Baiting

Originally Posted By: 6mm06
Some guys have all the luck! Nice landing that job, Scalloper. It may not pay much in green backs, but I'm sure the rewards will be worth it and memorable. I'm really anxious to hear about, and see, photos of the place and all the yotes that will no doubt hit the dirt, eh, snow. Keep us posted.


They may reconsider the offer. At $7.50 per hr that’s $1260 per week 24/7
thumbup.gif
If I move into my shooting shack for 1-2 months
lol.gif

All joking aside this is going to be a challenge. The area that I was designated is 25 miles from where I live and allot of the area will be hard to access in deep snow. As many of you know coyotes respond to pressure very well. It’s going to be very time consuming to harvest any numbers. I have done well here at home and hunting from my cabin on the lake but this is a whole different deal. It will require many many hours day and night to affectively harvest coyotes from this area. In the past coyotes have massacred the deer in this yard. Killing 12-20 per week at times only to leave the dead deer to kill more.
If any of you would like to hunt over bait or do some calling with me in this area this winter PM me and we will see what we can do.
 
Another busy night last night at the pile. The cats came back an hour before dark an hung around for several hours. Seem like they are really standing guard!

From 10:30 – 11:00, a pair of foxes had the hill, seemed really skittish from most of their pics.

EK000119_zps1036ea0d.jpg


Next in line was the same spike buck a couple hrs later, and finally a lone bobcat at 4:30 am. I forgot to turn the Chamberlain back on before bed, so no idea of whether it will improve but I placed the sensors 12-18 inches off the ground and moved them to about 6-10 feet each from the bait at 90 degree angles to each other. Will post any changes in the next day or two.

I'm gonna switch the camera over to video, so I can start to hone in that mode / make any tweaks if needed. I have of couple of the IR led lights, but not going to put them out just yet. Sucked it up this morning and ordered a PVS 14 kit with jackrabbit mount, etc from Kevin at HTRN. Figured for the extra bit of $$$, I'll never have to look back and wonder if I shoulda stretched a little more.

Progress reports to follow, I'm sure...
 
Originally Posted By: Scalloper

If any of you would like to hunt over bait or do some calling with me in this area this winter PM me and we will see what we can do.



Wow, that is one heck of an invitation. I would love to help if not for my pitiful financial situation at the moment.
 
Originally Posted By: 6mm06Originally Posted By: Scalloper

If any of you would like to hunt over bait or do some calling with me in this area this winter PM me and we will see what we can do.



Wow, that is one heck of an invitation. I would love to help if not for my pitiful financial situation at the moment.


Its only money
grin.gif
you cant take it with you. Let me know if you change your mind. It will be a week or so until I am ready to go.
 

Yea, it's only money, but when you don't have it, well.....

I'll tell you what though. If ever you do this another year, keep me in mind.
 
I think my future in ADC will highly depend on my sucess,or failure, this winter. But at any rate your welcome to come anytime I will always be hunting coyotes.
 

Just out of curiosity, what are your plans for hunting / baiting? Will you stay at a cabin or something for extended periods of time? Just curious if you have ideas or plans. This whole thing sounds interesting.
 
I plan on using at least 1 6X8 insulated shooting blind and 2 portable blinds. I will sneak into a baited area with the portable blinds and work with the wind. I plan of using some of Brian Downs techniques. I am putting out 2-3 big bait piles and 8-12 small baits threw out the area within 1/2 mile of the big bait piles just to get them comfortable at eating free offerings (that seems to work great here at home). There is no way I can hunt this area 24/7 so I will just hunt several times a week when the baits are getting hit hard. At first I will just dump out the big baits in a pile and let them feed on it then, as Brian recommends, I will put out baitsykles so they will need to work the bait for longer periods of time. I also have a good friend that’s one of the best callers in Maine that will be working with me off and on.
This is going to be a real challange dealing with the hardest animal in Maine to hunt and dealing with them during the worst/coldest weather.
 

You know, just thinking out loud, if you had a blind large enough to accommodate a bunk, you could put the motion sensors into use and nap when needed, thereby allowing you to get some rest and be able to stay at the site longer. After killing a yote or two, you could move to another location, keeping a rotation going.

Is the area pretty remote, or can you pull a blind or perhaps a small camper trailer into the area? I've though several times that it might be nice to have a small heated camper, rigged up with a shooting window at a bait site, and be mobile in case I ever had another area to set up a bait site.

I imagine the snow and temps get pretty tough up there. What is considered normal for snow and cold?

Can you use night vision and ARs up there?


