The value of cat lures

[Wiley]

While this year's cat season is fresh in my mind, I'm just curious what you serious cat trappers think about the value of curiousity lures at a cat set as opposed to just droppings and urine.

The importance of being on location and the importance of eye appeal (flags, fur, feathers, etc) is a given so I'm really not interested in discussing those components of a good set.

I'm more interested in the value you place on certain curiousity lures and certain ingredients.

There is a handful of ingredients that are usually mentioned in discussing cat lures. Those ingredients would be (in no particular order)...

1. Fish
2. Beaver Castor and Beaver oil
3. Skunk
4. Mint
5. Catnip

With eye appeal and location being so crucial to trapping cats, I sometimes believe that the value of curiousity lures is somewhat limited. With that in mind, what's your thoughts on the value of curiosity lures at a cat set and what ingredients do you believe are important components to a good cat lure and why?

Let me give you my opinion first. I have caught a number of cats in plain old coyote flat sets and usually it is with a loud skunky odor and nothing more than a T-bone for an attractor so obviously, there is some value to skunky odors IN THIS AREA.

I see cat's frequent beaver areas and mess around near beaver lodges and beaver dens. It seems that beaver castor and/or beaver oil is an ingredient that can be used effectively at rub sets although I have not tried it enough to be able to give an experienced opinion. I know they like beaver odors and I have heard they like to wear them.

I have friends that believe fishy odors are great at sets? I can't say I agree or disagree. I would assume they would be attractive but I haven't seen the reaction to prove it.

I certainly haven't seen much reaction to the lures I have used with minty odors.

Can't comment on catnip because I''ve never experimented with it alone.

I'm starting to believe that eye appeal has 60% of the value of a good cat set with droppings and urine adding another 25% of the value and lure coming in at 15% of the attractiveness of a set.

What are your thoughts?



~SH~

[Yancy]

Wiley said:
The importance of being on location and the importance of eye appeal (flags, fur, feathers, etc) is a given so I'm really not interested in discussing those components of a good set.

Are you trying to start a fuss?? ;D Yancy

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

I've caught a lot of cats on all the above mentioned ingredients.

Like Wiley enough in coyote flat sets to know they like lure.

For years I trapped cats with coyote mentality methods which pretty much relied on scent to pull them off the trail so I know it works.

I like to stagger my scents, loud call lure 3-4 off the ground, musky smell at head height, and urine/gland on the ground.

This late in the season I just scoop some out with a stick and just pitch it behind or off to the side of the set depending on whether a walkthru or not.

I know my house cat likes to crap around my garage where the scent is kept and slept on my pack all summer.

Joel

[rk660]

I'd have to pretty much agree. How many times to do see a cat trot right by a snowed in dirthole or flatset where the eye appeal is covered-about 90% of time. No matter what lure used it just doesnt seem to slow them down on just smell alone. I did hear from a trapper that did have some good digging reactions from a gland lure when snow covered, but I always feel much better having some eye appeal.

Im kinda to the point where I beleive anything-or nothing-will attract a cat by smell alone, all depentant upon his mood at the given time.

All depends whats on his mind at the given time.

The one ingreadiant that also surfaces in any cat lure duscussion I might add would be valerium root.

I would have to agree that urine/feces/gland smells probibly hold more of an attraction-or should I say a longer attraction-than say mint, nip and other curiousity type smells.

With that said, I do think minty smells probibly carry a little farther than say just urine, and probibly have more value in getting them to veer towards your set from a slightly greater distance. But the deal clincher in the end, is a turkey feather, rabbit, cached bait, tuft of fur, pile of turds, etc.

I generally have 2-8 snares in vicinity of most of my traps, and seem to do well in snares close to sets, telling me possibly even if some of those didnt suck him into my trap, they might have swung him over just enough to put his neck in a loop.

Then again....I pretty much just set traps at key locations, and just snare secondary locations on the way to a good trap locations..so maybe Im just getting better % in those snares since its a better location to begin with.

I have seen a lot of cat activity and made a lot of catches right around heavy coon activity this year. From catching cats right next to snared coons....to seeing where a cat went out of his way to walk right up to where a prior coon had been snared...its something I will remember. im begining to wonder if a good natural coon odor-gland/urine-might have some merit also.

Praire Wind lures out of KS makes the best smelling coon gland lure Ive ever used, and I just started putting some on some cat traps, so I guess we will see.

Bob W probibly has some good input on this coon/cat relationship as per some of his experiences this season also.

Probiby small fortunes in lure ingreadiants have been spent trying to find the ultimate cat lure, when in the end, a turkey feather saved the day.

