Originally Posted By: Infidel 762
Unless you see or hear, how do you know for certain they are in there? Unless you have a trail hound,trackhoe or a shovel with a decent amount of time to kill, how do you know you are not just dicking around an empty hole? Unless you are carrying all the equipment necessary to dig out or methods to fumigate the den, how do you keep them from leaving while you go get all the equipment?
The furthest thing from an expert. But I've done a few "ride alongs" with real ADC guys doing real denning work.
And yeah, you do need to make some plans and preparations. Including everything you mentioned, except for the track hoe
(although, in all honesty, I've heard of using heavy equipment too, for real). I've been the guy sitting there with his feet literally in the den hole (to make sure nobody leaves) while the real expert went back for a shovel, too.
Basics are simple. Locate by seeing, hearing, dog, tracking, any combination thereof. There are specific tracking methods to narrow the search, likewise specific strategies for hearing them. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, a good dog is your best asset. But I've spent more than a whole day looking for a single den, and failed, more than once. I've also experienced a great dog finding the den while we were still counting placenta scars on the dead female.
But, get lucky or get unlucky, find if fast or spend a couple days, whatever it takes, you just do your best.
Once found. Close off all entrances with shovel and drop a couple (big) smoke bombs down the hole. Continue to close off any spots you see smoke coming out of the ground.
Get a count by placenta scars.
To each his own, and whatever. But to me, if you aren't prepared, willing and able to kill BOTH adults, then to carry all that out, you aren't actually doing real ADC work. This is especially my opinion if you only kill one of the old ones and do nothing about the den. I think often as not, you are doing more harm and as likely as not to cause more "animal damage", than any actual good ADC. Almost everyone I've ever met that claimed to be "doing ADC" didn't know poop from apple butter about any of this. Pure Pretenders.
I don't bother pretending. I don't do ADC. More because I don't want to, than because I don't know how, though.
- DAA