First, I don't know if the traps you got are rubber jaw or not, looks like they're offset, but if they're offset regular jaw you may need to laminate them to make them TN legal as I believe you have to have a 1/4" thick jaw face now. If you're on private property you have to have written permission, and your traps have to be tagged with your name or TWRA #.
I love the super stakes, like the MB 550's. I prefer #3 or #4 DLS, Jakes, or MB650 for coyote / bobcat. I've had toe catches and a few pullouts on 2 coiled MB550's.
For bait and lure I'd get a small amount of Hiawatha Valley Predator Bait, a small jar of Fox Hollow GHII lure, and then a good coyote or red fox gland lure, plus some red fox urine. Coyote will go to fox gland or fox urine, but it's harder to get a fox to go to coyote smells. Bobcats will go to anything, as long as it's directly in their path of travel.
Practice cutting / digging a bed and staking a trap several times before you do it for real. Dig a hole slightly smaller than the trap, and dig it deeper than you need. You'll put the chain and stake under the trap so you need room. The coils can be floating off the bottom of your hole as long as the levers, cross frame, and jaws are solid. If you add shock springs to your chain setups they're handy for putting under the loose jaw to firm it up.
Use your hammer to pound down the edges where the levers, jaws, and cross frame will sit. With practice you can have a trap bedded solid in just a minute or two. Without practice it'll take you 20-30 minutes to get the wobble out and it's super frustrating. You can always make the hole bigger, but you can't make it smaller.
When the hole is right, pull the trap out, dust the hole with PRE-SIFTED peat moss, rebed the trap, and cover the levers with a sifting of peat moss, then fill inside the jaws and over the pan till they're full with peat.
Then use dirt (prefer pre-sifted dry dirt I bring with me or waxed dirt I bring) to put over the levers and around the jaws. Pack this in tight so it's solid. If a coyote steps around the trap or on the jaws it needs to feel solid and normal.
From here if it's a flat set in a pasture I use dried grass clippings to blend. If a cut bean field I gather bean chaff to blend. If a dry dirt pattern I use PRE-SIFTED dry dirt or preferably waxed dirt to blend. If it's a dirthole, I use PRE-SIFTED dry dirt or preferably waxed dirt to cover and blend the trap.
Use a guide stick or small rock at the loose jaw, then use a whisk broom from 2-4 feet outside the pattern to age the set. This is important if you want first night catches instead of 4th night catches.
I keep mentioning pre sifted peat and dirt because of speed and ease.
Tennessee during trapping season is either:
1. Sopping wet mud
2. Frozen
3. Both in the same day
Put in a set in dry dirt and it turns to mud when it rains. Dirt gets under your pan and it won't fire. Let wet dirt freeze overnight and the jaws will literally freeze to the ground, and it won't fire even with a perfect track on the pan. Peat and dry dirt or even better waxed dirt solves basically all these issues and it keeps you from trying to find dry dirt at a set to sift over your pattern for blending.
Cut a kneeling pad that's 2' x 2' or so from some cheap foam. Kneel on this and put the dirt from your hole on the pad and use it to haul the dirt away from the set (assuming you're bringing presifted peat, dry dirt, or waxed dirt and don't need it).
I keep my bait and lures in a metal ammo can. Lures are in a walmart plastic dry box inside the metal ammo can. This is the only system I've found to keep your vehicle from smelling like skunk essense based lures. Fox Hollow GHII is bad, but Violator #7 and Voo Doo are just violently skunky.
I use leather gloves for trap handling, digging, bedding, and blending. A pair of gauntlets stays inside the ammo can with bait and lure. All traps and tools are put away before the ammo can gets opened. You cannot have ANY cross contamination of smells that get on your traps or the dirt / peat the trap is in or they'll dig your trap.
Location - grown up ponds, fingers extending into fields, logging road intersections, farm roads, fence intersections, field edges, look for tracks and set on tracks. If we get snow drive around and look for tracks. Call in sick to work to go looking for tracks if it snows...it's that helpful.
Gang set- if a farm road intersection has coyote tracks it's a good spot. A spot good enough for one trap is good enough for two or three traps. Set on each side of the road and you'll cover different wind directions.
Yesterday morning I glassed a mega pack of at least 9 coyotes playing in a cut beanfield. Went back this morning with a spotter and watched 6 of the same group for an hour. When I set up on that group I'll probably have 10 sets in a relatively small area with a few more sets within 3-400 yards. Thats the power of gang setting...will a pair come by, or 6? How many traps do you have out? How many got plugged by a possum or skunk? Can't catch more than you have traps out.
Man, there's so much to learn...have fun, take notes on what works and doesn't.
One more bit of advice - If you're putting a set into ground that has been recently plowed or disked (think foodplot, ag field, etc) then use TWO super stakes driven at angles away from each other. In a soupy rain for 2 weeks the ground can get soft enough that even one finned super stake won't hold a coyote when he's got all night to circle, make a small volcano where the stake is, and then pull your stake, eventually leading you on a two mile predawn footrace tracking job in fresh snow across ridiculously thick cover, fences, steep river bluffs, and creeks . All hypothetical here, not like that really happened or anything. :bash:
