I've been having tons and tons of squirrels hitting my deer feeder.
They have been tearing up cages, eating wiring and just generally being a pain!

I've shot 12 in two weeks but they still keep coming.
I was searching for traps and other methods on line (don't want to use poison) and found this video.


I had some Conibear traps, deckmate screws and an extra 2x4 laying around so I thought I would try it.
I put the 2x4 on a tree next to my deer feeder at a 45 degree angle and attached two traps to it.
So far, in 2 days I have caught 9 of them.

If you have a squirrel problem at your feeder, this should work for you!

Thanks for this video, and I will try to find some of the conibears. I have a bunch of leg holds, but no conibears.

Not that hard to find the traps trap link

tag

UPDATE:
This method has been working better than anything else I have ever tried!

I have a game camera on the feeder where I placed this and noticed that the squirrels were coming from other trees nearby and going straight up the feeder legs to the feeder.
I moved the squirrel pole over to the feeder leg they seem to be running up the most and my results improved quite a bit!
I used some deckmate screws and a little electric fence wire to attach it to the feeder post so it didn't turn over.

In two days, I have caught 11 more squirrels and a small raccoon.
I'm using a single 2x4 about 6' long and ONLY 2 conibears so I check the feeder 3-4 times a day.

I only had one tree rat on the game camera this morning.

Looks like it works great if you can check your traps often

I've gotta try that. But ambushing them with a shotgun is so much fun.

I am thinking a 2x6 with 220 Conibears for raccoons would be fun.

Yeah, fire ants find them pretty quickly and it's not fun trying to remove something covered in fire ants from the trap!
Caught 5 more and haven't seen a tree rat on game camera in 2 days!

My traps are supposed to be here tomorrow. I'm itching to try this and plan on carring some out to the lease to use while there.

thanks for the info.

Pretty sure that this is illegal in TX. Squirrels are game animals and the trap wouldn't be considered legal means. Wish it wasn't though, they tear up my FIL's pecans.

JR

Squirrels are non game animals and are treated just like coyotes. Traps should be legal.

WRONG - https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/hunting/seasons/statewide/

My mistake. I thought they fell under the same place as rabbits and coyotes. It looks like rock squirrels are fair game though.

Is there a fine for targeting a non game or fur bearing animal but instead catching a game animal?

Hilarious

tag

While awaiting some conibears I ordered, I rigged this up using the same idea but using a plain old rat trap for the capture. Be interesting to see if it works!

That is funny, good idea.
It reminds me of when I thought I had mice in the shed. I tried for a week to catch them suckers and they would trip the traps and never get caught. Then a rat ran out one day, I had to get bigger traps. I bet everyone one of them rats had a bump on his noggin.