Snaremen, give me some advice

[deanchapel]

I don't know how you Southern boys do it without the snow. I learn so much after a snowfall by looking at t racks that I can't imagine not having it regularly.

Anyway, checking my snare yesterday... Light snow (1-2 inches) showed me a few things. I did have a coyote wak through a snare halfway, stop, and back out of the snare. The coyote clearly had the cable (3/32" 7x7 with camlock) around his neck, and sensed something to make him back out. Sound? The feel of the snare? Scent? I don't know.

I had caught an old apha male (presumably) last check. I could tell where the rest of the pack had milled about after his death. There was a particular narrrow spot that the yotes had walked through several times as they were milling. So I plugged a snare into this little gap. The coyotes clearly weren't afraid of this narrowness. This check, I see where several coyote purposely went around the snare, and where one ran at the snare and about 5 feet away jumped up and over my snare support. It was very clear they knew the snare support and snare were there. I paint all of my supports with olive drab back in March and April, and are as scent free as painted things can be. I use primarily 1/16 and 5/64 cable.

I also seen numerous places where coyotes just walked around my snares. Alot of times, they would go around starting 10-30 YARDS before my snare. Were they really seeing my snare at that distance? I did a little blocking, but not much.

On a previous run, I saw where the coyotes were avoiding my snare and passing by the snare on the opposite side of a bush. I just swung the snare around the bush to the little trail the coyotes were travalling to avoid my snare. Next trip through, the coyote avoids the original trail, the trail I just set my snare in, and went another 5 yards to the side of my snare. They gotta be seeing them, right?

Which brings me to my next plan, unless someone can give me an idea to the contrary, is to paint my snare a light color. Perhaps a prairie grass yellow or something similar. I think the darkness of the olive-drab is costing me coyotes. I am snaring in sage alot, which is pretty dark and really matches the olive-drab quite well. The coyotes are picking out my snares, regardless. What are your thoughts?

[Rally Hess]

Break the outline of the loops, by adding small sticks or grass wads to the outside edges of your snares, Nothing in nature is round, and the easier it is for the coyotes to visially see the loop, the more refusals your going to get. Let them look at the top and bottom of the loop(frown or smile) and light weeds, twigs etc close to but not actually in the loop, will help with your refusals.
I don't recomend snares be treated with anything. Painting them just adds the possibility of odor problems and usually makes them darker, which is easier to see against a snow background. Were you having trouble before the snow fell?

[trappnman]

my experiences miorror yours, and I blame most of that on the loop laws in Mn.

Right now, the maximum loop diameter cannot exceed 10", and the top of that loop, cannot be more than 16" off the ground- placing that snare about where you would place it, if your goal was to put the snare in as much of the coyotes forward vison range as possible.

some advice given me by good snaremen, was to set in up and down scenarios, as a coyote tends to drop his head in both.

my thought if I was you- use the biggest loop size and as high off the ground as your laws allow.

I know how well killpoles and big loops work in areas with zero cover- what is 100% more obvious to me, out in the open in front of God and his beings, seems to be ignored- whereas my trying to blend in a loop at his eye height, just leads to frustration

[Stef]

I prefer very light snow or no snow at all for snaring. (Best)
Coyotes see.............. Wolves too!
They aren't fox.
Snow and full moon are the worst in open snaring locations in my part of the world.
That's why most good snaremen like to use thinner cable like 5/64 and 1/16th equipped with good locks and dispatch springs like the Stinger with Camlocks with teeth.
light Grey cable are the best in snow compared to dark dye snares

[RdFx]

Just for examples sake. When Wisc was doing studies to get info for setting up a cable restraint season... the first year we painted all the cables white.......... more refusals than i could believe. Went to just cables , some boiled and refusals just about nil , depending upon the snare person. Interesting for sure....

[seldom]

Interesting comments. I lethal snared here in MI for a handful of years until they made us use cable restraints with a 4.25" deer stop loop and non-lethal. We could only snare after January 1st so we had at least 6-10" of snow cover and it was almost too easy to kill coyote for me. Not that I have/had a heavy population but I learned that if I found locations where one or more coyote had used any given trail at two different times, I'd hang the trail and kill every coyote that used the trail there after, usually I'd hang doubles of mated pairs.

My snares were 1x19, a 10" loaded loop 10" off the footprints and spray painted white. During those years I can honestly say I only remember one refusal and it was my fault because I hung the snare on top of a cradle knoll and it was sort of sky-lighted. I snared huckleberry swamps both low bush and high bush, tag alder swamps, blackberry patches, etc. i was cRefullmto make sure my loops wete hanging in such a location and manner that the outline was broken. Seriously, It was all too easy and certainly wasn't rocket science. If any coyote used a trail more than twice, it and everyone thereafter was dead!!

I had where a pair of grey fox used a trail where I had a sure hanging. The fresh snow told a great story. The first fox pasted under the snare as did the second but the second grey only trotted about 6', turned, came back to the loop, stopped, undoubtedly sniffed it, turned and trotted off to follow the other. I could only figure that the first fox touched the bottom of the loop and made it swing and the other fox saw it but continued under it but most have thought about it and came back to see what it was. Don't know since I'm not a grey fox but it was an unusual circumstance to see played out in the snow.

The reason I wasn't concerned with painting my snares and had great success was my theory that if the coyote is tripping along and has no reason to stop or hesitate, why would he smell the paint? Also, I don't think if the coyote hit my snare he'd had much of an opportunity to do much about it due to the firing of the snare. If coyotes smelled my snares the did it one step to late!

God I miss snaring!!

[BadDog]

Way more refusals on thick 3/32 cable than 5/64, way less refusals on 1/16. Very few refusals when using 3/64 (but 1/16 is all you need)

So the easier it is to see the cable, the more refusals you have.

Snares painted lightly after boiling in baking soda, by far the least refusals of all, especially when coupled with thin cable. The key is dull cable before adding a little paint. Do not cake in paint, especially white, I hate white.

Dull cable leads to far less refusals than shiny cable. Shiny cable and especially shiny locks leads to massive refusal on coyotes.

Snare environments will make or break on refusals. Snare the ultra thick, by all means then do whatever you want, hard to get a refusal. Snare the wide open and you need to do more things right or snare refusals set in.

[trappincoyotes39]

keep the lock out of the line of sight, blend them in to look more natural even in more open areas and loop size not as crucial unless madndated by law just so the bottom of the loop hits them chest high. I also like the stablizer to be off the trail all together versus 9ga right next to the snare loop.