Raccoon Trapping

I've known for the last year that I have way too many raccoons on the land in Fisher county. I have one picture on a trail camera with 13 raccoons in it under one of the feeders. Raccoons are also big nest raiders and if you have a lot of raccoons you will probably end up with fewer quail and turkey. I bought a cage trap this past summer and set it several times but never was successful at catching a raccooon. I did some research online and found a neat trap called "'Lil Grizz Get'rz". They are made specifically for trapping raccoons as they have to reach their hand in a little pipe and then pull back on the trigger to spring the trap. They are also very easy to setup and I ended up buying a couple. I asked around some more and several folks said I would never make a dent in the raccoon population trapping a couple at a time so I ended up buying a dozen more of them. I wasn't able to get out right away but this past weekend I got to go out and I set up the 14 traps. I set them out about 4 in the afternoon and baited 8 of them with sardines and 6 of them with marshmellows (I read about this online and about 1/2 the folks recommended sardines and 1/2 the folks recommended marshmellows so I figured I would try both). Well, I caught 9 raccoons overnight! 7 of them were caught on sardines and only 2 on marshmellows so I guess I'll be using sardines in the future. The sardines are easier to use anyway, they just make somewhat of a stink! I was very happy with the results for my first time trapping.

I got some trail camera pictures of a new buck too. I'm going to call him "Stickers" because he almost looks like a cactus he has so many points.

You can see from the raccoons in the picture that one other benefit from reducing the raccoon population will be that I should save some money on my feeding bill. I think I had more raccoons eating out of the feeder than I had deer! Oh well, I think that's about it. Getting to where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on my busy season. Nathan