My First Trapped Coyote

Team JustNorth posted on December 22, 2008 13:47 :: 1344 Views

I’ve called myself a predator caller for better than ten years now. I consider calling predators my very favorite of all types of hunting. The only problem with it is, I’m not very good at it. My success rate is pretty low when it comes to calling and killing coyotes. I’ve called in Montana and North Dakota a few times, and have had pretty reasonable success in those states. North-central Minnesota is another story. I’ve lived at my current residence for seven years now, and the coyotes can wake me up any night of the week. They’re here, and a fair number of them too. Being the predator caller that I like to think I am (my wife is starting to wonder if I’m really going hunting).

My First Trapped Coyote I head out on the neighbors place 3 or 4 times a year and make several calling sets, and I have never seen even one critter wearing a predator hide. As close as I got was last year. We had about four inches of fresh snow on the ground. I had permission to hunt both sides of a minimum maintenance road for about 3 miles. I headed down the trail with my trusty coyote .22-250 in hand and a pocketful of predator calls. I made three sets down the trail in about 2 miles, wherever I saw coyote tracks in the area.

After my last stand, the wind changed direction and it was time to start walking home. The wind was now in my face again and I had a small case of frostbite on the way back, when I noticed something in my boot print that I had made only about 90 minutes ago. In my boot print, in the fresh snow, is a pile that comes out of the south end of a northbound coyote. Now I’m not one to let things get the best of me, but when I saw that pile in my boot print in between my first and second calling set…the hide between my belt and my hamstrings got just a little burned. It was now time to set out on a mission.

Did I mention I also tried trapping these critters? I became a trapper about 4 years ago. I asked all my friends what to do. I listened to seminars at trapping conventions, I read articles, and I found stuff on the internet. I knew what I was doing. I bought a dozen 4 coil spring #2’s, did the dye and wax thing, chose my baits and lures, and got all the tools I would need to become a full blooded coyote trapper.   Well, here’s my tally on the coyote line in 4 years, averaging about 9 traps per year, and about 14 days worth of trapping. That comes out to 384 trap days in 4 years. Skunks lead the catch with 14. They are so much fun.

I’ve also got four badger. Those bad boys can dig a basement in hurry. Two raccoon and one fox close out the tally. I got the fox last year. I was proud of that fox. That is, until I pulled him out of the trap and looked at him. A lone coyote attacked him in the trap and tore a big ol’ hole in his shoulder. So much for getting top dollar on the market. The bad part is, I had another trap about fifteen yards from this set.

I found an old badger dig that a coyote would put a foot in every day and then sniff the badger hole. I being the smarter predator of anything else in the woods buried a trap right where that ol’ coyote put his foot every day for the last four days. Well, when Wiley showed up to try and kill my fox, he ran across the badger dig set. He didn’t stop there. He ran across it. One foot landed on the trap dog, the other on the far jaw. The trap was never tripped, but his tracks went right to my caught fox. I also did well on the skunks. I started burying them just behind the traps they were caught in, as coyotes love the taste of those pleasantly essenced critters. They stole them without setting my traps off. I began to wire them to a stake in the bottom of the hole. After I tried that trick, knowing full good and well that was gonna get me a coyote, the next track I had next to a trap, was from about a 110 lb “coyote”.

He pawed at my trap and missed the pan by about 3 inches. Thank goodness. I don’t have a lot of faith in the attempt of letting a full grown timber wolf out of a trap. However, that was the last I saw of any real coyote tracks for over a month. This year, I started off with a good-sized boar ‘coon. Then I missed a badger, after he dug a trench about eighteen inches deep around my stake, he got out of the trap.   I had a coyote mark his territory on a flat set where I used a small weed for backing. He p’d on the weed, and when he lifted one back leg; the other back leg that was on the ground was standing on the trap dog. I must have done a good job of bedding the trap, because he didn’t dig it up. I missed a rear foot catch on my first coyote by less than an inch. A few days later I walked up to this trap, which is set in a CRP field with vegetation 3-4 feet high.

As I got to my trap and peeked over the weeds, I just about had a heart attack. A coyote was jumping around like a ping-pong ball at the Olympic tryouts.   I caught him by his left front foot, well over the pads. I ran back to the truck to get my camera, and realized I had left it on the kitchen counter. So I grabbed my trapping pistol instead and dispatched my first coyote. I was really disappointed that I forgot my camera, so I went home which was only about 800 yards away, and grabbed my camera, and was at least going to get a photo of my first coyote in a trap. When I came back in about 3 minutes, he was lying down in an upright position looking at me. Apparently I didn’t hit him just right with the .22. I snapped a quick photo of him alive in the trap, and dispatched him the second time…and the last time. That’s when I learned how tough a coyote is.

I do feel bad about letting him in the trap for the 3 minutes, as one must make every effort for quick, clean dispatches.   However, it took me four seasons of trapping and many trials, before I got my tribulation. I can now call myself a coyote trapper. The hide will soon decorate my basement wall after the tanning is done. Now I just need to work on that calling technique…they kept me awake again last night.