Author Topic: Adaptability  (Read 874 times)

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Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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Adaptability
« on: November 18, 2003, 03:03:00 AM »
I vaguely remember making a post over a year ago about adaptability and think we may have some new members and it might bear repeating:

Coyotes are a very adaptable animal.  They have learned to live just about anywhere.  From the suburbs of big cities, to the desert, to the mountains, to the plain.  COYOTES ADAPT!  So?  

I have to remind myself to be like the coyote when trapping for him.  I must adapt!  Different habitat may require different methods.  While the basics of coyote trapping may remain the same, trapping for coyote in Utah will be some different than trapping for coyote in my region or along the Mississippi river and that will vary again when trapping the UP.  

We limit ourselves if we are stuck in one way of thinking coyote trapping.  Sure, some things never change, but 100 years ago, who would have thought about a coil spring trap or base plating.   Things change and I hope I can change with them.  Otherwise, I have limited myself.

To the "trapping newcomer" I would say ADAPT.  Study as much as possible the habits of the furbearers and keep the "goodies" and throw out some BS and GET OUT THERE AND DO IT!!!  ADAPT!!  EXPERIMENT!!  What you might consider a failure is true only if you allow it to be.  It is a learning experience and well worth the effort.  Do what works for you!  Just do it.
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Offline Thumper

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« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2003, 03:54:56 AM »
Very wise and sound advise!
If a tree falls in the woods and my wife is not there to hear it...is it still my fault?

Offline RdFx

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« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2003, 04:02:11 AM »
Yep Joe adaptability is the key as you said about the yotes surviving and if we expect to catch them we have to adapt too.  I adapted real good this morning at 4am   as i tried to see how far my truck would sink in the mud checking my yote traps....... walked out three miles and found  a fellow with four wheel drive trk and he pulled me out....... Now i have to adapt and buy a four wheel drive so i can keep going LOL...... Seriously any of you new comers old or young keep an open mind and  like Joe said go out and DO IT and use what works for you...... If in a bind ask questions on here if one of us doesnt know it someone  else might and he might be a newcomer too...... Lets see maybe if i put chains on.....................

Offline Wackyquacker

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« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2003, 04:43:07 AM »
One of the great things about these forums is the tips, tactics, motives and methods that are posted come from widely different areas.  Trappers have "figured it out" in their back yard and the members of the forum can take these different ideas and put them touse on their lines.  I see this as great resource and a good way to constently adapt.  

RdFx, those chains won't help unless you put them on your tires and cables are a bunch easier when you up to the rims in mud! :wink:

Offline Dave Lyons

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« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2003, 04:53:36 AM »
Guys,

This all to true with yotes.  This year my line varies a lot from one stop to the next.  I have a good area to trap, I go from what they call ridge country ( Fruit Tree Ridges ) to big dairy country, to low land with cornfields and large river system with many small creeks.  I am still trying to figure out the ridge country.  And ther dairy country is starting to click but I have calf graves every where so the norm of dirthole and bait aint working also in this area I am the second trapper and I have been told the other trapper had snapped a lot of yotes so this is a lot of fun.  And my low land and corn field area is an area I have been trapping for about 5-8 years and I am just starting to understand these coyotes here.  But everytime I fell I can get them they change again.

Coyotes amaze me, how different they are in about 20 miles to the next 10 miles.  This eastern coyote is something else.  

Coyotes are the only animal I know that will walk right past a prefect dirthole with bait and lure, and never skip a beat.  I will never understand this but I am learn to use the mafia (blind set) to take a few yotes.

Asa you have help a lot.  I know I might have asked the question but I do read most every post.

Dave Lyons
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Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2003, 09:44:33 AM »
Dave;
  That's true but what about them cats?  They too will walk past the best made set and just turn up their nose :lol:   Those dadblasted things are independent as a hog on ice. :wink:   Cats will let you make more mistakes than coyotes will and still get in your traps but only if they decide the set appeals to them THIS VERY MINUTE.  I have seen them walk right by my set and a week or 10 days later just decide to investigate and stick his foot right where I needed it to be.
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Offline Dave Lyons

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« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2003, 11:17:44 AM »
Joe,

I don't have the pleasure to trap cats where I am at in MI so I can;t comment on them, I hope I get to get a small dose of it in Kansas this coming year.