I guess until I see that these smells actually repel a cat, I will still use them and beleive they do help to a certain extent at times. I probibly relie on them more for my own confidence, but as with any endever, with more confidence comes greater sucess.

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

Rich I sure liked that smoked salmon bait of yours. I'm not a bait user usually but that stuff gave me confidence.

Joel

[bobwendt]

I`m a little short on time right now but will chime in. last year I tried blinking lights and EVERY brand of noise maker out there, in large quantities and many many locations , on tracks and sign. my conclusion was all were WORTHLESS and possible even scared them off. and I tried the close/far /up/down. I mean a large sampling. worst cat catch in the last 7-8 years. this year I sent rk about a 5 gallon bucket of castors, told him grind and keep 1/2 and the other half make me up 1/2 dozen different cat lures. some he added rat musk, other civet, spearmint ,phenol, one valerian and others tonquin, and got some of his cat gland this or that. man, I have enough good proven formula cat lures to supply everyone on this board. so I never wrote down what where as heck , no time I`m running 1/2 asleep all the time anyway. but I did notice several cats, enough to notice the difference , that the best 2 cat catchers were the beaver and valerian and rks extra skunky nelson formula cat meat stink bait. of course that has about every gland known to the trapping world. on one occasion I remember like a minute ago, I had a pure sand 2 track thru a cedar thicket set, 4 super sets, every lure rk makes and more feathers and rabbit skins and etc than carter has pills. found a huge set of tracks and a single small buried toilet. the last set I just moved the toilet to a cut bank and made a walk thru out of it. don`tcha know a (&*&*%^*^*coon got in, ruined everything so I just make it into a common coyote dirthole on the remake, coyote pee etc./ next day or three I see the big tom is walking down the lane, oh boy, walks within inches of 3 sets with every thing but ther kitchen sink on them. no way he can`t see or smell them, heck I could smell them. and there he sits in the ex coon set. I dunno, anyone ever trey a coon anal lure on cats. the sob cats, sometimes I think I`m pretty smart and other time a rank amatuer that just gets lucky once in a while. thats cats. I`ve been running 35-45 cats everey jan except last when I used the electic stuff, onl;y 24 then. this for about 10 years, so maybe 400 cats inthe last tewn years and I feel about as dumb now as ten years ago.

[bobwendt]

ps, hey yancy. long time no talk. we need to fix that!

[SteveCraig]

Bobcats hate coons. I believe they will go out of their way to kill one.

I also believe that few know the correct way to use cat urine, and how much value it is to the set. Wiley says, 25%. I believe it is much higher. More in the range of 60%

Over the years, I have learned how to make a lion come to me, simply using house cat pee and making my own scrape/scratch lines. A side effect to this was I had alot of bobcats hitting those scratches too!
The danged lions started killing my bobcats. Bobcats ended up being dead all over the area of my mock scrapes. Now this was a good thing AND a bad thing. It kept my lion in the area, and allowed me to call more lions than any other man. But at the expense of fewer bobcats to call and trap. A lion will destroy a cage trap to get at the sweet morsel inside.
When you understand HOW a cat pee's, be it lion or bobcat, then you will know how much urine to use, and how to apply it to the set for the most attraction.

There you go boys, you just got a HUGE piece of the lion calling puzzle that has kept me at the top of the lion calling game for the last 10 years. The above also has a lot more to glean if you have eyes to see.

All other lures become secondary for me. I will list my own preference in the order my cats here and other places like it.

1. Urine, and it must be house cat.
2. Beaver odor----meat,castor,oil
3. Fish
4. Mints
5. Skunk

When you use the right combo, you can use the last two mixed with # 2 and 3.

Rich,
You have a winner with the Beaver combo you made for me. It is still working great at this time.
This is what I like and use.
FWIW
Steve

[Wiley]

Hey Yancy, you goof! Really enjoyed your cage trapping articles and it's reasurring to know that you guys perservered in the end after losing foothold traps. That did my heart good.

Thank you Joel and RK660.

Excellent post Bob Wendt and thank you!

BW: "sometimes I think I`m pretty smart and other time a rank amatuer that just gets lucky once in a while. thats cats."

That's right Bob, that's cats!

I know how unpredictable cats can be. Wish I could go somewhere with a lot of cats and just study reactions to various lure ingredients and see if I can find some patterns then try those lures here. I want to get to the point that I know I've done everything I can do to add a slightly higher degree of predictability than the current "mostly or totally unpredictable".


~SH~

[Wiley]

Two guys reaching the same conclusion on raccoon odors. Interesting considering that they frequently inhabit the same areas. Perhaps some testing is in order.


