Looks like wily coyote backed into a snare after sidestepping traps with ease

"I had never snared one by the tail before, and I can't tell you how that might have happened. I doubt it went all the way through the snare loop first."

- Hal Sullivan

It always pays to scout a trapline before you set traps, and I admit that I am comes to my old home trapline. After all of these years I pretty much know where the critters are going to be and rarely scout before the season opens. But I do spend half of the first day checking out the locations I know should be good. Sometimes things change over the summer.

There's a good stretch on my 'line where a creek empties into a river. For the last 15 years or so, the fields along the riverbank have been left fallow in head-high weeds. Pretty good habitat, if you ask me. About 50 yards from the river, the little creek goes under a tractor lane. Pretty good location, if you ask me. I can't tell you how many coyotes I've caught at that culvert. I'm too lazy to review the notes. Somewhere between 40 and 50 is a good guess.

When I topped the rise last fall, I noticed a drastic change in the bottomland. The fields had been cleared and were dotted with soybean stubble. For certain, the culvert would still be a good place for a set, but I thought I had better poke around a little before I set any traps.

A narrow neck of land parallel to the creek stretching away from the river had been skinned off for planting. A bulldozer pile sat at the edge of the creek at the head of the draw. I went looking for evidence coyotes might be coming down the bank and skirting that dozer pile. What I found instead was a dead goat. Or at least what was left of it. I don't know from which farm it came, but someone had dumped the carcass by the dozer pile.