Dave Lyons
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Offline Dave Lyons

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« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2003, 09:28:08 AM »
Doesn't anyone else have anything to say on this part of the game.  This is the part that most of us need to work on, I know there are quite a few on here that know a lot about yotes.  This is what I like about trapping.  I can make a dirthole and flatset.  I really want to get in that head of a yote.

Dave Lyons
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Offline jim-NE

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« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2003, 01:39:29 AM »
coyotes are very adaptable, and very complex, too. they can eat anything and be both predator and scavenger, and yet also snack on a grasshopper or wild plum when available.
they are smart, but they are also dumb in some regards. very high strung and very fast animals. they learn fast that every truck that drives slowly down the road may stop and shoot at them (around here anyway).
Saw a dead bobcat 2 years ago about 50 feet from our local gas station. Not a good place to trap for them at all, but there it was...being adaptable and trying to cut through the area. Houses on each side of the road, too.
In my corner of Nebraska, people are everywhere. Acreages are popping up where there used to be larger farmsteads. There doesn't even seem to be that fear of human scent so much anymore. Not sure if this is related, but I actually quite wearing gloves to make sets in early season, and it doesn't seem to hurt my catch much either anymore. Maybe it has more to do with "association" of that smell. if the odor is everywhere and doesn't directly hurt them, then there is no taught or learned association of the odor with something harmful to them.
Caught a bobcat 3 years ago, in a little #11, at a post set for fox and it was totally blended in. Only attactor was a little dab of fox gland lure at the base of a weed clump. No traditional visual attractors, no "flagging", no bait, and no large trap for that big foot either. But...there it was waiting for me. Had that happen with a coyote once, too. Caught it at a "dryland" coon set dirthole. Way too much visual for coyotes (traditionally, anyway) lots of fish bait in the big dirthole, and lots of sweet coon lure smeared all over the backing. Had that coyote in a little #11 by the front foot, and there it was waiting for me the next day.
You get odd stuff sometimes, and sometimes you get critters that seem to defy all the rules. But I do think that the whole "adaptability" factor plays in hugely and especially as their environment changes so much from year to year, too.

Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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« Reply #9 on: November 23, 2003, 04:15:02 AM »
Jim-Ne;
 
  My opinion:
  Yep, the coyotes are very adaptable and at times complex.  
  However, I disagree a little with them being smart or dumb.  Let me explain before you get any hackles up. :lol:

  To me a coyote (or any other animal) can do no more or less than his nature allows him to.  He cannot go beyond what nature has provided him with.  He is a creature of habit.  IE:  He gets snapped at a couple of times at a dirthole set, he may avoid a dirthole but may be easily caught at a scent post a few feet away.  He may nearly get shot from a pick up truck and learn to run when he sees one.  Nature has placed within him fear.  If he survives, he may become what we might say is "smart" but really it is association.  
  A coyote cannot grasp a "concept".  Man is the only animal that has that ability.  A coyote an learn association, but not a concept.   I can produce a concept simply by seeing the user-id "Jim-NE".   Although we have not met, I can develop a concept of "Jim-Ne".  "Jim-Ne" is a person, a trapper, things you have posted indicate that you are a knowledgeble trapper, that you have a love for trapping, etc.   An animal (other than man) cannot make this concept.  So, if Mr. Coyote cannot count to one, then how can I call him smart?  
  I get fooled by coyotes often.  Was he smarter than me.  I think not.  It is that I do not "KNOW THE NATURE" of him well enough to look ahead and use his nature against him and that it was my mistakes that caused me to not catch him.  I don't think I will ever get to the point that I know his nature enough.  I would have to know him better than he knows himself and that is saying a lot.  I would have to become "him".
  While he is extremely adaptable, again he just cannot go against what nature has put in him and when we learn to react as he does, our chances for catching him increase.  His every move seems to be a REACTION.  
  I am not trying to be argumentative here-- just giving myself something to think about. :wink:
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Offline jim-NE

