Layin out a line/permission

[RiverRat]

Planning a New line and getting permission for a line of any real size is WORK it its worse than skinnin at 2 AM with blurry eyes and reminds me of why I didnt like to go to school I got to THINK too much. Lots of numbers to go over, bout wore my new plat maps out an I anit quite done. Anyone else out there going threw this ?

[walkercoonhunter(Aaron L.)]

river i did this last year while setting traps...lol i would stop and ask permission and go set...farm to farm...i know what your going through...this year im going to try to have all my permission before summer ends..but im sure it will run into trapping season again...

[thefoxtrapper]

I have been doing this every year for the past few years, because if a place is dead or too many headaches or if I hit it real hard, then I just move on, so I always need fresh places, and of course I still have places I set every year or just about every year, I'm in the process of mapping a big line a good ways from my home, need to get to some fresh ground with more fur, unless it is someone who just piddles or has been around for an extremely long time, dont see how could get by without fresh ground each season, I personally wouldnt be able to hold the same beaver and otter numbers without hitting fresh spots every year....no way.....

Winston

[trappnman]

I only have so many creeks to trap- and once I get out of the hills- I lose the open water. So my water line with rare exceptions is the same year after year.

I trap no otter (we have no season) and not that many beaver.

On land- its much the same. While there is some change every year- dropping a spot or to for whatever reason and adding a few- I would have a hard time NOT trapping the same farms.

The farmers main concern is coon- they want me there keeping the coon under control. On many of my farms- coon are really not a problem anymore- there is no doubt i nmy mind- that constantly trapping the same farm for 5-10-15 years does have an impact on the coon. I've seen it time and time again. But they want and expect to see me there every year- if I didn't...bye bye farm. The coyotes for most farmers don't matter- they do the farmer little harm, and as such their removal is a low, low priority. I trap coyotes for me.

Over the past years, I've tried to get a standard coyote route down. I've added to it each year and I've finally finalized my route just the last year or two to be the msot efficient for me time and mileage wise. In these hills- like most hill country- the standard quip of "you can't get there from here" applies. A lot of crisscrossing to get form point A to point B.

What I need to do now- is fill in the holes on that route.

Ideally, I shouldn't be going more than 5 miles or so without a location to setup. While there might be a small overlap in coyotes by doing this- our study here shows small home ranges (no numbers yet, as the final study isn't done) but indications of our coyotes really being homebodies.

I find getting permission on "inbetween" farms fairly easy to get- name dropping of other farms you trap usually works very well. But actually- most of my recent permissions have been gained easily once I get my foot in the door gopher trapping.

[bblwi]

Permissions for me are not difficult to get. I typically get the permissions for controlling coons for the farmer. The coon populations usually are high when I first start trapping and then dwindle down. Also most of my farmers are dairy farmers and the corn goes early for silage and High Moisture corn. Many times coon are gone by the time trapping starts. Also looping permissions into effecient and effective travelling traplines gets to be the issue for me. When doing coon trapping service for farmers one is trapping locations much more closely and heavily than one would do for canines. As I get more time to run longer lines I will need to expand my loop size and that will mean more coon locations for every new canine location I want.
We also are foturnate that we have several groups of avid coyote hunters who are really hunting the yotes hard in January and February. They are making a difference here and we see our red fox making a respectable come back.

Bryce

[thefoxtrapper]

t-man,

before I started beaver and otter hard, I pretty much hit the same places each year for coon/fox and piddled with some new ones for a change up and was always looking for a hot spot here or there, but not much effort needed really...now that I have switched gears, I have no choice but to keep moving on, beaver and otter can all but be caught out of a place unless a very,very good travelway and even then one can notice the impact, at least in my parts......also keep in mind, when focused just on beaver and otter and nothing else, a lot more ground can be covered than someone setting for all species, and not as much rotation, so leave sets out a lot longer and take a whole lot more than the cream, so have reasons for moving around, most people around here give permission but dont bug you to come back either, so yeah skipping a year is taking a chance on someone backdooring, but skipping a year for me either means nothing there or a dead place and that is all it will ever be, places that I want to give a rest but will be back in the future, just get permission and leave alone, that way no one backdoors me....different methods, but hey, we are over 1000 miles apart...

Winston

[trappnman]

Also looping permissions into effecient and effective travelling traplines gets to be the issue for me. When doing coon trapping service for farmers one is trapping locations much more closely and heavily than one would do for canines. As I get more time to run longer lines I will need to expand my loop size and that will mean more coon locations for every new canine location I want.


To a degree bryce, to a degree. That is, time becomes an important factor. On my line- trpaping coon means a little walking- down that ravine, the old ponds, etc... it gets very hard and for me, downright impossible to expand the lines equally.

By that I mena if you are trapping 10 farms- its easy to set them both up for coon and canines. but 20 farms gets harder..and at some point, yo uhave ot decide which is priority- coyotes or coon. For me, its coyotes..... and many of my best coyote locations have few coon...and many of my best coon locations have few coyote trapping opportunities.

So that means that my coon sets become secondary- and I found that as my coyote line expanded, my coon line decreased. Its a hard balancing act.

[RiverRat]

Trappnman you say coon are secondary, do you target yotes at one time during the season an then target coons? It seems to me that a guy can make more money on coons than yotes. Or am I missing the boat

This yr I plan to target coons for bout 30 days skin an freeze then finsh coons (ok call me crazy) and target yotes while doing custom work. But again our season starts the first week of Nov an I beileve you got Oct to trap up there.

[trappnman]

Winston- I agree with yo u100%- beaver and otter i'd guess can be cut back- hard to know it as you know on coon.

RR- you are right- I don't even trap water until over a month after the opener. Coon would by far be my best $$$ value for energy expended.

BUT- I need to trap coyote- I love everything about coyote trapping.

so when I mean coon are secondary- I mean my route and most of my farms are set up for coyote location. Coon locations are secondary. Luckily, I can set up many of my farms with a couple of coon sets. But I don't go out of my way for coon. So one way of looking at it- minus the lure and time- my coon are 100% profit.

now that Lori is getting to be a confident trapper- I will expand that somewhat.

Same with water- although- I'd guess my waterline is geared about equally to rat, mink and coon.

I used to take a fair amount of coon- but with this system, I pretty consistently take 125 or so hill coon and a few more than that in my winter coon water line.

so really- I'm skinning coon for a period of 5 months- just at an even pace.