HAMILTON, Ohio — During December 2009 and January 2010 Joe Staarmann and a buddy trapped 60 coyotes on 700-to 800-acres of farmland. During the same months in 2010-11, they trapped 50.

Retired wildlife biologist Sam Fitton said he was surprised they caught that many.

Staarmann said he got “fired up” when a newspaper article told of predation of dogs, cats and pet food in a nearby, more heavily populated area. But that wasn’t all.

“I like to hunt deer and, in my opinion, I’m not a biologist, the population is down,” he said. “I used to sit and watch and see no deer day after day. One night, I was in a tree stand and I heard several vocalizations around me. I decided I was going to go catch a coyote.”

Hunting coyotes is difficult, Staarmann said. Going after the critters with traps is the most productive way. That was in 2009. Just experimenting, Staarmann trapped 16 coyotes on six farms in an area near Hamilton. He used snare and leg-hold traps.

“Nobody really likes the coyotes … there was no (known) predation, but I know predation takes place,” Staarmann said. “I don’t have information, as far as livestock goes.

“A friend told of having photos of coyotes in the springtime with fawns in their mouths. Another friend had a trail camera. He located a coyote den and put a camera on it and over the time they were in the den area there were 20 fawns carried in by the coyote. I can’t prove any of that.”

So in 2010 Staarmann and his friend set “several” traps, he said. They baited the traps with the “stinkiest, foulest thing they can find – rotten fish.” The two men sometimes saw tracks in the snow where a coyote had started to step into a snare trap, apparently sensed the danger and backed safely out. They checked the traps every day with an ATV that they loaded on a pickup truck to drive from farm to farm.

“Now I have time to be able to do this and I like it,” said Staarmann, who is semi-retired. “It is not profitable; there is no money in it. We wanted to catch a coyote and so we did.

“I don’t believe in wasting them. A lot of people shoot them and throw them in ditches or whatever. I skin, dry, stretch and sell the skins.

“We went to an auction in Wilmington, the Ohio Trappers Assoc.,” Staarmann said. “In 2011 the skins averaged about $10 apiece. I don’t want to skin them, but I can’t throw them in the ditch. It is a waste of time as far as finance goes.”

Fitton added when there is intensive trapping, the dynamic of the area is changed from a pair of coyotes that has a territory to an area where non-breeders tend to be in packs, and they rove over large areas. The animals often hunt and take prey as a pack, Fitton said.

Even a pair will hunt together – not exclusively, but they will occasionally do that, especially more in winter, in deep snow where maybe they can get larger animals than they are typically able, he said. There is a wide range of prey in December and January: rabbits, small mammals and they may focus in on an area that has voles. The stinky bait Staarmann used probably drew the coyotes in from a larger area.

“If they’re trapping on 800 acres, the area they’re pulling those from is much greater than that,” Fitton said. “If (coyotes are) smelling things, they will come in from far away. They’ll go to where they find an abundance of food as long as they’re not forced out by older, wiser coyotes. They are searching for any food bonanza they can find. So they’ll range widely.”

Staarmann and his friend will probably trap again next year, depending on how much time they have. Yet there is a black mark on trapping, he said. There are people who don’t like it, and that causes apprehension.

“I’m welcome back wherever I went,” he said. “Everybody was shocked we caught so many the first year. Still, when you think about it, taking that many more off the same area, the same properties ... I think the secret to it is getting far apart and getting the right kind of farms – lots of fence rows, a little bit of open and good, thick cover.”