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« Reply #10 on: November 23, 2003, 07:05:58 AM »
agree 100%, and by no means are the hackles up. You always seem to me to be sort of a philosophical and contemplative individual with your postings. interesting introspective and intuition behind your thoughts.
by coyotes being "smart or dumb" I meant that description more figuratively than anything else..sort of applying humanistic "slang" terminology to animal behavioral patterns. I do understand the cognitive and cerebral limitations of animals in comparison to humans. just seems to be a common way to describe these behaviors by using the terms "smart or dumb" animals.
guess we have to play the averages and generalities game for the most part when hitting the line by setting toward the more "common" behaviors when pursuing canines, and then just taking the exceptional individuals of the species for what they are and how they react to our sets. every once and awhile you get one that really throws you a curve now and then. Hal Sullivan often writes in his Trapper & Predator Caller articles that he prefers not to duke it out with these exceptional specimans...preferring to leave them for "seed" to generate future fur populations in his area. His perception is that majority of these traits and behaviors exhibited by these exceptional specimans are not hereditary or taught to the offspring.

Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2003, 11:41:19 AM »
Jim;
  Would you please tell that to WQ?  He says I'm crazy as a outhouse rat (had to clean that up a little) :twisted:  
  Actually, my guess is that you are an excellent coyote man.  I can read it from your posts.  I guess I just have a "hang-up" when the word smart is used in referring to coyotes.  TRUE they are often more difficult to master than the other canines, but I have this dread that if we say they are smart, some newcomer to trapping may feel that is nearly impossible for them to catch coyotes until they have trapped a couple of years and even longer to catch them with consistency.  My first year trapping, I caught several coyotes using one dozen traps and the second year, I got my first double and triple.  That was back in the early 1970's when there was a lot of pressure from trapping. Of course, I had an excellent teacher and mentor.  At that time, there were very few pros that would really teach.  Most of their "secrets" were held very close to the vest, so to speak, and not that many shared their knowledge and expertise.  I am so glad that now there are trappers like yourself who will share with others.  We have to keep trapping alive and pass it on.  Although I maintain there are really NO SECRETS (everything that is known, was known, and will be known), our "secret" tips passed on to others of like mind, will do nothing but help trapping.  And I have no quarrel with the pros who sell books and videos.  They have a right to profit from their expertise and wisdom.  Heck, I buy them when I can.  We will never know all there is to know about a particular species or all there is to trapping that species and I think we can always learn.  
  Yep, there is always that one individual who puts us in our place.  Right now, I have an old coyote that is telling me I am the dumb one. :lol:  He has made it abundantly clear!!!  But like Hal, I bet he cannot pass that on to his offspring.  Wouldn't be surprised that should I catch him, he will have three toes.  I also agree that I shouldn't waste a lot of time on him but it sure is hard not to. :-)
  Sorry to ramble so much, maybe WQ is right. :oops:
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Offline Wackyquacker

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« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2003, 06:32:31 PM »
See, what I tell ya a crazy philosophical outhouse rat!   :)  :)

Offline trappnman

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« Reply #13 on: November 24, 2003, 01:18:55 AM »
Well rascal- I'll disagree with you/

And some say i'm a pretty good coyote man myself....  :wink:  

I say that some animals ARE smart- giving smart's definition that they are able to figure out a cause/effect relationship.  To say such things are just "its nature" is true, but it begs to have "its nature" defined.

But lets define "smart"- can we all agree that in this instance- "smart" means the ability to LEARN?

I've seen many, many examples of learned behavior from all kinds of animals- dogs, cats, beavers, coyotes even chickens.  

Now lets take 1 example- avoiding a trap. No, I do not believe that a coyote thinks "Yikes, almost stepped in Steve's carefully planted  #2 Bridger trying to smnell thyat lure he puts out....think I'll just be on my way..."

