Snaring Coyotes on Beaver Pon

AImost all of my coyote trapping over the years had been with snares either at bait stations in the bush or under fences in places like cow pastures.

 I didn't find it necessary to trap any other way until I moved to a new area. After moving, I struggled to find the types of locations I was accustomed to setting. Coyote tracks were evident in nearly every farm field, yet the terrain was very hilly with few pastures; there were even fewer chunks of bush where I might set up a bait station with snares.

While trapping beavers under ice for the fur and also the bait carcasses, I realized I had been looking for coyote snaring opportunities in the wrong places.

The beavers lived in ponds and small lakes, and they had dug channels a few feet wide to connect lakes and ponds that were in close proximity. When winter settled in, the channels iced over and the predators starting using them as runways to quickly pass through an area or to hunt the ponds and swamps.

Some of the ponds held more sign of coyote traffic than anything I had ever seen in the bush. There were plenty of rodents for the coyotes to eat, and the scent drifting from the beaver houses attracted them and other predators all winter long. I decided to try snaring on the ice.

The beaver ponds were easy to find and access, but there were other challenges. While it was easy to find iced-over beaver channels with plenty of tracks when the snow covered them, there were no trees to secure the snares. The cattails along the channels were less than ideal for stabilizing the Ram Power Snares I prefer, and the power snares stood out in stark contrast to the tan cattails. I could easily spot them and assumed it would be the same for coyotes. The snares would be new, unusual and, therefore, perceived as potential danger to be avoided.