https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/ru/ru_fs294.pdf

"Alabama has an estimated 23,093,930 acres of forest land"

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...n-Procyon-lotor-in-Western-Tennessee.pdf

Showing roughly 15 coons per KM 2. maybe a coon per 16 ac.

The biggest problem is finding enough willing to do it. It’s a full time job

We never could more than a few regulars who put in work at the club but they’d be there every time you turned around during hunting season.

The hunters I know, a trapping incentive wouldn’t make a difference. The ones who want to help turkeys trap and the ones who it’s not a priority to, don’t. $20 a Coon isn’t going to change that. I’m not saying it wouldn’t encourage a few, but none of the ones I know. They have other stuff to do and are too dang busy to drive 2 hours and run a trap line. The ones who care are already trapping.

I cant access that study for West Tennessee…….Isnt that area highly fertile farming country??

I think that you’re likely over estimating the coon population………I’ve trapped 40 coons and possums in ONE spot but it doesn’t mean I can take that number and extrapolate it out as if it were 40 to the acre…….The same goes for taking 3,000 acres and trying to extrapolate it out to 23,000,000…………Its overestimating to do that. You’re not trapping inside of a box. Young males travel and disperse and typically represent the biggest group in the population. Annual trapping numbers for a single property impact far more than just that property.

Also, coons mainly exist and spend the vast majority of their time in the watershed areas of the landscape and that’s also where most people trap. Taking the density inside of the watershed zones and applying it to every acre of forest land would be like counting deer in food plots and using that per acre density to extrapolate.

Furthermore, the way you take the 100K coons trapped and apply the 4% to each acre as an average is inaccurate for how coons would actually be taken out. Individual properties would be trapped no differently than the one you described in Dallas Co and it would look more like a GIS buffer map dotted with red hotspots where trapping occurred…….It would just play out a lot differently. You wouldn’t have a bunch of coons piling on corn feeders anymore without someone scooping up the extra $$$$......

The incentive is to get to start turkey season a week early…….How many folks do you know that would be interested in that???

I do think that whatever the actual coon population number may be……it’s being over inflated above normal carrying capacity due to large amounts of corn being fed during the winter months and suddenly ceasing in Feb………This should cause more overall coon movement and more spacial utilization of the landscape by coons……Meaning that they have to spread out more looking for food due to over population in their normal habitat zones and in doing so they stand a greater chance of increasing turkey nest predation rates. If we’re going to do this then give folks an incentive to moderate their numbers.

I already know a bunch that start the season a week early, some two weeks early. Their incentive seemed to be the turkeys were gobbling.

The State has changed the season and the limit of turkeys based on a supposition that killing the dominant gobbler may affect egg fertility. The undeniable truth that predators are eating a huge portion of eggs and poults is ignored. I tend to look at it as each coon/possum/fox/coyote/bobcat taken results in less eggs/poults/turkeys eaten. Small yearly increases in hens should result in more turkeys.

I stand against limiting opportunity and a "tails for tags" program would both increase opportunity and possibly increase the population.

I don't believe anyone at the state is willing to listen to any alternatives to the current path. Personally I will keep trapping coons and possums along with shooting every coyote, bobcat and crow that I can.

Reckon why there are more coons in Iowa than Virginia???


“A lot of the country might not have a raccoon problem. But, unfortunately, many people don’t consider that just because something isn’t happening in their area doesn’t mean it’s not happening elsewhere,” explained Chase Grubbs, TFT Director of Operations. “I grew up in Virginia, and we don’t have an overwhelming population of raccoons there. But I moved to Iowa after college, and there is a problem there. If you put a trail camera up on a cornfield, it’s common to have 20 raccoons in a photo. People in the Midwest probably see the same thing on their trail cameras. But I can see where people who don’t have a lot of raccoons may have a negative view of these hunts.”

You sir are correct
I’ve been doing this for many years and do not care if this regime offers a bounty on predators
I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing because it works

We just started trapping coons for the first time at my club/ We set out 13 traps beside 13 trough feeders and in three weeks we have caught 26. We moved the traps to the other side of the lease today and will run it for three weeks. If we can catch a total of 50 or more in six weeks we will be happy since again, this is our first time.
This time we set two traps beside each feeder.

One thing is for sure - the coon population is out of control. I’ve never seen anything close to the amount of coon tracks on woods roads. Not just around stream crossings and the usual places - they are everywhere - walking all over. Dead coons on bumpy county roads with very little traffic. Etc., etc. You get the point.

The ones that I know that are interested in starting the season early are already trapping. I think you would have to find a way for clubs to be able to afford hiring a trapper through a government program or something. The average hunter is just too busy to do it himself.

Every turkey hunter in Alabama is gonna be cutting coon tails off of roadkill through the year to get an extra week of hunting 🤣

Picking up roadkill wouldnt work out as well as you think…… Racoons arent that susceptible to road mortality like deer. They use culverts when crossing main roads. The number picked up would be negligible. Come to think of it I don’t know if I’ve ever run over a coon.

I could have picked up 10 this Spring, maybe more.

Me too. I guess our coons aren’t as street smart as CNCs.

No one else is looking to pick them up though.......Let every turkey hunter start scooping them up and you might be lucky to get 1 of them......which leaves you 19 more you have to trap.......IF you're already having to trap 19 then are you gonna even stop to mess with stinky road kill??? You're probably looking at less than 5% that would come from road kill.

I mentioned that I trapped 40 coons and possums in one spot……I actually have done that a few times and that one spot was less than 100 yards from where the drainage I was trapping crossed a highway. The number of coons that I caught in traps was way, WAY higher than the number that got hit by cars. It actually wasn’t all that common for one to get hit despite coons constantly crossing.

I'm talking about taking out 100,000 coons or better....plus another 50 or 75K possums....... and y'all are telling me about the 10 you saw on the side of the road over 3 or 4 month time period