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Hello,
I am new to trapping . In reality new is an understatement . I retired 5 years ago and moved to the country side in a state where trapping is legal thus I am not breaking any laws.

There are plenty of raccoons in the area which do not bother us and they pass through the yard at night .

About 5 months ago a large raccoon (missing half his tail) began to dig around my neighbors bird aviary and in one way or another attempts every other night to break in . He will even climb to wire pull on it and try to stick his arm in the aviary and catch his birds.

He has failed but leaves holes around the aviary . My neighbor like myself is no spring chicken and it is a pain to fill in these holes over and over with top soil .

In my case this raccoon will tear the mesh screen from my gazebo and dig up my plants and jump into my 20 gallon half barrel "ponds" and take my guppies . I have since put heavy screens on them but he continues to try , puts his weight on the screen and defecates all over the place .

In 5 years which I have lived here and 15 for him, No raccoon has done this .

Due to the fact that we only want to catch this particular raccoon and not others nor opossums we picked up a live catch trap (Havahart) and set it in my- gazebo because this is the only raccoon that rips up the mesh to enter.

He came in a few times and I watched him ignore the trap though he tried to get the food from the top and side he would not enter . We used different baits on different days .

I than ordered 2 Duke DP traps which I set up yesterday next to my guppy half barrels secured to two steal poles in two opposite areas (10 feet apart) , good thing I got the tool to set it up with or I would not have been able.

One trap is baited with some dead guppies he left on the floor on his last raid and the other with a marshmallow . I do not have a dog and there is a high fence around my yard thus no possibility of catching a dog (even though dog proof) so I feel comfortable with these traps.

He did not come yesterday (comes like 2 to 5 am) but this is normal as he strikes us about every other day.

We expect him today if not certainly no later than tomorrow .

My question is that the traps have human scent on them and not camouflaged they are in the open and obvious that they are traps , is that a mistake?


Thank you very much .

Anthony

The trap worked last night . Baited it with little pieces of crayfish as went 1 night that he came and ignored the other bait .



Interesting forum , good reading.

Good for you. Nice to catch one that has given you so much grief. They should get easier down the road.

REM

Thank you . Hopefully that big male was it . Plenty of raccoons in the area but we never had one so relentless and fearless .

First time I ever had a raccoon tear gazebo screen to get in.

The raids stopped after he was caught and dealt with. They are much tougher than I thought .

In truth if I had not come across this forum I would have thought that the DP trap was a scam but it worked great .

It is good to have just incase .