Monday, December 19, 2011

Cause and Effect

'Tis the season for alot of things....including Canids!

I always have the best luck camera trapping Canids in December and January.  This is a phenomenon other "trappers" have made anecdotal observations about in regards to Bobcats and Mountain Lions...although I haven't had much (or any) experience with either species.

Allow me to show you an example from my time in North Carolina.

The pictures below are almost a year old.

The location is a stream corridor with steep banks, one side buffered by deciduous hardwood forest....the other side has a power line right-of-way running parallel.  Great spot for 'yotes to run.

And they do....

For those interested, I'm applying a dab of Lennon's Brand, Super Coyote All-Call to the stick poking out of the bank.

It's also worth noting that I don't make any attempt to cover my own scent when I'm out.


Not long before a big old 'yote comes along to check out the smell.....


To be fair, this isn't the only time I put some sort of scent lure out at this location to attract critters.  It doesn't always work this perfectly....but when it does it always makes me feel smarter than I am :)

Enjoy the Canid Season! 

4 comments:

  1. I've got to get to work on my Canids camera trapping also.

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  2. I like the wild canids! Usually, I get tons of photos of them at this time of year.... but not this year. I don't know why.

    Where do you buy your scent lures? I'm having such terrible luck that I'm starting to think that I should give one a try.

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  3. Howdy- new to your blog, and haven't had time to backtrack...so I just have one quick question for now: Do you use anything to make your scent "stick"? I'm conducting a field study this spring using cameras and scents and want to maximize my usage of scent lures, as they can be expensive. Also, what state are you in?

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  4. Hey all! Thanks for reading...

    KB: do you get any wolves over by you? I seem to remember talk of some over by Fort Collins and Colorado Springs?

    The best place to pick up lures like these, in my opinion is the F&T Fur Harvester's Trading Post (see link below). It's a great site for stuff like this. Now, the effectiveness of each varies by brand, location and season! So it takes some playing around. I've messed around with a number of brands, and had variable success. For Canids...you can also just use plain old Urine (which you can buy at F&T). I've read info from a guy out west (Montana) who uses coyote urine for everything and has very good success. I know here in the miwest, Coyote urine works good for Coyote...but I've heard that Wolves don't pay it much mind...and you have to use Wolf urine for wolves. I've used a combination of a gland lure and coyote urine in North Carolina and had good luck with Coyote and Gray Fox.

    The biggest mistake I made early on with lures was I over-did it. I dab the size of a bean and a spray of urine, is all it takes. Especially for coyotes, which are so wary of anything abnormal. Also, location is key!! If you don't have a good spot, all the lure in the world doesn't matter.

    For cats, I've read scent is good...but "fladry" is equally important, becuase they are so visually oriented (so a feather hanging from a tree with fishing line and a swivel). They like to come investigate things like that.

    http://www.fntpost.com/Categories/Trapping/

    you'll see an area for "baits, lures and urines" etc.

    Hi Alyssa: Thanks for stopping by! Scent lures can be expensive. I don't currently do anything to make scents stick....although, I've seen some things folks have done to help keep them from washing away.

    If you check this link out...there's a fella who posts on this forum named "Oneguy", who is a font of wisdom when it comes to luring critters into cameras.... He described something he does to protect lures once they are out.

    http://www.chasingame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=19394&start=15

    I'm currently in WI.

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