Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

The United States are blessed with several species of wolf and coyote. The Grey Wolf, which is the largest, and the smaller, PrAirie Wolf or Coyote, being the most ordinarily known. There is also the White Wolf, Black Wolf and the Texan or Red Wolf. In outward form they all bear a primary resemblance to each other and their habits are ordinarily similar in the separate varieties.

Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

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Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

Wolves are fierce and hazardous animals, and are very mighty of limb and fleet of foot. They are very cowardly in character, and will seldom assault man or animal except when by their greater numbers they would be sure of victory. Wolves are found in practically every quarter of the globe. Mountain and plain, field, jungle and prAirie are alike infested with them, and they hunt in united bands, feeding upon practically any animal which by their combined attacks they can overpower.

Their inroads upon herds and sheep folds are sometimes horrifying, and a particular wolf has been known to kill as many as forty sheep in a particular night, seemingly from mere blood-thirsty desire.

In the early colonization of America, wolves ran wild over the country in weighty numbers, and were a source of great danger; but now, owing to wide-spread civilization and over trapping, they have disappeared from the more located localities and are chiefly found in Western wilds and prairie lands.

The Grey Wolf is the largest and most formidable representative of the Dog tribe on this continent. Its general appearance is truthfully given in our drawing. Its length, exclusive of the tail, is about four feet, the distance of the tail being about a foot and a half. Its color varies from yellowish grey to practically white in the northern countries, in which latitude the animal is sometimes found of an broad size, measuring nearly seven feet in length. The fur is common and shaggy about the neck and haunches, and the tail is bushy. They abound in the region east of the Rocky Mountains and northward, and tour in packs of hundreds in quest of prey. Bison, wild horses, deer and even bears fall victims to their united fierceness, and human beings, too, often fall a prey to their ferocious attacks.

The Coyote, or common Prairie Wolf, also known as the Burrowing Wolf, as its name implies inhabits the Western plains and prairies. They are much smaller than the Grey Wolf, and not so dangerous. They tour in bands and untidily assault anything animal they desire to kill. Their homes are made in burrows which they excavate in the ground. The Texan Wolf inhabits the latitude of Texas and southward. It is of a tawny red color and nearly as large as the grey species, possessing the same savage nature.

The coyote is practically as sly and cunning as the fox, and the same caution is required in coyote trapping. They are very keen scented, and the mere touch of a human hand on the trap is often enough to preclude the possibility of capture. A mere footprint, or the scent of tobacco juice, they look upon with great suspicion, and the presence of either will often preclude success.

To avoid all human scent the trap (size No, 4) should be smoked or smeared with beeswax or blood, and set in a bed of ashes or other material, surface with moss, chaff, leaves or some other light substance. Some coyote trappers rub the traps with "brake leaves," sweet fern, or even skunk's cabbage. Gloves should all the time be worn in handling the traps, and all tracks should be obliterated as much as possible.

A common way of securing the coyote consists in setting the trap in a spring or puddle of water, throwing the dead body of some large animal in the water beyond the trap in such a position that the coyote will be obliged to tread upon the trap, in order to reach the bait.

Another plan of coyote hunting is to Fasten the bait in the middle of two trees which are very close together, setting a trap on each side and carefully concealing them as already directed, and securing each to a clog of about twenty pounds in weight.

There are various scent or trail baits used in trapping the coyote. Oil of Asafetida is by many trappers carefully the best, but Oil of Rhodium, powdered fennel, fenugreek and Cumin Oil are also much used. It is well to smear a little of the first Mentioned oil near the traps, using any one of the other substances, or genuinely a mixture of them all, for the trail. This may be made by smearing the preparing on the sole of the boots and walking in the direction of the traps, or by dragging from one trap to other a piece of meat scented with one of these substances.

A large dead-fall, constructed of logs, when skillfully scented and baited, will often charm a coyote into its clutches, and a very strong twitch-up, with a noose formed of heavy wire, or a strip of stout calf hide, will successfully capture the crafty creature.

Coyote Trapping Or How To Trap The Coyote

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