This. CNC thinks too hard sometimes.

Another wild theory bud! You’re awesome at those, I’ve caught several like that under a corn feeder. Stick to running deer with dogs

Y'all obviously must have starving coons too........

I’ve never caught a coon that didn’t eat up every single bite of the food in and around the trap after he was caught. That’s just what coons do.

Exactly

Doubled up on two more in the same traps last night......The young male in the back seemed to be fairing slightly better than the young female.

I don’t believe this theory is really that far-fetched……As a matter of fact, it actually makes a lot of sense. Coons aint nothing but little miniature bears. According to what I’m reading, they start breeding in December and peak breeding is Feb/March……We feed them corn from October to Feb by the truck loads insuring that a lot of females are likely fat and happy when they go into the den to have babies…..therefore, they are likely to produce a larger litter. It says they may have anywhere from 1 to 7……That’s determined by how healthy they are….and being that they are fat and happy from eating corn for months, I’d bet there’s a lot of them having litters on the 4-7 end of the spectrum. All of these little ones emerge and do ok during the summer and first fall when we once again start feeding corn……But once the corn dries up in Feb and mama goes back to den up and have more babies, then those hordes of adolescent coons that have been produced are gonna start getting very hungry and scouring the landscape for food.

3rd Weekend

Fri, April 8 - 380
Sat, April 9 - 560
Sun, April 10- 517


Down -33% from last weekend's kill total.....Looks like we're right on pace to hit last years totals for the season though.

It’s also not too far fetched to think it is just a coon that stick their hands in everything.

This is a comparison of opening weekend versus the 3rd weekend that we just finished up......It's basically a measurement of how much each counties kill numbers have fallen off from opening weekend. I left the upper left part of the state blank since they started later.

I think I'm gonna buy some digital fish scales and start monitoring the coon weights just out of curiousity..... It would be cool if several other folks would do this so we could have some comparisons from different areas. I bet that coon by my glove in the last pic didnt even weigh 5 lbs....

According to my research, coons are not all born weighing 30 lbs, some start out much smaller.

Keep reading.......it should say something in there about eating food and gaining weight afterwards. That's the part we're looking for here.

When is the best time to burn to avoid raccoon mortality?

Daytime

Coon management is a tricky science.

Ain’t just anybody that can consistently raise 25 pound coons

The first weighed specimen is a male that appears to be doing ok…….He was aggressive and full of spunk. He’s a lot bigger than the other ones I caught.



He’s nowhere near 25 lbs though.

It would take a little time to compile the data but what would be kinda telling about the situation is if we could get some folks to trap and weigh some coons during December and January around their feeders and compare the weights of the coons during that time period versus now. December and January should be the leanest months for coons I would think. It's likely not though in areas where lots of corn is being fed. I suspect that post deer season may see a drop off in weights and a bottleneck in food for an artificially inflated coon population.

Who really cares what coons weigh. They eat turkey eggs so I kill everyone I can. Big, small, medium, male, female, doesnt matter one bit. They all get the same medicine, a .22 to the noggin.

It’s a measurement of how much they’re maxing out their carrying capacity for a given area the same as folks weighing deer and collecting that data. In our case though it would really be about showing how the large swings in available food (mainly corn) is impacting the dynamics of the coon populations throughout the course of the year……Hunger drives movement in critters……More mouths and more hunger equals more movement……more movement of more coons during spring equals more nests raided……Showing this in real data would be a piece of evidence supporting why we need to get more serious in promoting trapping in some capacity....especially if we're gonna continue to feed corn. That info would be helping to point us toward some of the actual problems that need addressing.