 
1018121040a95273555.jpg

1018121041d95276966.jpg

I built this shooting shack/icefishing shack this summer.Its all ceder that I cut out on a saw mill. Ceder framed and ceder shingals on the roof with teflon over the skis. I had it spray foam insulated. Its set up so I can tow it with my Artic Cat Bear Cat XT. I should be able to put this shack about anywhere. It has a bunk and heater so it will be comfortable. I plan on using the censors to monotor the bait as well. One of my rifles is a Rock River PP .223 with a Nikon 4X16X50 BDC with a 250 Killinght. The other I just bought is a Tikka T3 light 22-250 with a Mueller 4-16×50AO Sport Dot.Night Vision is legal. I have shot 26 with my AR but its heavy if I am on snowshoes calling so I thats why I bought the Tikka.
But even with all the stuff I have its still going to take time and allot of effort. Just sourcing bait is a ton of traveling and work getting it out in the woods. Normaly this area would have 2-3 feet of snow and temps at night from 10 to -15.
 
Nice looking setup you have there, Scalloper. Looks like you have one incredible adventure ahead of you. And I believe your right - deep woods yotes will be very wary, and easy to spook. Nothing easy about this undertaking, but I don't doubt or a minute that you are up to the task. Having lived up here for the past 30 winters, I know what kind of extremes you could be in for!
 


On my end, video mode is coming along. First night was about 300 blank movies from false alarms, with a handful of vids of deer and fox thrown in. I turned down the sensitivy for last night, still about 50/50 mix of false trips, and all but one of an animal was of whitetails. The one exception came just before midnight:



First yote at the site I've seen, and he spooked instantly about 13 seconds in - from the tiny green light of the Chamberlain sensor. Amazing how quickly he turned tail and beat it out of there. No sign of him for the rest of the night or today. Next trip down, I will be pulling the sensors and disabling those lights for sure.

Question to 6mm06 or others - how do I embed a video in my reply, instead of just the link?
 
Last edited:
I too have seen the green light spook coyotes. I took mine apart and covered the green light with some black tape. Another predator hunter recamended this and it worked but did not affect the proformance at all.
 

Scalloper, that is one neat looking blind. You did a good job on that. I really wish you well with this endeavor and hope to hear some interesting stories, combined with photos of your expedition.

Lefty, I'll send you a personal email explaining how to do the video post.
 
Originally Posted By: 6mm06


Lefty, I'll send you a personal email explaining how to do the video post.



Thanks for the help! Got it figured out now...
 
scalloper --how are you heating that? if you are looking for alternative sources of draw to keep coytes in the area -- try house cats -- don't laugh when I say this, we have house cats-- out in day --in at night most of the time. the cats are in the basement at night and they like to sit in the windows at night. Last winter in the snow we had yote tracks right up to the windows. reason i say this is if you can figure some way to use a cat scent it may help to keep yotes nearby and even come knocking. it may help keep your bait hauling down. this sounds like fun -- but also a huge undertaking. how much snow do you have from this storm we just had? good luck
 
Originally Posted By: dog drillerscalloper --how are you heating that? if you are looking for alternative sources of draw to keep coytes in the area -- try house cats -- don't laugh when I say this, we have house cats-- out in day --in at night most of the time. the cats are in the basement at night and they like to sit in the windows at night. Last winter in the snow we had yote tracks right up to the windows. reason i say this is if you can figure some way to use a cat scent it may help to keep yotes nearby and even come knocking. it may help keep your bait hauling down. this sounds like fun -- but also a huge undertaking. how much snow do you have from this storm we just had? good luck
If you got caught using a cat here for bait it would be death by firing squad.
ohmy.gif
But I do know coyotes love them. I saw a coyote one day running with one in its mouth.
I am near the coast and we got about 5-6". My camp on the lake is 25 miles north and there is 12" there. I left here at 1:20am to take a load of scallops to NH and for the first 2 hrs it was near whiteout driving. I can wait to check out the deer yard for coyote activity and put out some baits.
 

Scalloper, Amazing the difference just 25 miles can make.

About your insulated blind / building, is it framed with 2x4s or something ligher? I'm just thinking about weight. It has crossed my mind more than once, to have something similar as yours, loaded in a trailer. I have a 5'X10' trailer, and my son has a dual axle trailer that is rather large, at least the size of yours or maybe a bit longer. Seems I'm always looking for a better mouse trap, and I like the idea of being mobile.

How easy / difficult is it to load and unload the building?

I'm also curious about the spray foam insulation, of how you did that. I'm in learning mode and always looking to learn something new.

Lefty, that coyote is spooked by the light, that's for sure. I've had them spooked by IR lights and trail camera glow as well. They seem to warm up to it after returning a few times, though some remain pretty skiddish.

Here's an example of a coyote scared of the lights mounted over 15 feet in a tree.
The lights weren't even illuminated at the time, but this coyote didn't like them
each time it came to the site, so I took them down.






 
Back
Top