slightly, disturbed slide was scratched around and my gear was exposed or they would dig another hole right beside that one.
So…I double snared them along with four leghold traps at each slide. I centered a leghold in the slide close to each side of the fence, then set another leghold roughly 18" from the fence, centered on the slide.
I caught doubles in two of those sets and one really teed-off badger.
It was a lot of work for each set, but I eliminated the biggest problems, including most of the ones that had been educated.
I still had one with three toes on his right front foot that I worked on for a few more weeks and ended up shooting him away from the fence line.
Ed
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- Nov 25, 2012
- Messages
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Dave, referring back to your reply about the other poster's old traps and the size of the hole needed to bury a double-long spring Victor trap, you can imagine the amount of digging that was needed to set those four MB-550's at each of those spots. 
I would not have liked to have done that with four Victor 3-N's!
Ed
I would not have liked to have done that with four Victor 3-N's!
Ed
