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Post by nbaum74 on Jan 18, 2014 16:09:39 GMT -6
i have been catching some coon lately using blackies fatal attraction but i feel like it looses scent quickly in these cold temps. coon tracks walked near my buckets but did not even investigate. i feel like im not having the pulling power i need and im not even trying to pull them from very far. tracks to bucket maybe 10 yards. is it this bait that is the problem, should i switch to sweet bait? feel like my placement is pretty good. going to try some sweet bait anyways but wanted yalls opinion.
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Post by medicdano on Jan 18, 2014 16:42:44 GMT -6
I use a whole bluegill cut in half with a dab of yote gland lure. Seems to work good for my buckets.
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Post by 4fur on Jan 18, 2014 19:39:31 GMT -6
Sweet or fishy? YES! LOL 30'? 3 feet is asking a lot this time of year unless you are chumming them IMO.
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Post by nbaum74 on Jan 18, 2014 20:39:30 GMT -6
well here is the scenario. i got permission on a small piece just recently and its the first time i have been there. it pasture with a small wooded creek running through. there is running water on top of the ice in certain bends of the creek. on one side of the creek there is a small ridge that has some nice big oak trees. now by following old tracks i was able to find three suspected dens. one old wood pile, a bank den, and a large hollow tree. now the trails were littered with deer tracks but i was able to confirm a few of these trails, so i set both right by the dens and on trails. my problem is the set of tracks i followed this morning took the trail then curved before my bucket to drink, then changed his mind and took a different trail. now where he stopped at the water is ten yards from my bucket. i would have guessed that curiosity would warrant a ten yard detour. im confident i will catch when they move decent, but for those nights when only the few brave coon move i want catches. lets here the input 4fur.
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Post by LLLTrapper on Jan 18, 2014 21:20:57 GMT -6
A coon's first priority is not food right now. They rarely will be pulled 10' off of a tail anytime let alone now. Set on a travel route and quit trying to get them to investigate your bucket. They could care less about it right now but if it is right where they are traveling anyway then you may and I say may get his attention or he may just cruise right by. LLL
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Post by nbaum74 on Jan 18, 2014 21:57:46 GMT -6
ok, so what are the top priorities of the coon at this point? if it is all about sex then i would assume that it becomes all about setting as close to dens sites as possible. which would match up with my catch this past week. the majority were close to the entrances of dens as blind sets. if what i am saying is true then what am i missing about the use of bucket sets this time of year? also do they move dens, or stick to one? what about boars? how do you get the coon to commit to the bucket if there is no food drive? thanks for the knowledge shared
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Post by medicdano on Jan 19, 2014 6:04:56 GMT -6
You are over thinking it. Coon, like most animals have 3 primary thoughts: I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm horny. In November it's hunger first. In January it's the later two. Put the bucket at the den tree (on the up wind side if possible), on top of a toliet, or RIGHT ON A TRAIL. Make him walk around it. Use fish, commercial coon lure, or the can of mackeral idea Larry stated ealier which works real well. I always have plenty of bluegill this time of year to use so I use that and I have good luck.
Every trail I have found in the snow has connected for me. No tracks past any bucket I have set out. Might be 3-5 days later, but all tracks lead to a dead coon.
You are not going to connect every night this time of year. Tonight after the 40 degree day they will probably move, and anything that doesn't connect tonight gets moved in the morning. I have 8 buckets out right now (cause that's all I wanna run) and I expect 8 coon a week as a minimum.
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Post by muskrat72 on Jan 19, 2014 20:04:17 GMT -6
A coon's first priority is not food right now. They rarely will be pulled 10' off of a tail anytime let alone now. Set on a travel route and quit trying to get them to investigate your bucket. They could care less about it right now but if it is right where they are traveling anyway then you may and I say may get his attention or he may just cruise right by. LLL I disagree with the quit trying to investagate the bucket comment. Yes coon tracks might go by day after day past the cubbie set but sooner or later the coon will go in. To my experience if a coon eats your chum, or eats the bait after another coon is caught, they will remember where that food came from. Works for the type of trapping im doing. I set a cubbie at every travel route or POSSIBLE travel route and wait. Sooner or later it will score. May not be efficient or high percentage sets but it works. And this is all ROW sets. Right now its like opening day ROW snaring to me. Pound, pound, pound. |
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Post by LLLTrapper on Jan 19, 2014 20:25:02 GMT -6
Obviously I did not make my self clear enough. I was saying why set 10 feet off the trail anytime you are coon trapping? Set on a travel way or where you expect them to go and don't rely on them being curious and coming to you. LLL
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Post by 4fur on Jan 19, 2014 20:29:10 GMT -6
Coon move a lot during January in my experience. I concentrate most of my sets near open water but of course nearby denning areas and food sources (read untilled corn field) improves the location. I have been doing better this week setting up locations with little or no sign compared to red hot sign. Here is a coon from today where they are traveling from a denning area south of the road, which is in the middle of a corn field that I do not have permission on. They are going through the tube and running the ice through a pasture to get a drink a hundred yards up stream at a tile dump. The tile dump is the place to set but I can't drive there and don't have time to walk it. So I set the corner of the culvert and chum FPF on the ice which brings them over to my set...
