I have never been on a place where the coons do this to a feeder cage.

I'd be dealing out some coon death for pulling a stunt like that.

I've been trapping for more than 40 years and I regularly use a dispatch pole for coyotes and bobcats. I will never use one for coons ever again. They are just a scaled down bear.

^^^^ Raccoons and bears are distant relatives. When I read how they determined that I laughed my butt off, apparently their peckers are built the same. They are all over Highland Park but are fat and lazy and other than getting into trash they don't cause problems. I have opened my trash can several times just to find a raccoon passed out after an orgy of eating garbage. I'll just tip the can over and they grudgingly shuffle away.

Is your dispatch pole something like this? If not then get one of these. The tip will go through any skull I've ever seen.

https://www.coldsteel.com/maa-lance-point-spear/

That's not a dispatch pole. If I wanted to put holes in pelts, I'd just use a gun.

Forgive me, I don't know specifically what a dispatch pole is.

Coons are out of control everywhere, nobody traps them for fur anymore, we trap for population control.

None sold at the last fur auction. Russia isn’t buying them for now.

I’m over run w them myself

My worst place for them is over an hour away so trapping and setting the trap again is an issue

I posted a pic last year and it was something 18-19 are under my feeder

I have a consistent 6-7 walk down my driveway every night going across the street to the canals. Big fat suckers. They pretty much stay out of my backyard due to my pup, but the opossums dont.

I keep track of my catch/kills on my phone. Since spring I've dispatched 51 of them corn bandits.

Actually about 46% sold at the FHA auction in Canada, just not for much money.

back in the 1980s, when fur prices were still pretty decent, 2 of my HS buddies and I were coon killing machines with Q-beam & 22's, had 7-8 large ranches we had access too around a 3 county area, spent every Friday & Saturday night from about 8:00 pm to sunrise hunting ... had a new landowner call my dad asking if we still coon hunted and that the coons were destroying his cattle operation feed lot conveyor system. Of course we obliged after his deer hunters were done ... we filled the bed of my friend's Nissan truck numerous times off that central TX 6k acre place that fur season, several nights we were over 70 count off that one ranch, made a lot of money off fur that year. I grew to hate skinning coons that year!!!

back on point though, the coon problem out on my Ozona place tears up the cheaper coon cages like the one pictured in the original post, I've had to re-enforce all those out there. LO doesn't allow killing them, but I have trapped dozens and hauled off 10-12 miles and dropped off at a windmill with water trough, someone else probably hates me but hopefully they can shoot them.

Some may not believe this comment because of its timing, but I was once on a deer lease where the Lease President loved to coon hunt. For that reason, he and I would often hunt all the feeders during the off season. And let me tell you, you won't find a hotter coon track than at a deer feeder. And yet, not a single member ever took issue with coonhounds being released at their feeder during the off season. That's probably because they were all older hunters who understood that deer are considered "trash" to any respectable coon hunter. I also don't ever remember a member ever complaining about racoons tearing up their feeder. There were nights when we might tree four or more up a nearby tree.

During those years I would also hunt with an old timer in Houston County who liked to "try" new hounds. He always enjoyed hunting with my Bluetick because he would always come back to us if any of the dogs jumped and began running a deer. The value of any new hounds he was trying would go up or down based on how they hunted with my dog.

But to be honest, multiple raccoons can often be killed by simply "shining" trees at night near feeders, during the off season of course. About an hour to 90 minutes after sundown is often the best time to do this. And it's really much like using a pen to trap hogs. Give them time to arrive at the party and then go bust it up. They often don't run very far with nothing to chase after them.

From the looks of the earlier photo, it looks like that was one heck of a raccoon party.

The value of a couple honest coonhounds that won't run anything but a coon or a cat can't be under estimated. Up until the 80's we had places where we were welcome to run our hounds. Hide prices were high, but we only carried a pistol to shoot the occasional snake because coons were hard to find. Now that hide prices are depressed, oh how I wish I had a place to run a couple Treeing Walkers on. I guess those were the good old days?

I still have the Remington Model 241 that I carried for many years to dispatch raccoons out of trees. It only shoots .22 shorts that often sounded like you had hit a sack of flour so that you knew in the darkness of night it wasn’t a miss. I would even swear it was a distinct sound that my Bluetick had learned to listen for.

Coon outsmarts hunter....

Is it used to strangle them or used to break their neck?

I've been giving them pay back.

Caught one in a live trap Mon night & dispatched it yesterday morning.
It had eaten all the bait, and didn't have anymore with me, but decided to set trap anyway with no bait in it.
There were TWO coons caught in the damn trap this morning!

They tore into my stack of cow cubes a few weeks ago. We put out 9 Duke's traps. The next morning, there were 9 coons caught and the 10th was hiding under his momma (but ran off when the shooting started) . We reset the traps and got two more the next night, and one more a couple of days later. 12 coons! Still have some on camera at various feeders. Their time is coming.

The Duke's traps work.

And they've never caught of of my dogs.

I have 8-10 barn cats; this is the second time we've used the Duke's and we've still only caught raccoons.

My Coon barrier is 4 gauge mesh. If they can defeat that, I’m hunting the wrong animals.

I have a picture of 16 Coons hanging on my cheap cage which resulted in its detachment. Next season I took the feeder off its 8 ft legs, had a skid built for ground level refills and introduced those wily critters to steel mesh. They don’t even show up on the feeder anymore, only on the ground.