To Catch a Coon - Trapping for Land Management

So, I’ve become a trapper - at least the furbearers permit claims as much. Not the kind of woodsman extraordinaire who snares beaver to trade downstream for supplies and women to keep him warm during the winter. Or one who runs a line to make an extra dime on coyote or bobcat pelts. It’s a straight-up management attempt to rid our small Central Florida lease of a few raccoons.

Throughout turkey season I noted hen tracks in the sugar sand trailing from the adjoining property to the west into ours. With a lack of tall trees, they almost certainly do not roost on our land with any regularity. What occurred to me was the hens were visiting our weedy, brushy, scrubby land to nest. It is an ideal locale to do so with an abundance of sedge and palmetto and gallberry that offers not only nesting shelter but plenty of bugs for the precocious poults.

Ideal albeit one caveat: The Raccoons.

A couple months ago I wrote about the booming coon population on our lease, their thirst for destruction, and our feeble attempts to dim their flames. The property is surrounded by orange groves and a swamp bottom, a veritable raccoon Nirvana. Since that post we have implemented a serious trapping program. 

Well, let’s start from the beginning. I’ve never cared too much about trapping largely because there’s never been a real call to arms. Sure, most properties I’ve hunted host large numbers of egg-stealing predators, but either trapping was not allowed, such as on WMA’s, the properties were too far away to ethically run traps, or the situation just didn’t call for it. The first two elements are easy to explain – the last is the sticky wicket.

You have to decide whether trapping for management is worth your time, and I mean this in a couple of different ways. One, will your property benefit from trapping coons? Large tracts of land with an already-healthy turkey population will probably only realize minimal results unless you can dedicate many, many years to a trapping program. Which brings us to another point – do you have the time and resources to be consistent with the routine of keeping traps baited and dispatching the caught week in and week out? If not, you’re probably just spinning your wheels.

But back to our place. It’s a mere 140-acres, and there is a no-question surplus of ringtails. The turkey population is only starting to creep back into this part of Florida having been pushed out years back by mining, citrus and other factors. There are birds around; with a little help, there could be more in the coming years.

Now, again, it’s tough to predict if our efforts will pan out. Our neighbors aren’t trapping and coons breed rather quickly. On the plus side, coons will travel good distances seeking food and mates; there should be plenty of targets. The trick is to stay with it.

To begin, we used live traps near the corn feeders and baited them with tuna fish and dog food. This promptly wiped out 10, but the survivors soon grew wary of the cages. We needed a foothold or snare of some kind. The only problem with this – especially in Florida – is the possibility of catching an endangered something or another. Like a fox. Gray fox are protected here, and last thing I want is to find one in a foot-hold and have the man ready to write me a ticket. The cruelest thing he could do – to me and the fox - is have me release the creature. Hard to say who’d come out on top.

To remedy this, I purchased a pair of Duke’s Dog Proof Coon Traps and deployed them by a spinner feeder that had not had a live trap near it yet. The trap is a hollow tube with a trigger in the back. Its opening is just big enough for a raccoon’s or possum’s thieving paw, but if a coyote stuck its muzzle in there, it wouldn’t be able to set off the trigger. Same if they happened to step in it. The prey must reach past the trigger and pull it forward to spring it. It looks and sounds a tad gimmicky but nothing machined from steel tends to be. Same here. Neat design.

You’ll want to rig the trap with cable and secure to a tree. To set the trap, squeeze down on the spring-lock mechanism. Have a wooden dowel handy and stick in the trap to keep it open while you set the trigger. The instructions suggest marshmallows for lure, but I suspected the Florida heat and fire ants would ruin this, so I baited them with dry cat food and leftover fish-fry grease to sweeten the pot.

With people checking them every couple days, the first week we caught a possum and a large boar coon that probably should have ended up in my trophy room. The second week found two more coons. I’ll give the Dukes a few more days to dine and relocate them to other pieces of the property. They are efficient. I’ve been using my North American Arms .22 Mag derringer for the loud work – which is the highest employment I can justify for even owning that pistol.

The reality is I’m picking off the easy ones; the time is fast coming when trapping becomes more of an art form and strategy of woodsmanship. I’ve done research on both setting traps and trapping coons and feel I own a plan. I’ll look to place one trap near the swamp along trails coon sign and rotate the other between crossings from the orange grove with corresponding spoor. Sounds like a plan, at least. Let you know.

