[KegRiver]

I have never set on bait. Not for Coyotes. We don't have enough here to make it worth the effort. Wolf trappers use bait piles but we didn't have the wolf numbers either when I was trapping.

I caught all my Coyote with dirt hole sets and trail snare sets. both are more effective where numbers are as low as they are here.

When I was trapping we also didn't have many Deer and thus not a lot of road kill. The bait most available to us was beaver carcasses from trapping and they were more valuable as Martin and Fisher bait.

I suspect that trail sets without bait are a lot harder to make work then bait pile sets. I know that scent was a major concern. We had to do a lot to consistently catch with such sets.

I always boiled and waxed my snares and traps. They were then hung in a evergreen for a month before setting them out.

Next I would approach the trail from the downwind side only, and after making the set cover my tracks as I backed out. Checking was always done from as far back as possible.

If possible I would only make sets just ahead of snow storm so new snow would cover any sign I missed.

Last but not least, I used drags exclusively. I never anchored my sets. That might work if set were checked every 24 hours but I had a registered line and only checked every 48 hours. Enough time for most Coyotes to pull out of or break off an anchored set.

Of course that was before a lot of the changes trappers have to deal with now. Offset jaws were a new thing back then and padded jaws were just catching on. I used standard long spring traps and home made snares without swivels. Both were legal then and what most trappers used.

I did have some coil spring traps and one under-spring trap but mostly I used long spring victor traps.

Traps were used at the beginning of the season and snares once the snow got deep.