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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on May 27, 2007 23:18:24 GMT -6
On another thread I mentioned my experience selling houses.
Once in 23 years I can think of a house I sold off of an advertisement I ran for it.
Most folks think that is how a house sells, however the National Assn. of Realtors says only 3% of sales come from a direct ad.
Now if the truth is so much different than reality why do we continue to do it?
I have others, what have you guys got?
Joel
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Post by trappnman on May 28, 2007 4:39:00 GMT -6
does a direct ad include signs?
guess one of the things I have is : #11 don't allow chewing in coon.
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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on May 28, 2007 5:53:17 GMT -6
About 10% of house sales come from signs. I get excited when I get a sign call because they have already seen the location and front of the property.
However signs and ads only account for 13% of sales yet I'll bet many people think it is 90+%.
Burying cat traps is a box a lot of guys are in, took me a couple of years even after I saw two of the best in the business's sets.
As far as coyotes go, I think setting traps where he can see around, even if just for a little ways, is the difference in maybe 50% of catches. I think far more important in cutting down on refusals than worrying to much about human scent.
Speaking of scent I am starting to rethink the way I use it and whether it is counterproductive in many cases.
Take a walkthrough set, basically the same concept as snaring isn't it? You wouldn't put lure all around a snare set because it would make him stop and pay attention. Yet almost everybody I know uses lure around a walkthrough set. Seems to me that you want him to keep walking not stopping to smell something?
One of my favorite coyotes sets uses very weak lure and in some cases none at all.
Joel
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Post by trappnman on May 28, 2007 6:02:10 GMT -6
now dang it Joel- you are going to turn this into a trapping thread...
on walkthroughs- I think we have different definitions of walk thorughs.
I agre with your thought that a walkthrough can be just a blind set. Your conclusions are mine in those- for example, I don't use mink lure on blind sets. Hes coming a I want him to come- why give hime anything esle ot think aobut/change his pattern?
but on coyotes, my walk throughs aren't blind- they just create more foot movement at the set- ie 2 lure areas. so perhaps not a "walkthrough" but a "walking about" type set.
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Post by rionueces on May 28, 2007 6:42:56 GMT -6
Dang it T-Man I just typed up a response to Joel's post, and you moved it to the trapping section. Bad timing. I guess we were both pecking at the computer at the same time. Here's my real estate post anyways....
Joel,
I find that newspaper advertising for commercial properties is somewhat effective. We don't use the MLS for commercial listings down here since TX is not an open records state. Buyers don't really want anyone to know what they paid for their property. Especially the tax man....
Most of the inquiries for my listings are from the internet. Thinking "out of the box" back in the mid 90's, I used to get a ton of business off my web site before everyone else got into the game. I still get one or two calls a week from buyers looking for deals.
As far as trapping goes. I routinely push the limits on traditional methods. Down here coyotes don't seem to mind being crowded into cat sets. Much of the country that we trap is thick thorny brush and cactus. Full of rats, rabbits and snakes....
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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on May 28, 2007 6:55:42 GMT -6
I actually have more things that are out of the box that aren't trapping related.
For instance I counseled a client the other day about the effectivness of newspaper ads as it related to RE.
He is an accountant for a big landscaping company, he told me he went through the books and tracked their sales from newspaper ads and told me it was the same in his business.
He told the owner that he would recommend cutting the $200,000 ad budget and putting on more salesmen.
Said it was right there for everybody to see but they were solidly in that box.
Another trapping one is muskrats, I used to think that the trap needed to be submerged until I ran into Sherm Anderson at the Ruby Marshes one spring.
Sherm would just slap a trap on the feed bed throw a handful of chopped oranges behind it and roar over to the next set.
He had a plane and two sons to move camps to different refuges.
I think his best year was like 33,000 rats .
Joel
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Post by Wright Brothers on May 28, 2007 7:16:36 GMT -6
Speaking of uncovered traps my grandpap caught a lot of coon in trails with sls. Wire off to a log, bed tight, go to the next. I find myself fooling around camoing it, only to have a coon destroy the set. I should set up a few big pan coils, with guards, and try it this winter, just because.