~SH~

[CoonDuke]

menthol
Eucalyptus Oil
Methyl Salicylate
Peppermint Oil
Thyme Oil

One of these ingredients, or a combo of 2 or more, drives housecats absolutely crazy. Much different type of reaction than catnip or valerian provokes. They just can't stop sniffing the odor. If I were a betting man, I would put money on the menthol being the key odor.

[timbob]

Last month I had a big cat scale a cliff to get to a civit cat that I had butchered up the frozen glands and stuck in the back of a cubby- super loud smell

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

Bob you think coyotes are easier to catch than cats?

Joel

[bobwendt]

in quantity, yes, far easier. cats are dumber but harder to catch, if that makes sense. they never give a damn, are never hungry and can be irregular as heck if they ever even come back to where they left a track. then the next one sits on the yellow line till a semi runs him over. lets put it this way, I`ve caught 1,000s upon 1,000s of coyote and maybe only 5-600 cats in my life. I`ve missed dang few coyotes and probably left as many cats as I`ve caught. seems lately I spend as much or more time on cats than coyotes. hey wait a minute, it just struck me, maybe I`m the dumb one.

[coyotewhisperer]

I think there is alot to the coon deal too. I kept a large tom during season for pee. He wouldn't eat anything in front of me except coon. I caught three other large toms in that area and you could not find a coon track. Gonna give prairie winds coon gland lure a try next year. I know a guy who kept 5 or 6 cats through the season and his would not eat fish if they were starving. and only one preferred coon over everything else. I think he said the others were split between beaver and deer. So when you take all that into consideration I think what might interest them most food base wise could be what they were brought up on as kittens. My last two cats this year came from a new drainage I've never trapped before and the coons were super thick in there so I don't think they were killing them there. Or maybe thats why they were there. Today was last day of season had a cat circle a cage trap about ten times in the snow before he went on his way. Seems like some are easier than possums and some just can't hardly be caught.

Jeff

[Wiley]

BW: "then the next one sits on the yellow line till a semi runs him over."

ROTFLMAO! Hahaha!

That is so true! They'll sit there on their haunches and stare at the headlights and probably just walked by 3 of the best made cat sets in existance.

I agree with your last post 100%. They are dumber but harder to catch. I have dealt with some really tough coyotes but I can always figure out a way to kill them. I can't say the same for cats because some are just so damn fickle and so unpredictable. Heck, they don't even follow trails very well. In the sage they walk around the trails as much as they follow them.

I had one cat spot my flag, walk 40 yards to the set, approach from one side and sit and look, approach from the other side and sit and look, then went on it's way. It simply wasn't hungry or willing to walk through the set. I guess that's why I enjoy them so much. I'm also glad they are the way they are because it assures them protection from overharvest. In a more necked down spot, I probably would have snagged that cat but not on the open prairie against a bank.

Good post so far. Thanks for all the input!



~SH~

[bobwendt]

just a fwiw. 4 times in my life I have been driving a well used paved hiway in broad daylight and spotted a cat sitting on it`s haunches staring at a pack rat house on the berm fence, or mouse or something. so intent they were oblivious to traffic or me pulling over roll down window with radio blaring and shooting one, as I just happened to have permission there ,and watching the other three as I had no permission there. and they would not leave even upon walking up to them, just went 20 feet into the weeds and crouched. finally I had to leave as traffic piled up. I know they say in the western states like wyoming utah nevada etc that cats can get trapped out or severely hurt. not so where I trap, but we have much more cover. I`ve hurt an individual spot by taking the sow and kittens and nothing there for few years, but not the area, just that specific mile or three square. plus too many off limits places due to access or no permissions etc. I think in western ks at least they might be kept trimmed down good in hi price times, but never really hurt bad, at least not from trapping alone. there are getting to be some serious dog hunters that are hurting them however, by killing everything they tree . my thoughts are the sows and kittens tree easy and stay put to get shot. even if not, the hunter knows the area they reside and just keeps going back till he gets them all. and hound hunters seem to ignore no tresspassing signs where trappers and others can`t go there. so he kills everything in a 20-40 mile wide swath and no fill in.

[ohiyotee]

never caught a cat and probably never will . Great reading for us city folks, Could be wrong about this but is it correct to say that the difference between a coyote and a cat is the cat is never in a hurry and the canines for the most part are always moving..

[bobwendt]

call your dog and the fool runs over drooling and wagging his tail and acts stupid. call your pet housecat and it stares at you. maybe mows or twitches its tail but that is all. cat is thinking to itself, you dumbarse. that is the difference.

[trappnman]

sounds like you haven't owned any hounds Bob-