Meat sickle for coyotes

big boar

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I've read about people using Meat Sickles ( blocks of frozen scrap meat ) as an enticement to bring the Coyotes out into the open. Just wondering if anyone can comment on the addition of strong smelling cheese to enhance the aroma. I've got a small quantity of EXTREMLY STRONG smelling cheese that I'd like to include because the smell carries WAY farther than the meat.
As a note I hunt in thick bush in South Ontario and I 'd like to bring the Songdogs out of their bushy hides.
 
I have used things as large and smelly as dead livestock as bait, and it doesn't work very well. The coyotes will be in the area, but not likely to expose themselves in daylight, or in the short hours you are actually covering the bait. Calling is far more effective than baiting.

That doesn't mean it won't work, but you may well spend a lot of hours watching your sickle without much action.
 
I haven't done it but heard of guys using frozen blocks of scrap meat but put the meat rolled up in chicken wire into a 5 gallon pail with some water and let it freeze. Take it out of the pail and tie off the chicken wire to a tree, fence post etc with rope/wire. This just prevents the 'yotes from dragging the whole block away. Again, I haven't done it but sounds like a good idea...but hey, what do I know. I'm still trying for my first. YMMV.
That must be some stinky cheese! You could try a can of sardines to "freshin" in up a bit.
 
the key to the meatsicle is having coyotes depend on it for food so they keep returning. i hunt off of a farm deadpit and the carcasses are dropped into a 15 foot deep hole over half a mile from the nearest heavy cover and it may take the coyotes a few weeks to find it but once they do they keep coming back to check it weeks after the carcass is gone. the rotting cheese smell cant hurt anything if the smell of skunk will draw them in the smell of cheese should do just fine. the key is keeping meat there at all times. if they eat it all up the first week and there is no more for the next 2 weeks they will stop coming to check it but if its a constant reliable food source they will be back and you will be waiting.
 
X2 what Yoterunner said.

Biggest thing with bait is that you hunt it with the right wind direction. If coyotes are smelling you they won't come in the daylight and it doesn't take much to educate a coyote. Then they will hit it in the dark and then your just feeding coyotes.
 
I had two 5 gal pails full of meat scraps in the freezer til last week. I put one out 200 yds behind the barn last week and they have'nt found it yet. I have a length of chain wrapped up in it and spiked into the ground with rebar. It's been so cold and windy even the magpies have'nt touched it. I climb up in the loft every morning at first light to check it, no luck yet.
 
I just shot three coyotes this afternoon off our property behind a poultry barn. That's nine so far this winter. Coyotes are used to dining regularly from the disposal of dead and culled birds, and they do hang around if the food comes regularly. Don't think you can just set out a bait and wait however, they have to make eating on the bait pile a habit.
 
One trick that I was told is you need " blood" in the pail. Since the meat is frozen there isn't typically much scent until the sun starts melting the block. We have tried this never had much luck, I think a large open field my help. Most of the area around me is small fields and bush/swamp. The coyotes will show up once they find the bait, they will come back if you keep up the bait. Roadkill or a butcher is a good place to locate bait.
 
I use a bait pail filled with beef scraps. it brings the birds in mostly, some foxes, fishers, yotes, and wolves. They will look it over mostly but not touch it. But they come to see what the birds are squaking about. Now put out a beaver or moose and watch them chow down.
 
I use a bait pail filled with beef scraps. it brings the birds in mostly, some foxes, fishers, yotes, and wolves. They will look it over mostly but not touch it. But they come to see what the birds are squaking about. Now put out a beaver or moose and watch them chow down.

I agree...... beaver works..... you can also buy a bear bomb, which smells like a rotting beaver carcass..... have had some luck with them, still not as good as the real deal.......
 
Trapping beaver is the best bait for just about everything the fat and oils stop it from freezing solid
we always have a carcass dump for snares , coyotes are cannibalistic and not fussy but beaver is still the best bait for winter
 
Buddy made a bait box, hinged with gaps like slats on a pallet. Fill it with deer legs, chickens, deer ribs etc. Makes them work for it a bit and you can get a shot. I've shot more than a few over bait and find they would prefer to grab something and run off to eat it. If I used breasted goose carcasses, I would wire them to a tree. Consider rabbit parts draw them like crazy, and breeding season is coming up. You can buy coyote in heat urine to spice up the area also.
 
a young fellow i work with dumped a pile of chicken remains from cleaning twenty birds 100 yards from his buildings. it was totally cleaned up over night by coyotes .
 
I've been trolling with my meat sickle for many, many years and I enjoyed moderate success for sometime... but now after more than five decades, I can't catch a cougar, let alone a fox... I think they are onto me...
 
Thanks for all the great replies. I think I'll avoid the cheese and maybe even the meat scraps. The area I'm looking at is on the edge of very thick bush. I've seen their tracks along the edge and a few of the guys see them during the deer season, briefly. The deer numbers have declined quite a bit and we've found the head, leg, shoulder bones of deer so I know the Coy Dogs are eating MY DEER. I'd like to take out a few so thanks for all the advice.
 
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