I Hate Raccoons!

[H20fwler]

Greedy fat bastards broke about five feet off the central leader getting after the pears.

 

[Telemark]

Ufff. They are a menace. I trapped out about fifteen HUGE racoons this summer. Most were females. Some were old soldiers with canines worn down to little yellow nubs. The biggest was over 30 lbs. Hopefully I knocked the population down a bit.

Are you allowed to trap them there? Conibear style 160 traps in a box baited with apples and marshmallows are very effective.

 

[H20fwler]

Yes, I am allowed to kill them year round if they are a nuisance....I don't know how they could be more so. I hate spooking everything else right now but I need to go with a full on press for a couple weeks and thin them down hard. They are out of control and just have very bad manners. I mostly use a bunch of the coon cuffs with little marshmallows for bait.
This is what they did to the corn along woods.

 

[Telemark]

Yeah you have to get out ahead of it before you put on the buffet. Winter can be slow, but once they are active, you've got your work cut out for you. An uncle of mine could typically kill over 60 raccoons a year around his garden. And they breed like crazy. Most of the litters I have seen in Ontario habe been 5-7 kits.

 

[Bill]

Yep I'd say declare War!

 

[silver_yummies]

..... fly bait and Coca Cola time......

 

[mikmaze]

come on now, they arent't that bad, if ya trap em away from water they taste pretty good........

 

[H20fwler]

come on now, they arent't that bad, if ya trap em away from water they taste pretty good........

To the flies! I am going to return them to nature as soil nutrients.

 

[g squared 23]

come on now, they arent't that bad, if ya trap em away from water they taste pretty good........

To the flies! I am going to return them to nature as soil nutrients.

At least they'll finally be contributing something useful for once.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Time for the cuffs. Coons are attracted to everything, food-wise.
I take it you don't have bears ?? Bears would have the WHOLE corn field mowed down, and leave dinner-plate sized piles of digested corn ALL OVER !! Given the choice, I'll take coons.

 

[greyphase]

Time for the cuffs. Coons are attracted to everything, food-wise.
I take it you don't have bears ?? Bears would have the WHOLE corn field mowed down, and leave dinner-plate sized piles of digested corn ALL OVER !! Given the choice, I'll take coons.

yea what B&B said.

 

[paleopoint]

OK, I'm cool. No bears.
Thank you, Jesus.

But back to coons.
It's mid-September......and we've sent 34 of those buggers to their 17 virgin reward.
My last 'high year' was 36 coons.
I have 3 and half months to go.

Clearly, I cannot kill my way out of the problem.
My habitat is simply Fantasy Island for CoonWorld.
Lotsa streams. Lotsa big old trees. Lotsa food.
You know the rest.
No surprise.

Every year I have one prized tree (this year it was a 8 year old Chestnut Crab) get nuked by the coons.
I use live traps ( can't say enough good things about Tomahawk traps)...I use footholds (1.5's)...and this year, with that Chestnut Crab, I weakened, and went to Golden Malrin.
(that stuff gives me the creeps. no problem with mice or rats....but racoons seem like a bridge too far, emotionally).......anyway, I crossed that bridge.

After this season's experience I have decided to strip all fruit off of all trees until the tree can support a 12lb racoon.

Being pragmatic has its' benefits.

 

[Skelly]

I’m not looking forward to this problem.

 

[SwampCat]

I have given up on fruit trees - mainly because of the coons. I usually kill about fifty each year off 300 acres. It seems self defeating to knock all the fruit off a tree until it reaches 8 years old.