# dirt hole questions



## K9111 (Oct 19, 2006)

Hey guys,

Im fairly new to coyote trapping. I caught one last year and caught one the first night out this year, but that is where my success has stopped. For the last two weeks, I have had freezing weather, and then when it warms up, I get rain. Because of all the bad weather, I have bedded my traps in peatmoss, with underalls under pan. I have a few questions. The first is after a hard rain due you pull your sets up and reset? Today some look like they need a little attention, but the ground is still very wet. The second question is have any of you ever tried cooking grease as an attractant? I poured some in a few of my hole sets with some raw deer hambuger as bait. At a couple of those sets, something had eaten the bait out of my holes, but the trap didn't fire. To much rain to see any tracks. The hole was cleaned pretty well. Now the weather forecast for the next 10 days is high in the 40s and lows in the 20s. Will the damp peatmoss still allow the trap to fire, or do I need to rebed the traps for the upcoming weather?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.


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## patrick grumley (Mar 9, 2007)

*To reset or not to reset after a rain:* depends on the condition of the set, if the rain has left an impression of the trap then yes you'd better reset plus freash dug dirt has a real strong appeal to k-9's. The best way to deal with wet soil is to have dry dirt ready for such weather, if you haven't put up dry dirt ant mounds work nicely for trap bedding and covering. As for bait I have never used bait, a good lure on the backing and some down the hole and be sure to plug the hole. The cooking grease is the answer to the missing bait.....mice!

Good Luck, Pat G.


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## K9111 (Oct 19, 2006)

Since I put the cooking grease out, I have caught 2 gray fox, 1 ****, and a tripped trap. 8 traps 4 nights


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

What Pat said above is important. The dirt hole should have an obstruction in it. Something to make the coyote take a couple extra steps in the trap area while he is trying to paw out the lure.


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