My set is behind me on the corner of the erosion control structure positioned so I can see it from my truck window. The set also must be far enough from the ice so my coon doesn't flop out on it and freeze down. So my point is nbaum, it isn't always possible or practical to set right on location, and often I really don't know exactly where the coon will be traveling. Chumming cat food spiked with molasses and other ingredients helps me catch more coon IMO.
Dano has some good advise until he gets to this...
Every trail I have found in the snow has connected for me. No tracks past any bucket I have set out. Might be 3-5 days later, but all tracks lead to a dead coon. |
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Post by nbaum74 on Jan 19, 2014 22:08:41 GMT -6
alrighty gentleman thank you. now we are having a conversation i can get into. it was muddy today and with a big melt off occurring there is lots of running tiles. brought my buddy up today to help and we walked all of the property, from slough to corn field. the mud really helped us find the "hot" spots of the area and i feel pretty confident. set right int the trail this time in pinched points so they must walk through or around. have some sets with my homemade sweet corn cakes, a little fish, and on some sets a little cat lure or boars delight. i am experimenting with blind sets and baited for this warmup day so we shall see what happens. also found another really great den on public ground. hope it connects as well. i have about 2 dozen traps set over a few miles of area.
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Post by medicdano on Jan 20, 2014 7:30:51 GMT -6
4fur, what do you mean? Just stating experienced facts. If I find coon tracks in the snow I follow to den tree if possible or other travel corridor and set a bucket. Haven't had a second set of tracks walk past my bucket set in the 3 years since I started using buckets in January. Sometimes its the next day, sometimes a week.
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Post by riverbandit on Jan 21, 2014 16:32:36 GMT -6
Dano, coon can be light steppers and can leave no visible sign that they were there. Trust me, you've had coon walk by buckets, you just didn't know it.
I had a coon caught at a bucket the other day with snow that I thought would have left tracks where he approached. No sign what so ever. Almost like he dropped from the sky right in front of the bucket.
Put out 80 buckets instead of 8 and you will without question have some walk bys this time of year.
Some of these boars will travel a few miles this time of year. NO way I'm walking that distance to find a den he may not even return to any time soon.
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Post by nbaum74 on Jan 23, 2014 0:17:08 GMT -6
lets talk about then denning habits of coon. do they switch dens? do they have a circuit of dens?
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Post by blackhammer on Jan 23, 2014 14:34:55 GMT -6
lets talk about then denning habits of coon. do they switch dens? do they have a circuit of dens? I would assume the males travel from denning area to denning area in breeding season.. But I don't think there has been any studies down on coon breeding habits. Do they wander like say mink or do they claim a terroritory and chase all the young males out of there.I would guess the later. But how big an area or number of dens would a male claim? It's all anyones guess. Or do males just wander from den to den for miles kind of like going from singles bar to single bars till they run out of gas. |
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Post by LLLTrapper on Jan 23, 2014 14:55:19 GMT -6
lets talk about then denning habits of coon. do they switch dens? do they have a circuit of dens? I would assume the males travel from denning area to denning area in breeding season.. But I don't think there has been any studies down on coon breeding habits. Do they wander like say mink or do they claim a terroritory and chase all the young males out of there.I would guess the later. But how big an area or number of dens would a male claim? It's all anyones guess. Or do males just wander from den to den for miles kind of like going from singles bar to single bars till they run out of gas. There have been studies done and the singles bar scene is a good analogy of what happens. They tracked them with collars and some boars roam as far as ten miles but end up back home. Then they roam an area for a short distance and hole up there for a night and then roam again. Out of 72 coon I caught in the last two days I had 6 that were females. That to me would suggest either I have killed most of the sows which I know I did not or boars are the ones looking for procreation. I am not a scientist but do pay attention to some things, LLL |
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