Long Line strategies

[robocop]

Coon trappers i would like to here your strategies.
What sets you find most affective,how you make all your day light
hours count.
How you know where to gang set or not,
Do you gang set with limited traps ??

[catmando1]

Robo, I am not a long liner for any animal, but I do try and mimick the long line strategies, as I have learned that they are the most effecient ways to maximize my take in a short amount of time. There really is alot to planning and preperations, as well as figuring out a standardized system from A-Z.

Planning, we must prep all the traps, drowners, anchors, stakes, blocking material,etc. It intails building,dying, waxing,tagging, building up a certain number for the prescribed line. This only after searching both arial photo's and then on the ground, for potential water ways and numbering them. #1 stop, #2 stop etc., and logging how many traps, of what kind,or set, will go at each stop. Anything at all to gain time and speed while not sacrificing set quality is key. Do everything possible ahead of season, all the way up to placing out drowners, stakes, etc, a couple weeks ahead of season, so all you have to do is set the trap and plop it down. Use your imagination and try and gain as many short cuts as you can on your line. This is why I have opted to use blind sets, so I don't have to fool with baits. I also use footholds on drowners so the coons are dead when I arrive, also saving time. I have came up with a very simple strategy for re-building sets to preserve and gain speed there. Water sets require alot less time then dirt ones, etc. Anything you can think of to gain time and speed, as that is the name of the game. Time = more traps to run= more coverage= more fur. Only use 1-2 type sets, and keep them all the same, and you will have no mix ups, and you will gain speed by doing that one set over and over. Choose a simple set. One that is easy to rebuild, quick, and easy.... in and out. The more standardized your equipment is, there is no quabble about what to use, you just grab one ond go. You also save money that way as you more than likley will need to buy bulk. I could go on and on about all this, but you get the idea.

Covering ground is vital. Don't set to many traps in one area, say in a mile section, 2-4 traps on each end is plenty. Some of my best locations I have only had enough of a spot to set 1 trap, and that trap produced as high as 11 coons in 2 weeks. There is basically 2 trap strategies that I know of, gang setting, and spreading them out. I think that most the coons traveling a section of water, will come across my sets within a 2 week period. Personally I am not a fan of gang setting, because it should be employed for only a couple days, then move on. I've had some really big 4th or 5th nights, and I have kept them rolling in, in certain spots, as long as I was set. I can, instead of putting alot of traps in a small area, put a few there over a period of time and still catch them all, while doing the same thing in numerous other spots with the traps that would have been utilized at 1 spot if I was gang setting. It's all in figuring what works the best for you. I rarely make more than 4 sets at a stop, and only a few times do I only make 1, I always try and do at least 2. If sign is extremly heavy I'll add according to need.

Do as little leg work as possible. Driving allows you to set numerous waters, and make your sets as close to the vehicle as possible to save that walking time.

Use your head along that kind of thinking, and I promise your catch will go up.

[robocop]

Thank you catman can i ask how many miles you run.

[catmando1]

I like to plan a route that will take me by the most heavily coon infested creeks/ditches in sequence, and that can be made to form a driven loop from home, out, and home again vs. going out in a route line, then ending somewhere out there 40 miles away, and having to drive all the way back with no stops to check. Instead I go out hitting the hot spots,checking as I go, 20-25 miles, ,,,, then looping back towards home hitting all the hot spots in a looped route, all the way back home. My first set may be within a mile of home and to the west, while the last set is also only a mile from home, but to the south. That way time is saved driving and allows me to make more stops with a couple traps, on many differant waters. Typically, with time being a daily issue caused by a full time job, I can only handle about a 50 mile loop and no greater.

Here, there may be 10 coons using a particular creek. Those coons may go several different routes and have several different routines that they do in the course of several nights. I learned that not every coon, nor every night, do the coons come marching down the creek in a pattern so we can catch them like robots. They are individuals, and have choices and exercise them constently. In a given night, there may only be 2-3 coons of the 10, that travel that creek in the pattern along the water like we set up for, and we will catch them with just a few traps. There may be some nights or several nights they wont use that creek edge at all, thus, no matter how many traps I put out at that spot, I still would catch nothing, so instead of wasting my time and limiting myself to that one creek with all my traps, I'll set a few there in a manner that I know I will catch them if they come along (blind sets!), then a few more on down the road at the next waters, then the next, and so on, so that I will catch more coons using the creek patterns in one night. Using this style, I can take the most of those10 coons in a 2 week period, which is the time frame we generally get until coons lay up. But if they don't come down that one particular creek on a certain night, I am covering many other waters that coons could possibly come down on that same night. So we can, at the same time, have the chance to take different coons at maybe 20 different water spots, which almost gaurantee's a decent catch every night. I would gang set if I had only 2-3 days to hit a certain spot, and knowing I cant come back,,,,, but outside of that, It takes to much time moving the traps and sets, over and over, for me to come out better then preparing 20-30 spots before season for just a few traps over a 2 week period. (or until the coons lay up, or im done!) When I started doing this, instead of gang setting a few stops, my catch went from 20 coons a season, to almost 100 a season, and am spending less energy and the same amount of time doing it!!!!! The way I figure, if I miss a 3rd or 4th coon because my 2 traps are already full, #3 and #4 coon will come down through there again in a night or two, and still get caught, and so on until I have wiped them out!!!!

[robocop]

Thanks.

[mattduncan]

here it's all about the corn till its gone connect the food to the denning areas and knock em down

as far as traps i use bodygrips set on trails and dp traps

[catmando1]

Corn is a major factor here too. travel routes can sometimes be altered greatly from one year to the next based on the corn and where it is or isn't.