But I do believe that  a coyote can LEARN that A+B+C (fresh dirt +luresmells+hole in the ground)= DANGER.

Hers a real simple test of "thining" on your doh.  Place his bowl of food on the other side of a see through fence (woven wire,chicken wire, etc)

Have a gate 20 feet away- Put your dog opposite his food and see what happens.

Now do this with a chicken.

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Offline RdFx

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Well if you say so!
« Reply #14 on: November 24, 2003, 01:54:27 AM »
Woof, woof,  ,....snarf-gulp-crunch, burp!  okay whats the next test! Huh Boss?     Cluck, cluck .....squawk.... flap, flap, flap,  peck, peck, peck, splat, splat (defecate)  ruffle-ruffle  .  Oh oh here comes Steve with hatchet squawk-squawk flap, flap, flap,  na na na cant get me up on trap shed    :) ..........................See what happens when i dont have traps to check during WI deer season (WITHDRAWAL) :eek:

Offline jim-NE

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« Reply #15 on: November 24, 2003, 02:04:09 AM »
if they were a little more like us in humanity, you could almost go as far to say they have a sense of humor at times as well.
The ones that snap your trap, then take a dump on top of it come to mind...
those are the incidents that you only just "laugh" at all the way back to your vehicle, right???

Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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« Reply #16 on: November 24, 2003, 02:04:58 AM »
T-man;

Maybe you are right.

 Maybe the word I should use is "logic" instead of "smart".  Coyotes can react to (learn) conditions which help them in survival.  But, Russ Carman once wrote (and I believe it) that "it is impossible to teach an animal anything that is not tied somehow to his survival".  That is what I mean by "it's nature".

You state: "But I do believe that a coyote can LEARN that A+B+C (fresh dirt +luresmells+hole in the ground)= DANGER."
 
I wonder what the percentage of first year coyote pups have "learned" that?  My belief is that only the mistakes WE make have led to the "smart" coyote that has had a face full of dirt or a toe catch pull-out or dug out a dirty trap.  I think the avoidance (danger!) at the set is a reaction to maintain his survival.

You also said: "Hers a real simple test of "thining" on your doh. Place his bowl of food on the other side of a see through fence (woven wire,chicken wire, etc)
Have a gate 20 feet away- Put your dog opposite his food and see what happens. "

I agree that the dog will go to the gate and get to his food.  Now, without the dog seeing you do it, put a dirthole at the gate and put his favorite food in it and what will happen?  By the way, I also raise chickens and they to will eventually find the gate.
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Offline trappnman

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« Reply #17 on: November 24, 2003, 02:55:49 AM »
"By the way, I also raise chickens and they to will eventually find the gate."

LOL- I too used to raise chickens - and while the chickens may eventually find their way to the gate, if they find the food they are as suprised as you are  :)


Now I admire Russ Carmen, and feel his snow trapping fox book is the definative work on the subject, but I can't say I agree with the statement: "it is impossible to teach an animal anything that is not tied somehow to his survival"

One can come up with countless examples of "learned" experiences that deal with pleasure. Take the river otter as example #1.  They go out of their way to find certian banks and other play areas- a learned response dealing with pleasure.

Regarding diggers and set avoidance- actually, I believe that most of the diggers and most of the nonsense that goes on at a set is caused by the young, inexperienced curious coyote.  (A true digger or "smart" coyote simply (USUALLY)avoids the set and set areas).
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Offline Wackyquacker

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« Reply #18 on: November 24, 2003, 03:17:12 AM »
So I read the above post and fixated on:
"But lets define "smart"- can we all agree that in this instance- "smart" means the ability to LEARN?"

I thought a bit, since this topic seems to appear over and over again, and realized that I really wasn't certain what "smart" meant relative to intellect.  Guess what, smart deals with pain.  The only reference to intellect is the very last definition.

Here is my point, when a word is misused, bastardized and poorly defined communication becomes mucked up. ( T-MAN CALM DOWN, I'm generalizing and in know way am I picking at you.)  

