Bait for my trapline

[The Poet]

                Howdy y'all,

     Now I know some of the very best sets don't use bait.
The blind trail set, snare sets,
and that 'bait' can be as simple as a can of sardines, or an eye dropper full of pee,
but when the winter is 3-4 months off,
like now,
I remember the last few years,
 when I would be desperate for bait.

     I would call my old friend from 1959,
 {the fourth grade} Randy,
as 'Randy' manages a feed store now,
and has chickens, ducks, and poultry in such numbers that it is impossible to talk to old Randy,
as walk through there in the summer without flies getting in your mouth.
Hundreds of poultry and billions of flies,
 and every year I get low on bait and call Randy begging for dead birds.
Even feathers but I end up shooting poor song birds for bait.

     Then one evening Randy brought me a bunch of Maran chickens,
and a few Guineas. A few Old English Game bantams,
and after a months or so I was hooked!

     Now, a couple of years later I have 52!!! adult chickens in my bird herd!
{Rhode Island Reds are the most productive}
Two incubators full all the time,
Eggs everywhere, dead birds all the time, the coop:
22'x23' is so smelly that a hand full of dirt would catch something out on the trapline,
and I am building another.
Smaller grow-out-cages, everywhere,

     I have my own 'trap line bait empire',
 with Coyotes in 'pairs' and 'threes'
sitting in the back pasture and smiling at me,
asking, telepathically,  if I have any dead chickens I don't need.

     Boys, get your selves a poultry herd you will be glad you did,
and so will every thing else that lives on the earth!
My best trap line is in a beat down trail around my coops.
From mice to Hog.
Every thing likes chicken.

 
                              Tschuess
                       J. Winters Von Knife

                              {the Poet}


                           

.
 

[Asa Lenon]

With all due respect poet, I did a lot of extensive testing and experimentation with all sorts of meats from wild meats, red meat, pork, fish and poultry and found poultry to be only a marginal attractor for coyote and bobcat in comparison to meats like bobcat, muskrat and mutton that come out high on the attractor list.  Ace

[The Poet]

     Asa,   

     Hey man, long time.  {!!!}
Hmmm, about the chicken for trap bait,
You know, actually it may have been the two coon carcasses
I had laying in my driveway which was attracting the three coyotes
with the big smiles and the telepathic abilities.


                     Thanks   

                                Knife

[RdFx]

Knife...... are you the Texas variety Knife?   Cant remember but seems to me  thats where  fellow i conversed with awhile back was fm. 

[The Poet]

     Rdfx  Dude,

     Yes, that is me.
I couldn't get on Greybeard for a couple of years and it was traumatic!
Passwords or something...
However I had to pick a new name.
'Jack the Knife' wouldn't work,
 and that is my name!!!
Darn computer.
I probably could have gotten past the barriers a couple of years sooner
but for my traumatic brain injury 6 years ago.
I could have just picked a new name.
Well, since I am a published poet I thought the Poet was a good handle.
Remember Jack Nicholson and his first movie?
"Hells Angels on Wheels!!!   !!!!zzz!!!

     Poet was his name then back when
 men were men,
 and all motorcycles had kick starters.

                  Thanks for remembering me

                              The Poet

                   jacksknifeshop.tripod.com

     

[RdFx]

10-4...... motorcycles with kickstarters....oh yea,   used to race Maico 400s in MX..... could break your leg or throw you over the bike... same way with some triumphs, BSAs..... hmmmm must be letting  on to my age...LOL....
   anyrate time to start posting how tos for the young trappers lurking here.... i will let you start knife and i will follow..... we  will have to bug ol Boggy to get out of his easy chair and post a bit as he is getting OLD..... and forgets to post.....;>)

[The Poet]

                 Rodger your last transmission 'Red'.

     I am having an interesting time recovering
from barely surviving being murdered in 2001.
That, and being beaten up by some cops this April.
My Walker hound Sandymay gets twice as many coon
as last year, every year.
And I just bought {I hope} 22 #3  l/s o/s victors, new!
Now I have well over a hundred, {118}
more than twice as many as I will ever use
 but I just love them as they bring back memories
of my years when my hounds were alive.
And I could run traplines all day and coon hunt with my hounds all night.

     I didn't even run a line last year
 as I was concentrating on hunting 'every night' with Sandy.
She knows what she is doing now,
 and as the fur is all tanned from last year,
 I am serious about getting the old line re-established
and filling the tannery with fresh fur.

     Asa, said chicken is not really a good coyote and cat bait
 and that mutton is preferable.
Thats sheep meat ain't it?
Alright, as Cat and Coyote will be really big this season
 I need to find me a dead sheep,
or I guess goat?
     
     No more looking for trap bait in December!


                          Over and out,

                                    the Poet

[The Poet]

                                                         Gentlemen,
                             
                                       About poultry as a bait for the trap line...

     Thanks Asa,  for the valuable input on trap bait.
If mutton is about the preferred meat for cat and yote,
{ and a goat is about as good,}
 I know a guy a mile south of me here who has boer goats.
There is always a dead goat laying along the road where he dumps them,
and I'll contact him and offer to haul off his dead goats.
That should keep me in trap bait alright.

     But about poultry...
     Asa, I forgot to mention that the main most attractor 'for cat especially and yote too',
in the using of poultry for bait is the feathers!

     My favorite set in the old days was as I called it,
 the  'dead peacock set'.
I would hang a dead peacock,
{I found along the road some dogs had killed,}
in a small tree-bush, 2' off the ground with feathers scattered every where
It was the feathers which offered the visual attraction to the set not just the smell.
Cats hunt by sight rather than by scent,
and a poultry slaughterhouse scene is a good attractor for a cat.
They won't pass by a scene like that.

     I believe cats make a living getting birds off roosts at night.
And the biggest cat we ever killed, my hounds and I,
was a big male on my den wall right now!
And where we killed him was by a rail road track
where I could hear chickens from where I stood,
right up the hill,
 from where we had killed the cat.
     Old 'Cat',
 was waiting to go work the guys coops up the hill when it got later
 but Suemay said:
Booooo!!!!!
and Cotton Joe was right there agreeing that there was a cat in that tree.
     A great biggun!


     So Asa, it was the 'feathers', as a visual attracter,
 rather than just the smell of the poultry meat
 which is the advantage to using poultry for bait on the trapline.
 
     Is that legal?
 
                                         
                               'the Poet'
                 
                   jacksknifeshop.tripod.com










     
     
     

[charto]

no chickens?....doesn't mutton taste like chicken? seems everything else does lol