Small Game, Predator and TrappingFrom shooting squirrels in your backyard to calling coyotes in Arizona. This forum now contains trapping information..
I heard an interesting tactic from a local conservancy officer when I had him tagging a bobcat I took this weekend.
He mentioned he had "caught" a guy that he thought was spotlighting. The officer had spotted the lights from the highway, so went to investigate. When he stopped, he heard a distress call, so was "partially" relieved that the guy was only hunting coyotes.
However, it's not legal to use lights at night for coyotes except for those ran by dogs or caught in traps (and using rimfire rifles), so the 'Ranger' was still obligated to stop the guy and at least give him a warning about the lights.
Then it got interesting. The officer stepped on 3 different foothold traps as he tried to approach the "hunter". The guy was setting dozens of traps in a circle all around himself, sitting in the middle with a light, and a .22lr rifle, and waiting until he heard a trap spring to turn on the light and dispatch the coyotes!!!
Man, the stuff people come up with!
Technically, everything he was doing is legal. It's legal to call coyotes at night, and it's legal to dispatch coyotes caught in traps at night with the use of lights and rimfire rifles.
The officer said he wasn't even sure what to say. He took the guys name and number, and said he would check into it, but to not "trap" that way until he heard back from him. He's pretty certain it'll violate an "ethical pursuit" policy, and might get on the books for next season, but as it looks right now, the guy was totally in the right.
That sounds like way to much work for just one stand of hunting. I usually on stay in one place for 20 or so minutes and only see animals half the time. That would waste a lot of stands for me if I spent that long to set up for one stand at night.
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"The officer stepped on 3 different foothold traps......" NM
He caught one ! LoL
Talk about over kill....................
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I would have to see that to believe him. Setting dozens of traps around him. Do you know how long that would have taken to set all those and then to hunt? Not to mention how much weight it would have been to haul all that around? Worth a pic for sure!!
Last edited by SecondChance; 01-24-2012 at 08:57 AM.
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"One accurate shot fired with deliberate precision is worth more than a hundred fired without control." -Major John Foster
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Loop-hole Jack-@#%& "Call-trapper"...
