The turkey and the coyote trap

I just returned from checking my coyote traps, for the second time today. Normally, once first thing in the morning will do it, but today I had a little more bait to put out.

The traps are set near a deer carcass I found on the property last December. Some slob had trespassed and shot the fork horn and not even tried following it up. I discovered it a few days later, by which time some critters had already started eating it. There was nothing salvageable by then, so I kept an eye on the carcass and noticed a steady flow of opossum and raccoon using it, as well a strong likelihood of a few coyotes. After the deer season ended, I set some traps nearby.

The weather has been pretty cold this winter, and the carcass was covered with snow most of the time. However, when it warmed and the snow began melting down, there was quite a bit of activity. I set my trail camera in several different locations near the spot. Most of the time I got pictures of crows. Once a red tailed hawk stopped by. Last night I got a picture of a raccoon on the infrared.

During the trapping season, I managed to catch 2 raccoons. On another occasion, I shot an opossum on the kill site.

I caught a rabbit in one of the traps, near a trail approaching the location about a week ago. Normally, this would have been fine with me, but when I found it in the morning, most of it was gone. Something had eaten it in the trap. Possibly a coyote, but more likely a raccoon. I reset the trap and left the remains nearby. A few days later, the remains were gone.

When I reached the area late this morning, I noticed the space around my main coyote trap was all torn up, and the trap was gone! This upset me since it had been there 4 hours earlier. I had located it under a tree, near a game trail where a lot of varmints left droppings. This made it quite unlikely to catch some other animal accidently.

I carefully checked the area for signs in the snow. There were several sets of long curved marks looking like 5 claws raking the snow. If this was a B grade horror movie, I would have been in real trouble. Then I found a feather and saw the other tracks. Several turkeys had come though the area. The “claw marks” were from the wing feathers. Apparently one had gotten caught by the trap and been able to pull the rig clear of the tree to which it was attached (How I do not know since it held a raccoon several weeks earlier).

I could not let a turkey go running around with a trap attached, so I began tracking. The soft snow made the tracking possible, but certainly not easy. I could indentify the bird with the trap and keep to that trail. However, after a couple hundred yards, the trail ended. I was even more upset until I saw my trap there on the ground. Apparently, the bird managed to get just one claw caught and was able to pull that free.

I was relieved, picked up the trap, and relocated it on another game trail for the coyotes (who were howling away at 1:15 in the morning the day before). Hopefully, with the warm weather we are having today, there will be some activity this evening.

Of course, I am glad the turkey made its escape, since it might have been a real challenge to get the trap off it otherwise. Sadly, I had pulled the trail camera this morning on my earlier visit, and thus did not get any pictures of the turkeys. I am glad to see the wild turkeys moving around a lot more. I saw several others beside the road while driving into town this morning. I was concerned with the weather we have had this past winter.