We have little coyotes here, some fox, tons of coons, and not much in way of snow or other things to come up through. I've held a lot of coyotes in little #11s at dryland coon and fox sets. I know this sounds goofy, but a well-placed #11 sleepy creek single jaw model at a step-down double dirthole set has taken quite a few coyotes for me, but it is not a good coyote trap as we all know..its just way too small a jaw spread and it was just not designed for regular coyote abuse. I do have tons of coon to deal with around here in our mixed habitat areas, and I get so many of them in my dryland predator sets that I just had to find a compromise that was a bit easier on coons and fox but still held every coyote that visited my sets here in heavily populated Southeastern NE farm country. Even in my best coyote year of 45, I recall I had nearly that same number of incidental coon and I received more for the coon than I did the coyotes. I just had to find a compromise for both species and the occasional fox too. I've used beefed up #2 longs for nearly 30 years now with very satisfying results on all 3 species. This trap is still a bit big for coon or fox specifically, but the jawspread is so close to a 1.5 coil that I can't go down much more in size. The design of the double holds way better than any 1.5 coil I've ever used. The double spring design has great holding power and is very easy to stabilize in a bed. I changed to center mounted short chains with tons of swivel points, added booster springs to increase the closure speed, and on some models had to install adjustable tension pans. In last couple years I also bought some 4x4 Duke 1.75s when they first came out and since the jaw spread was similar to my #2 longs, and I really liked them. They were stout, held coyotes well, had nice smooth jaw faces, a beefed up base and center swiveled. Only thing I have really changed on them is I shaved a full 1/4" off each side of the pan, switched out the twin loop chain for some nice welded kinkless, and added two more 4-way swivels but kept total chain length to less than 8". I modified the oblong shaped pan on these Dukes because it is so wide at the widest point that it doesn't fit in between the insides of each jaw lever, and on occasion the jaw levers were catching on the pan if the pan fully dropped down in between them, and then the levers were not fully rising up on the jaws...which allowed for some space in the jaws preventing full closure. This trap as stock out of the box COST me some catches because of this. Shaving the sides of the pans down to make them more square and narrower, much like an old Monty pan, it did the trick and haven't had a problem with them since. I also have a dozen or so of the old #2 square monty dogless traps that are nice coyote catchers for me, but I only use them in the safer areas where my theft loss tends to run lower. They have way too much room under the jaws for the coon or fox catches, but again its a compromise for me. That was a great trap design, and the new Montana model looks very similar.
I've used bigger traps before, like #3 coils and #3 longs, and they held coyotes great for me, as they were designed to do. But, I just didn't like the results on coon or fox catches, both of which in leaner market years tended to have way more value than our non-pale, dirty-brown Southeastern NE coyotes did. When coyotes were only a couple bucks but coons could still pull in a ten spot finished, I wanted the incidental coon catches. Fox were always a bonus, of course, paying more than coon generally. Coyotes have picked back up recently but I still can't stomach a loss of the other two species. Sorry to buck the system, guys, but I'll stick with my smaller jawed trap models for coyotes. They haven't let me down here yet. Maybe if I lived in another area with larger coyotes or more winter conditions to fight, I'd be changing equipment, but not as long as I live here. Its a rare dog here that exceeds 30 pounds or so, and our coyotes are runners...they have small feet. Every bobcat I've caught has had much wider feet, as have some of our bigger coon or fox have shown me much larger feet also. Key coyote catching points for me in a trap have always been more of things like holding power, center mounted chains, short chains, and the trap's closing speed. Because of my trapping conditions here these are much more important for coyote trapping vs. larger, more traditional trap jaw spread in a traditional sized coyote trap. Again, sorry to buck the system here but wanted to point out what works for me in these conditions here in case any readers are experiencing similar conditions in their areas.
Trace, I also have to tend to agree with RdFx in that any Victor #2 is generally not a good coyote trap. I have yet to find a victor #2 coil that held up over time. The sterling mj model is a classic coyote trap, but pricey. If your cash flow is similar to mine, and you want to put out a decent coyote line, you will need to run at least a dozen or so traps minimum for quite some time. A dozen mj's will set you back quite a bit even used models. These Duke 4x4 1.75 coils I bought have been a decent bargain for me. They may be small compared to a #3 so if you have larger coyotes or trap in harsher climates you will want the bigger traps of course, but if you can get away with a smaller jawed model maybe consider equiping with something like this instead. Bridgers are another trap that are well made but are most likely a better buy for your money than the mj model is. Just my thoughts, that's all.
Jim
