[Guest]

Hey does anyone have any tips on trapping yotters and bobcats with leg hold traps.

 

[dennishoddy]

For yotes, a dirt hole set is the best for me. Caution: yotes are the hardest to trap, because you can leave NO human scent. Rubber gloves & boots, boiled & waxed traps, no smoking, chewing, or vehicles. Their sniffer is way better than a deer. For bait I use cut road kill, or any of the bottled lures. Set the traps along trails or field edges where there has been tracks, where you can see the set from a distance if there is any thing in it or not without disturbing the area. Another way is to hang road kill from a fence line, set a trap on either side, & sift dirt(I prefer dry gopher mound dirt) over the trap. Try to hang it where there is a known crossing about 10' away.

Cats are easier. They are sight feeders primarily, so you find tracks/trails where they hang out, hang a white (preferably) chicken feather about 2/3 foot off the ground, with a 1 or 2oz lead weight 1" above it.(so the wind will move the feather and not blow it up into the tree/bush. Bury the trap underneath, and sift with dirt(as above). Form a V with sticks/small logs to lead the cat into the trap. & scatter more sticks/rocks all around the outside of the V. Cats don't like rough ground. If you keep the dirt in the V smooth, leading to the trail where you found tracks, they will stay in the smooth part until they reach the trap. For bait, I use salmon cat food or a commercial lure. Set the trap pan extremely light. They are lightning quick.

Tricks for both:
1- Always put the trap off-center to the bait. as the animal comes to the bait, it will have its nose centered on the bait with a foot on either side. You want the foot in the center of the pan.

2.Try to set the trap/bait/entrance where the animal is coming either up or downwind. never crosswind unless there is no option.

Thats a pretty basic tutorial for now. If you want to get into drowning sets, box traps, pvc sets,culvert sets, ***** or whatever we can address that later.

Hope this is what you were looking for, and hope it helps ;D

 

[ELIP]

Dang Dennis, that shounds like you've done this a while. Good info.

 

[dennishoddy]

Set a few in the day I used to run my trap line on my 26" bicycle before & after school, until getting old enough to drive. ;D Trapped all the culverts along a busy highway using a modified drowning set so that the animal would be forced out of sight after getting into the trap. Carried my .22 single shot stevens across the handlebars, and the game in the saddle bag type baskets. people would honk & wave driving by. ;D
Sure wouldn't see that these days :'( :'(

This is just the tip of what is needed to become a sucessful trapper.