First time I advertised for contract work I thought the phone would be hot. I got a whopping two calls. One a roof over two existing layers which I'll never do. The other was redoing a chicken coupe, lol, which I did. That led to lot more work and I still to this day have permission there.
Word of mouth is the best I've found. That may be tough in one time sales like RE though.
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Post by trappnman on May 28, 2007 8:57:10 GMT -6
WB- when trapping otter with te #11, I found that I couldn't cover the trap really at all on dry land, or it misfired. So all I did, was sprinkle a little sand on the trap pan. Otter never even noticed the trap.
Neither did coon......
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Post by billcat on May 28, 2007 9:26:24 GMT -6
A couple of years ago, when we had good snow, I had a lot of unburried blind sets for cats in trails, with scent off to one side. Coyotes would get a wiff about 30' away and would circle around and check it out from the side or go around and come back into the trail about 30' the other side. No reason I could see to twig the coyote that a trap was there, except for the smell. Trappers mostly will see sign close to a set, if there is a miss, but, what about the ones that bail off the trail further out and don't work the set at all. You wouldn't even know you had a miss. I've also had cats that would stop short at the stepping sticks, get a snoot-full and turn and go back the way they came, just like at regular scent type sets. On bare ground, you wouldn't even know a cat had been there. I don't believe the coyotes or cats knew there was a trap there, just an unfamiliar smell that, for the coyotes, warrented caution and for the cats, demanded investigation, but traveling that particular path was not on their mind at that particular time. Makes a guy wonder if scent works as much against us, as for us.
Bill
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Post by Wright Brothers on May 28, 2007 9:39:03 GMT -6
That's a good point, he learned by himself, no books or www etc and probably found what worked best for him and repeated it.
I just went and looked at his traps, which are perfectly waxed by me ;D The older (B&L maybe or?), have some debris gap while the "newer" coon money vics have none. That could of been when his learning curve changed as I remember him being in a slump. Those little things that can add up.
Debris gaps, could that be why some swear 11s are good and others swear at them.
I guard jawed a couple 1 1/2 ls and tried them last year, they did good in water but not covered. I can not bring myself to sell those, and will use for rats and risky areas as it seems the thieves here only like cs.
As for outside the box I know well many have "theories" but will not say for fear of it going against the grain of parroted internet trapping. That old stuff comes out at campfires, meetings, etc and is cherished by me. Many of our elders learned the old fashioned way and when they speak I try to listen, just like on here.
Ok, turning off the coffee now, Who's Next lol
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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on May 28, 2007 9:43:14 GMT -6
I agree with you Bill, I've seen to many times where an animal changes the pattern of what they were doing when they sensed a smell or a sound.
Not saying that scent is always bad because there are certainly plenty of animals caught with it but there are places where I know that it is completely counterproductive.
Sometimes a guy just tries to do to much.
How many of you guys could make a dirthole set and not put any bait in it? Have you ever tried?
Joel
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Griz
Demoman...
Posts: 240
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Post by Griz on May 28, 2007 10:02:57 GMT -6
I agree with you Joel. It seems to me that animals generally prefer the world to be like it was yesterday, predictable, and without change. Smelling a scent in a different location than yesterday is not a significant change, but a new scent never smelled in that habitat is enough to turn on a caution response. Periodically their mood changes and they are hungry, sexy, or curious. Different sets play to those different moods.
How many try to put in diferent sets at a location where each set appeals to a different mood? And how many put in one set they are good and quick at installing, that works a reasonable percentage of the time, and move on?
