onto the home stretch

[trappnman]

The weather has been unreal- no hard freeze yet, a few minor frosts. Have had 1 day of rain in last 5 weeks. 60s-70 during day, mostly 40s at night and not a cloud in the sky day or night. Too nice. We are down on numbers, but it is what it is. I'll take the trade off in numbers, for DRY.

I honestly believe, and Lori concurs, that this has been one of the most enjoyable years, once we got off the "need numbers, need numbers" trian

some pics from the past few days





this one was asleep and woke up only when I was standing by set







was going to post this earlier- that badger with the big donut circle? this is the remake.



















5 fox early, then nothing til today



first I've used Montanas as kill traps-



Mickey relaxing-

[redsnow]

Very nice!

[braveheart]

It has been a nice Fall so far kind of hot here as well but the yotes have been working sets good mostly flat sets have out produced the dirt hole.

[mustelameister]

Real nice down to the last pic. What's with the Vikings throw???

[trappnman]

that's just fond memories, of when Minnesota and Green Bay used to have football teams..............

[trappnman]

pulled everything yesterday-

one thing that for sure is that again this year, the numbers just don't lie/

consistently- the 1st 5 days were by far the best, and after that the catch rate dropped off substantially. Everytime over past few years, I've decided to stay a bit longer- it doesn't pay off. and after a week, it drops even further. Part of this is common sense- I've removed X number of coyotes from the pool- but it also brings home the point that if on location, you should catch the coyotes early in the game-

the last few-

[MRussell]

Steve,
In my limited experience I too have found that staying in one location more that 5 days becomes counter productive. In fact I pulled all of my sets in preparation to move my line today. Nice pictures by the way!

[trappnman]

the hardest thing in the world for me, is to pull traps after 5-6 days. but I've proven it over and over-

you will see fresh sign as you are pulling- and I'd think, man an extra day or two..... unless you are in a true 50 cow location, I just find that after 5-6 days the catch drops like shutting a faucet. Other areas most likely don't follow this pattern is big timber or sage prairie areas.

I'll probably piss someone else off- but when I hear about the 5-6th day check being the best check- I wonder why? I'm going to assume those saying such, have out enough traps to form an opinion, and if so, I wonder why all of a sudden, did all these coyotes that weren't there, suddenly appear, at multiple locations.

and my thought is those coyotes were there- but because of set location/construction didn't become aware of, or enough desire to- work the sets.

now if those saying that only have out a few traps- and then the 5-6 day the caught something- then there really isn't enough data to form any conclusions.

-----------------------------

Was kind of disappointed yesterday- went to a creek that had beaver on it- a perfect spring fed creek, never ever freezes- was a wonderful mink/coon/rat location for 30 years. 2 years ago the dnr let TU redo the creek- last year slim pickens- this year- ZOLCH. a clean clear watercress stream is now devoid of cress, silted bottoms, and nary a rat sign did I see. a creek that gave me 30-50 rats a year, for 30 years- gave me a doz last year, and I didn't even bother to set a trap this year. To make it worse- a deer stand right next to the beaver pond....no beaver, no sign in snow, water clear and stagnant bottom- oh well.

went to another similar creek- always 15 or so rats/4-5 mink...last year never set it up, this year zero sign as well. Dnr and TU did stream improvements a few years ago.

Dead creek now insofar as wildlife.

thanks dnr

[RdFx]

Thanks for the nice pics Steve, you have some pale yotes compared to what i have here in North central Wi.. I only caught one really pale yote here in northern Wi., others were in NW N. Dakota.

[musher]

What is a true 50 cow location?

People that are always trying to improve things can be a real pain. It's really tough to touch any waterway here or even get too close to it. But they somehow always try to.

[trappnman]

a true 50 cow location, would be a very large attraction, that is bringing in multiple groups of coyotes on a regular basis.

a study showed that a dead pile made up of a couple cows, just attracted the coyotes within that range.

but when a pile of much larger proportions was used- ie 50 cows- the attraction brought in multiple groups of coyotes.

minor attractions are ones the locals use regular- but only them

so a huge stockyard, or dead pile- should in good territory give you the greatest opportunity to catch coyotes

[musher]

Thanks. That would be a real pile of dead stuff.

How big a farm do you have to have to get 50 dead cows? A 100 cow farm in Quebec is not unusual. But they are all alive!

[bblwi]

I don't know for beef but in WI for dairy 2-4% death rate for adult dairy cows is the norm and 10% roughly on new born calves. A 1,000 cow dairy here would have 20-50 dead older animals per year. We have many dead livestock pick up firms so almost none are composted or dragged to an area. In fact many animals that probably would die are picked up while still alive as they are more valuable to the firms alive than dead. Around here most dead animal material goes to pet food.
What might be a better source of animal product or tissue here would be afterbirths. If a farm calves in 1000 plus animals per year that is a lot of placenta material to dispose of. much of it goes out in the solid manure on fields which can create opportunity but not centralized.

Bryce