Pennsylvania Game News - January 2019 - 40

An old trick that's worked for me on
coyotes in the past is to completely bury
skinned skunk carcasses in mounds so
nothing is visible from the air, and double
set each location.
For reasons I'll never understand,
canines just love skunks. But after two
weeks, I'd caught nothing in these sets.
With it now the Saturday before
firearms deer season, I decided to pull
my traps and concentrate on deer for the
next two weeks. I'd probably be better
off setting at a different location anyway,
I thought.
But as I drove up to a set I'd made on
the edge of a field, something was different - a coyote was caught in a trap.
I was more than thrilled, and decided
then and there that these sets would stay
out the duration of deer season.
The coyote was a beauty; a 42-pound
male, and the landowner was extremely
happy with the catch.
I now was halfway to my grand slam.
But with deer season approaching, I knew
things would become a bit more difficult,
and they did.
During the two-week deer season, I
managed to catch only one raccoon and
one opossum.
And as deer season closed, it was time
to prep for the upcoming bobcat season.

CATS ON CAMERA
Time is limited in Pennsylvania's
bobcat trapping season, so a trapper must
make the most of it.
While I'd harvested a bobcat two years
earlier on public ground in WMU 3G, my
trail cameras indicated my best opportunity would be on one of two private
parcels where I had permission to trap.
Bobcats were on camera there nearly
every night.
When the season opened on Saturday,
40

I made the same simple bobcat sets that
had worked for me in the past: I place a
little hump of hay for a backing, and draw
bobcats to the trap with a little bobcat
gland scent and bobcat urine.
I worked a 12-hour shift that night,
and thought often about the trap possibly
springing at that moment, and learning
in the morning I was one step closer to
reaching my goal.
After work, and a quick stop at home
to change clothes and grab gear, I drove to
the property where I'd caught my coyote,
and pulled in to see one of my sets in the
distance had something in it. It was a
bobcat with nice markings!
Now I could focus fully on catching
a red fox.
And since I'd taken vacation that week,
and had figured to spend much of it running my bobcat 'line, I now had the entire
week to spend trying.

FINALLY FOX
I didn't make many adjustments to the
canine sets I already had out, other than
freshening up some scents.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
resulted in empty traps. But on Thursday, with my wife Lori riding along on
the morning checks, we pulled up to the
set where I'd caught the coyote a month
earlier. Lori was first to spot the patch of
bright orange. And having finally caught
a red fox, and completed my Pennsylvania Steel Grand Slam, I was like a kid at
Christmas.
The satisfaction one gets by setting
a goal and successfully following it
through is hard to explain.
I sent all four of these catches off to be
tanned so we could display them at home,
and I could remember the feeling forever.
Now I'll have to come up with a new
goal.
Pennsylvania Game News - January 2019

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