It’s too early to tell with turkey, but I will testify that it’s helped with the deer. Over the last few months I’ve struggled to capture whitetails on the Covert Camera by my bump feeder despite keeping the barrel slap-full of corn and dumping bags around it to chum up the area. All this produced were thousands of pictures of raccoons.

Within a week of removing the traps – and a half-dozen pests – I have the raccoons running scared and the deer happily grazing. I’d long heard that coons would keep deer from the feeders, but it was amazing to witness how quickly it worked.

So think about it. Trapping is not for everyone – personally and functionally on a piece of land. But in the right setting it can be an effective land management tool to improve turkey populations and deer hunting.

Using Bump Feeders

From out of the December morning fog, a healthy boar walked nose-up down the soggy jeep trail, tail a-swishing. The .300 put an end to that. Ten minutes later, a flock of hens lingered by the feeder picking corn kernels out of the holes punched in the old oil drum. They were interrupted by a cow that beat the can around like a plaything, knocking some of that yellow gold on the ground. That’s fast company.

I like bump feeders, much more so than motorized versions. Not that the spinners aren’t effective; if you put corn on the ground, something is going to chow down in no time. No, I like the bumpers for convenience and economy.



A bump feeder can be constructed out of just about anything that’ll hold corn and not made of paper or burlap. My current model is a huge, bright blue barrel that at one time, according to the man who gave it to me, held water from the Red Sea for some sort of phosphate experiment. I don’t know. It hangs on our lease, and yesterday I put 150 lbs of whole corn in it. I’m somewhat concerned the hogs will break their noses hitting this heavy contraption. Anyway, Dad, for some reason, had a metal hoist in his garage we used to suspend the rig, and we drilled holes in four spots around the bottom. It lords over that corner of the property and has become a popular buffet spot for the local swine and turk-a-lurks.

Drilling the holes can be tricky. You want a few kernels to spout out, but you don’t want them gushing like a winning slot machine. Turkey should be able to peck corn out easily, and the hogs and deer can get enough to keep them curious and coming back for more. If you kick it with your boot and 6-8 kernels hit the ground, you’ve done well.



This can be frustrating to the uninitiated who are used to a substantial dusting of yellow grain scattered across the forest floor at dawn and dusk. I felt the same way the first time I saw one. The cattle rancher maintained a couple on a section of land in Manatee County I hunted several years ago. Being young, I wanted more. He shook his head at my impertinence and for good reason, I soon learned. He had one placed by camp, and there’d always be deer hanging out, even when we had a campfire blazing as we whooped and hollered. And two of the largest hogs I’ve seen harvested in Florida came from nearby.

I don’t have any statistical corn-eaten-by-game to corn-eaten-by-vermin ratio available, but I soon became convinced more corn went into the gullets of deer, turkeys, and hogs than to squirrels, crows, and raccoons. Anything eating off of these had to work for it; hung high enough, even the crafty raccoons had difficulty thieving the feeder. Hung even higher, it became off-limits to all but the tallest hogs. So, you save some money on corn ensuring your designated targets are feeding and not the local vermin.

Over the years, I’ve used different variations of the bump feeder. A long time back when I was more creative, I employed a green 5-gallon bucket fitted with a foot of 2-inch PVC hanging down so the deer could reach up and get it, but the turkey and hogs were left wanting. I once hung an old metal trash can with one slot cut into it that resulted in a couple dead does.



The ease of use is the final advantage. No more changing batteries or solar panels to keep them charged. It’s not liable to break or be ruined by weather or gnawing rodents. If someone steals it, you’re out materials and cost of labor.

Feeders are excellent tools in Florida and throughout the thick, swampy South. For hog management, it’s the berries. And harvesting a hog that’s been noshing on corn for a while translates heartily at the dinner table. I’ve never shot a buck of any size over corn, but for does it’s a fine management instrument and for filling the freezer. If you hunt land that allows baiting, do consider the bumpers.

Be careful, though. Feeders become popular spots for all predators, human and animal alike. Travis called me today to say a 7-8 ft. gator was hanging out under my bump feeder awaiting the inevitable troop of swine or raccoons. Or maybe my right leg if I'm not paying attention. Maybe he’ll hang out until August when gator season is underway. That’d be a heckuva story!