All the chicken-dog-food-fence or smell-dirt-hole-trap-danger situations can be explained as conditioned responses not cognative thought.  

I too raise chickens and dogs, and chickens wane in intellect relative to dogs.  However, you can condition them to do many things.  I "think" major differences between the dog and the chicken "may" include rate of conditioning, retention time of learned response, complexity of reponses that can be assimilated and number of situations that can be "stored".  In any case we say that dogs are smarter than chickens.

The way I see things, every body that has responded above is right; we're just getting hung up with poorly defined words.  I'll throw in two  traits that I think may better define the response differences we observe among critters; keen senses and wary.

RdFx a want some of what you're drinkin!  :eek:

Offline trappnman

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« Reply #19 on: November 24, 2003, 05:41:05 AM »
Well, smart does refer to pain as one use- but a quick look at Webster shows that many other uses such as: spirited, bright, witty, mentally alert, shrewd,  sharp in scheming, and on and on. Webster then goes to list a doz or so words using "Smart" as a prefex such as smartypants, smartmouth, smarten, smarty, etc- all denoting definitions dealing with the common usage of "bright, witty, etc"

So I would think that if asked, most would define "smart" as something similar to the above.

but as long as I looking at Webster:

LEARNED: 1) to gain knowledge or understanding by study, instruction or EXPERIENCE 2) to come to be able to 3) to come to realize

RESPONSE: 1) something constituting a reply or a reaction  2) the activity or inhibition of previous activity of an organism or any of its parts resulting from stimulation.

Easy enough to put them together and see that a learned response is, to paraphrase, "The ability to gain knowledge through experience of a previous activity".


and lets look at "keen senses"
amoung the uses of "keen" I find (not counting wailing at funerals) listed "sharp"  "quick responsivness" "extremely sensitive in perception"  "clever" "to grasp"  "to comprehend"


and "senses" I find means:  "a meaning conveyed" "the faculty of perceiving"  "sentient, intellegent" it goes on to say" SENSE implys a reliable ability to judge and decide.."

so "keen senses" would certainly imply intellegence- by its very definition..

and "WARY" means "Careful, aware, attentive"  "marked by KEEN caution, cunning and watchful prudence"

CUNNING can then be defined as "skillful, of knowelge, learning"  "exhibiting skill" "CLEVER"
So round and round we go....word games sure are fun :)

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It all comes down to those coyotes can drive ya nuts!   :D
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Offline OldCoon

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« Reply #20 on: November 24, 2003, 09:05:12 AM »
I don't think any animals are really smart, unless you are possibly speaking of great apes.   In reference to a coyote, I would say the coyote is a survivalist.   He can do what he has to live.   Raccoons and opossums are the same.   They can live right under your house with you and eat from your garbage can.

Someday, should earth become a nuclear wasteland  a coyote, a racoon, a opossum and 5 million cockroaches will climb out of the rubble to begin life anew.
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Offline Wackyquacker

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« Reply #21 on: November 24, 2003, 09:11:16 AM »
See! :roll:

Offline RdFx

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« Reply #22 on: November 24, 2003, 11:43:02 AM »
Ahuh, ahuh, ahuh!  What kind you want WQ,  Maple Glow or Peaches?  See everyone WQ is providing us with an example of conditioned response!!!! :wink: !!!!!!...   :D

Offline rascal (Joe Duncan)

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« Reply #23 on: November 24, 2003, 02:57:57 PM »
RdFx;
   WQ can barely crawl around on the floor as it is now!!  He keeps bumping his head into the wall.  Don't send him any more of that juice!!  Send it this way and I can get CRAZIER than a outhouse rat :twisted:

Ever feed that stuff to a coon?  Bet that would be a kick in the head!!! :eek: I can just imagine a big ole boar rolling down the bank into the creek with a great big smile on it's face.  8)
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Offline Wackyquacker

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« Reply #24 on: November 24, 2003, 06:55:20 PM »
Joe, didn't you post a PIC of such a critter sittin a top a drab ATV that he must a stole from the dairy?