What am I doing wrong???????

C

catman

New member
I checked my traps today and got jacked on 1, a flat set at a fence crossing. Probably a coyote, I found
black and gray hair on the fence. I was using a 24 inch rebar stake and he still got my brand new trap.
Had a cubby set on top of the ridge, the trap was pulled out and tripped, the bait was gone and
the cubby was demolished. My cage trap had been tripped with nothing in it. Not a good day.
Anybody have any suggestions? Thanks, Catman
 
catman,
I think that you had a coyote at the set with missing rerod stake. I suggest that you trade the one 24" stake in for two 18" stakes. Cross stake everything a coyote may step into. If that cubby was a tight, narrow bugger then the culprit there was likely a large coon or maybe a bobcat. Trap not bedded solid, or pan set too high was likely the problem.

One other thing I would like to tell you is that I had real good luck with Iowa disposable stakes with 18" cable. I never had even one of those pulled by a critter, but then our soil here is not sandy or anything. Pretty solid soil in western Iowa. I didn't believe in the disposables until I saw them being used on a snare line for coyotes in north texas. Those snares were on a live-catch line, so every snare had a "stop" attached so that coyotes would not choke theirself down. Coyotes sometimes chewed their way out of the snare, but never did pull even one of the earth anchors.
 
Yellowhammer,
The ones I am familiar with are made from steel pipe about 3" long and 1/2" diameter. The ends of the pipe are cut off at 45 degree angle, and a small nut is welded to center of the pipe. A length of 3/32" diameter snare cable is threaded through the nut and clenched tightly with a hammer on stop. The cable on mine was 18" in length with a 1" loop on the end for attaching trap chain. A special driver was used to drive the short metal pipe into the ground until only the loop of the snare cable was showing. If ground should freeze so that you could not dig the anchor up, the idea was to just cut the cable and leave the short length of pipe and cable in the ground. There was not enough metal left in the ground to harm a disk, plow or tractor tire. I hardly ever left one in the ground myself, but they sure wouldn't hurt much if you did leave em in the ground.
 
I am going to try and post a photo of earth anchors I found at the snare shop.
Anchor.GIF
 
24" stake is plenty for coyote, even overkill, if you are in half way firm soil, try to use 2 to 4 feet of chain-trap swivel-mid chain swivel(bullet type so that it can't foul) and a swivel at the stake. A coyote can't pump the stake if he has to pull against the side. You mentioned hair on the fence, be sure that your catch can't reach the fence or go up and through, this again will put the pump straight up, if the ground is sandy, goe with the cross stakes, or drags, with a extra weight attached, go long on chain, 8 to 10', extra weight such as a railroad plate, at 4' from trap attached to chain, this does two things, a coyote will often fight the plate, and he will hang up much soon, and it adds alot of mark to the trail. Good luck
 
Stakes and double stakes can be removed by people or coyotes, and sometimes real big coon. I will only use the disposable ones for traps. Must of the time you have to dig down to within an inch to pry it out in firm soil. If you don't want to remove it leave it for to use next time they last a long time. Use the 1/8th inch cable it works the best.
The disposable stake has another advantage, it allows movement in most all directions, with a stake the chain or swivel can only go round and round. If it binds then the coyote may get some leverage and power out of even a four coiled #3!
I have had people tell me that they pumped out a 30" stake and have heard that a double stake came out too. Haven't heard of that on the disposable one. I still have a half dozen #3s that would have been stolen but they couln't cut the cable or pull the disposable stake.That was nice when I saw what they tried!!! Only a trpper carries a cable cutter or side cutter to cut cable. KY
 
I have very good luck with disposable stakes and also with cross staking.

If staking with single stakes you have several factors to consider. Obviously the soil type is important.

Something that is often overlooked though, is your chain length and also the type swivel being used. A factory short chain with a standard box type swivel is flirting with disaster. As the coyote pumps the swivel will bind lower and lower on the upwardly mobile stake, until out it comes.

I personally do not care for short chains anymore for a variety of reasons, and that is one of the biggest ones. If using a short chain I will always cross stake or use anchors.

You will lose coyotes on a 24 hour check with factory chains and swivels, when using rerod stakes.
 
I agree with both RC and GG. Two 18 inch stakes works well with short chain and one 24 inch stake will work with 4 feet of chain. T20, if you had a coon or coyote pull two 18 inch stakes cross staked they must have been 800 pounds.
 
No, I did not use cross stakes, an other trapper did from my town. The big sow pulled the 20" 1/2" rerod out of firm hay ground.She went over and tangled the trap in the fence, unfortunately the farmer let her go! I found my trap was badly damaged,especially the spring levers.
The other trapper I mentioned had a coyote snared with double stakes,he said the grass was not damaged bad. The stuff was gone and a farmer found it stuck in the fence, a week later. He claims he found it that way, the trapper was wondering if he stole it and made up the story??
There have been times I have pulled up on 24" rebar and it came out like it was greased, I can see how coyotes can pump one out if they can jump high enough to hit the end of the chain.
I had a kill pole taken by a coyote, It was in the ground about 18-24" and the coyote took it with out much problem. In the tall grass I couldn't tell if it was a deer or coyote. About a week or so later I footholded the coyote still wearing my snare loop, about three miles away.
The worst thing I had happen was I found a coyote had gone into a culvert. Instead of shooting her and dragging her out I thought I would just put a conibear on each end of the tube. The ditch side I wired the trap to the tube, and drove a 24" stake in the ground.
That night a blizzard came and put big drifts in the ditch and ect. I checked the conibears and was supprised the one was gone. I thought it was probably dead under the big drifts. I found out later that a farmer, the same one that said he found the other in the fence, found this coyote aweek or so later still wearing the 220 around its neck. This was found 20 or more miles from where it took off. I decided not to ever use a single stake rerod. I don't want to carry the weight of the double stakes. The earth anchor or disposable stake works much better for me.Tac.20
 
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