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Post by bobwendt on May 28, 2007 10:11:53 GMT -6
how many insist on using sets other than a dirthole for fox or coyotes, when there is no reason shown by the animal AT THAT POINT, OR THE WEATHER, that they are not far far and away the fastest easiest and most productive set? and those knowingall the weird sets and zumpteen variations of the dirthole, betcha you havn`t caught squat, are newbies sucked in by con men selling videos and books showing sets rather than how to trap animals. big difference. like being a doctor or a monkey. you can teach both to do surgery, but only one will know where and when to do it, and he only does it the one way that gives the highest % of success. it`s not brain surgery, the mechanics of the set. I laugh at the dirthole set contests, where the judge measures tension, distance, tippy-ness, like he really knows , or it really makes a difference in the catch. but then again, hearing about the loch ness monster and the yeti are a lot more exciting than just saying there is a reason no one has shot one, lol, there `taint none , that`s why. this is a case of where making 99% dirtholes IS thinking out of the box.
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Griz
Demoman...
Posts: 240
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Post by Griz on May 28, 2007 10:30:12 GMT -6
Bob, that is my point. One gravitates to what works most of the time, or at least a reasonable percentage of the time. Key words are "most of the time" and "reasonable percentage of the time". That is different than ALL of the time. The part that is stuck inside the box is the part that says "I am shocked that I had a refusal". You had a refusal because the animal was not in the mood for the set that is generally most productive; it did not trip his trigger or it triggered a caution response for some reason. So, if it is not worth making special sets to catch the refusals that is accepted as part of the game and in most cases of fur trapping it is a resonable decision. It then is not worth dwelling on why did the refusal occur, especially if you are not going to do anything about it.
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Post by lumberjack on May 28, 2007 10:33:37 GMT -6
I am pretty much anal about leaving a mink set (blind) for 2-3 weeks at a time without pulling it or adding any more. One stop on my line last year yielded no mink after 2 weeks out of past years producing sets. I thought with all the rat trappers out this year, that they may have tagged them before I got there. I had 4 proven sets (2 on each side) there yield nothing but kept seeing a couple forced sets through debris on my way out that were recently caused by flooding that were never there before. Going against the grain, I added 2 traps in this nearby location and added 2 mink to my catch within a week. Moral of the story?? Mink dont always travel the same proven locations and tweak it if you have to.
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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on May 28, 2007 12:52:12 GMT -6
Most of the top western cat trappers trap cats like mink trappers blind set mink.
Tman said above that he wouldn't lure a blind mink set, why would a guy put lure on a blind cat set?
I like to have the lure/sound/flag down the trail aways, if at all.
As far as coyotes I'd do about the opposite of Bob, I'd use 90% flat sets around a big bait or sound attractor.
The holes are great but in this country the soil doesn't hold them as well and they are more work in the hard ground where the soil will hold one.
One less tool to pack as well.
Joel
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Post by bobwendt on May 28, 2007 13:17:19 GMT -6
likewise I`ve never seen the standing off or resistance to setting in heavy cover for coyotes, like smack in the middle of dense cedar thickets, or standing corn in the east. can`t see even a few feet or often even inches. keeps the catch hid from snoops too. probably some unmentioned difference in the way we operate that neither has considered as a factor. in sand country I usually dig my hole into some sort of backing like a sage or grass sprig or rock to prevent cave ins. remakes can get tough. but that hole sure gets their nose and eyes both where I want them. Right where I want them, to the centimeter.
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Post by trappnman on May 28, 2007 14:16:16 GMT -6
once I found out that sage roots held a hole nicely, I liked the sand.
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Post by edge on May 28, 2007 19:41:24 GMT -6
Heres my #1 outside the box real estate factoid.
I dont house shop,period.
I send 2 women out to look for what I'm looking for,they report back,THEN I look.It gets done quick and I dont have to decode a bunch of RE Agent doublespeak.I spend about 400$ per house for this.
My out of the box trapping is,I'm a slob.The hole goes where it goes,the pan gets hwere it oughta be and I'm outta there.
I can and have made great blind sets for ADC work but for fur,I waste no time thinking,I been setting iron the same way for several decades and until the coyotes tell me different,I aint changin.
Edge
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Post by lynxcat on May 29, 2007 8:33:18 GMT -6
I like lure at my cat walk thru's... keeps the coyotes OUT!!! I dont think it "hurts" my cat take...might even help it a bit..my lure is NOT "foreign" to cats... just WANT the coyotes at attention so they WONT plug up the sets!! lynx
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