I don’t get no respect.........
- Thread starter Drycreek
- Start date
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
My son is a very good trapper, and I’m passable myself, but we’ve neglected the home place the last few years. All that’s gonna change come the last day of deer season. Our fawn crop is pathetic this year, and I know we can’t catch all of them, but if we do it every winter we can make a dent in them. I trapped for three winters in a row on my other place when I had it and I could tell the difference in yote sightings on camera and fawns that made it into yearlinghood. (That’s a word I just made up !)
DocHolladay
Well-Known Member
The deer don’t care. I’ve had coyotes, raccoons, otters, possums, etc urinate in my mineral site and the deer keep coming.
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DRandall90
Active Member
I'd highly suggest reading this book on coyotes:
https://www.amazon.com/Coyote-Ameri...3728/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
And also listen to him with Steven Rinella on the meateater podcast. He provides some interesting evidence to suggest that our predator "control" is having an opposite impact on predator populations.
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
I’ve heard that theory before, and I don’t agree with it. I know from personal observation that if you trap coyotes in the 3/4 months immediately preceding fawn drop you can make a difference. Their theory is basically that when you trap coyotes or shoot them other coyotes will fill the void. That’s true as far as it goes, but for those few months before pups are looking for new territory, (and after you’ve removed several coyotes), you have fawns making it to the stage that they can better survive. To make this viable you have to do it every year, you cannot do it one year and stop or their scenarios will be fact. We are not a high deer density area where I live and hunt and I want fawns to survive. I’ll cull my own deer Mr. Wiley, thanks !
Another thing to think about. Research is often in localities that may not be indicative of all locations. What is fact there may be fallacy here. I once had a lease in N Central Texas where there were no coyotes. No coyotes and no hogs. Almost every doe carried twins into adulthood. The doe family groups might have three to four generations in them, as compared to two here. It was a 1400 acre property and we had to shoot 18/20 does each year just to stay even. About three years before I gave the lease up we started seeing coyote scat in the roads and actually managed to call a couple in but never killed one. That was ten years ago and I expect that it’s very different out there now, but I don’t know.
I haven’t even mentioned the hogs. They will kill and eat a fawn in a heartbeat if they stumble onto one, although I don’t think that they seek fawns out like coyotes do. So.......I kill every hog that I can and let the yotes eat them instead of “my” deer. Win, win !
DRandall90
Active Member
I don't have hogs so I definitely cannot speak to their presence. I believe the theory more postulates that coyote respond to stress on the population by overproducing offspring, and that overproduction leads to a higher population density that eventually needs to spread out, but the end result is the same.
I think your point is well taken though. And the fact that your attempting to have your trapping coincide with fawning season makes sense.
What drives me crazy is these coyote hunts where you see hundreds of coyotes show up for some competition in the back of trucks and then it's just rinse and repeat the next time. Clearly that isn't being effective in predator control.
Drycreek
Well-Known Member
I don’t doubt that Maw Nature attempts to compensate when animals are removed, but I just see that as an opportunity. A bunch of younger, dumber coyotes that will be easier for me to trap or call and shoot. Those older ones can sometimes be pretty hard to fool ! I once had a set at a three way road intersection on my place. Everyone knows that traps coyotes that they hunt with their noses by trotting down trails, roads, edges of food plots, etc. Well, this three way intersection was almost surefire. So.....I thought it would be neat to have some video of exactly how a coyote approached my trap. I wiped the camera off with scent killer type stuff, using gloves to handle it, etc. It wasn’t a dark ops type camera but one that had a red IR light when taking vids at night. I had lots of yote vids, but all either glanced at it and kept trotting or paused, sniffed, and kept on going. That red light (or the noise of the camera) evidently boogered them enough that they weren’t interested in the lure or bait that was at my setup. To top that off, that set went dead even after I removed the camera. So no, you aren’t gonna get them all, or even most of them, but if I save a couple to three fawns a year on my little place it’s a success.
