Set out a few traps over Thanksgiving and will be hitting it hard after first of the year.
Caught a nice female coyote and had a nice tom on trail cam. Lost a Bridger #3 to who knowns what but it wasn't a small animal, bent our stake.

Target bobcat on trailcam.

Dang I hate to see anybody lose a trap
The ground looks rocky. How deep can you drive a conventional stake there?
Will cable/chain disposable type stakes work in that ground?
Maybe some heavy drags ?

I've used some of the cross stakes before, but the soil is too sandy and deep.
The Wolf Fangs I've been using seem to hold pretty well here, but I've only
caught the smaller pests so far this year, possums, skunks, etc.

Looks like a Duke 3 the coyote is modeling

Good luck sir

The ground is rocky but we got the 24" stake driven in fine.
Drags are actually preferred by the spouse but I wanted to stake this one, ugh !
Never have used the cables and anchors.

Coyote was caught in a Victor #3 coyote special, 4 coiled.
We set mainly MB 550s and Bridger #3s. We do have some smaller 4 coiled we use also. All offset jaws. Trying out a few new MB Alphas too, they are nice. We use some dogless and some dogged traps.

Have a few more nice drags on the way.

I started using 2 stakes after I caught something and it fought the tree all night till it pulled loose. No game camera on the trap but I think it was a MT. Lion.

That is a big kitty...I hope ya'll get that one and another Badger this year too.

Spouse's work schedule was changed so our trapping will really start this month.
Hoping snow depths are not great, makes for tough getting around the ranch.

Mt lion tag in pocket just in case.

Hope you get one !

Mt lion tag in pocket just in case.[/quote]

Do you eat them? A lot of western books I've read say they are good eating and was wondering if that was true.

We have eaten them in the past. The meat is similar to pork but has a sweeter taste and a kind of weird smell when cooking.
Not bad but not my favorite either.

Well , the spouse took some time off so we can trap finally.
Set out 22 coil springs over the weekend and going up today to check, stay the night at the ranch and maybe set a few more in the morning after checking again.

We had bobcat tracks everywhere Sunday morning and no catches. Crossed some mt lion tracks too and not looking forward to that release if we catch her. The quota is closed on mt lions and we can not shoot them in a trap, release will be tried if necessary.

Ground is frozen solid, pounded out beds for traps Sunday and have sore hands to show for it. We put out a few cubbies but mainly trail sets.

Snow is forecast for tonight, flurries we hope at best, and then maybe few more flurries for Thursday when we check again. Going to be pretty bitter cold at night so we should get animal movement. Thankfully there is a a very comfortable ranch house for us to stay in, we won't be roughing it a bit.

Hoping to have some nice bobcat pics for you this week and next weekend.

Hope you have plenty of waxed sand and no mountain lions. I could imagine trying to release one!

Had a nice bobcat by, in, the creek when we checked just before dark.
Got about 2-3 inches of fresh snow , wax dirt was put to good use.
Had to brush off all the sets this morning and we'll be back tomorrow to check again and hopefully put out some more sets.
No tracks this morning so everything bedded up during the snow, should be moving again tomorrow with sunny skies and no snow til Thursday.

keep those pictures coming

Some times you can double stake

Had another bobcat yesterday and more snow last night.
Mt lion tracks around the catch site too.

Yep, we should have tried to double stake but a mt lion was not on our mind and we think that is what took the trap.

Beautiful

Nice photo

Good photo too in the respect that even folks who like to hunt have this idea that animals die in the traps or they are in great pain and distress. That bobcat is perfectly okay and that has been my experience, coyotes just sitting there, lots of possums, etc. Never say never, an animal might jump around, entangle itself and die but that isn't common. Drowning sets for water trapping are of course a different thing but the animal quickly drowning in most instances.
When I was up in Canada a guy told me he had trapped a bear that climbed a tree with a log drag attached to the trap.

A raccoon will chew its' foot off, bobcats and coyotes will not in my experience.
I'm pretty sure the bobcat was more worried about the mt lion that walked along the logs in the background.

I've caught my hand in 4 coiled traps before, not really painful but what a surprise when it goes off.

Going up toady to check and stay the night. Probably have to spring them all on Tuesday morning due to deeper snow coming later that day.
We may move the sets to along the road for easier checking and to give the meadows a . All depends on how much snow we get on Tuesday-Wednesday.

Nothing in our traps but a nice big, male coyote on the way home.

Nice