- Jan 21, 2005
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One of my friends' parents was having a major raccoon problem last summer. She was an avid gardener, but a family of raccoons would eat up her plants nightly. We were hired to "get rid of" these raccoons, by any means necessary.
We literally tried to catch that fvcker for the entire summer, it was the most frustrating thing ever. It seemed that over the months, as our designs became more intelligent, the raccoons did as well.
Week 1: Design a contraption to trap the raccoon; after trapped, decide what to do on the fly.
After a few days we had come up with the "perfect" design. It was basically a pulley system with a parachute attached. We used a ladder as the tower, with about 20 tough strings hanging down through the top. The strings all branched out into a reverse parachute type design with a large king sized sheet at the bottom--the ends that went through the top spanned about ~25 feet to a dock where we were hiding with night vision. The idea was to wait for the raccoons to walk onto this sheet, then to pull as hard as we could, and trap them in the sheet. (You know, like in the cartoons).
My friend lives on the water, so finding bait for the raccoons was fairly simple--we would go fishing during the day, and leave dead fish on the center of the sheet.
We tried this technique for several nights in a row, to no avail. It seemed that even though nothing looked too dangerous, the coons were very aware that the sheet was out of the ordinary--not one time did they step onto it. We decided after a few days that the sheet looked to obvious (even though it was a green sheet, nearly identical to the color of the grass), so we put grass clippings all over the sheet, and threw cut up pieces of fish all over the yard.
Finally after a week or so, one of the raccoons dared to go onto the center of the sheet. By this point, the whole ordeal had been so built up, that we were literally shaking with excitement. Three of us remained crouched on the dock with string in hand and pulled: The raccoon managed to do some sort of wiggling trick and become free without much trouble. It was a real let down.
We decided that the next morning we would go back to the drawing board, and this time we were out for blood.
more to come...
Week 2: After our first massive failure, it became fairly apparent that we were going about this all wrong. We decided that our next attempt needed a few important changes:
1) Get better, and larger amounts, of enticing bait.
2) Rely on automated and/or mechanical trapping/weaponry to make up for human flaws and reaction time.
3) Have a cage prepared for after the catch.
We had decided that just a few fish wasn't going to cut it--on top of that, we had some difficulty catching enough fish (we wanted to eat some too on a daily basis). We decided to make a cage structure, very similar to a crab pot, in order to begin catching various underwater bait (crawdads, mainly). On our first trip to Home Depot, we ended up purchasing: Several yards of cage wiring, several 2x4's, 100ft of rope, and some tools. We took about a yard of this caging and folded it into a cylinder. We then took some metal clippers and cut a circle off some of the wiring scraps, and used that as a base (we just intertwined wire thoroughly to attach it to the cylinder). On the other end, we took wiring and folded into a cone shape, and attached it to the still-open end of the cylinder with the small hole facing inwards. We tied about 30ft of rope onto the side, and dropped it into the lake overnight.
We decided that the next days work would be used to develop a cage...
We literally tried to catch that fvcker for the entire summer, it was the most frustrating thing ever. It seemed that over the months, as our designs became more intelligent, the raccoons did as well.
Week 1: Design a contraption to trap the raccoon; after trapped, decide what to do on the fly.
After a few days we had come up with the "perfect" design. It was basically a pulley system with a parachute attached. We used a ladder as the tower, with about 20 tough strings hanging down through the top. The strings all branched out into a reverse parachute type design with a large king sized sheet at the bottom--the ends that went through the top spanned about ~25 feet to a dock where we were hiding with night vision. The idea was to wait for the raccoons to walk onto this sheet, then to pull as hard as we could, and trap them in the sheet. (You know, like in the cartoons).
My friend lives on the water, so finding bait for the raccoons was fairly simple--we would go fishing during the day, and leave dead fish on the center of the sheet.
We tried this technique for several nights in a row, to no avail. It seemed that even though nothing looked too dangerous, the coons were very aware that the sheet was out of the ordinary--not one time did they step onto it. We decided after a few days that the sheet looked to obvious (even though it was a green sheet, nearly identical to the color of the grass), so we put grass clippings all over the sheet, and threw cut up pieces of fish all over the yard.
Finally after a week or so, one of the raccoons dared to go onto the center of the sheet. By this point, the whole ordeal had been so built up, that we were literally shaking with excitement. Three of us remained crouched on the dock with string in hand and pulled: The raccoon managed to do some sort of wiggling trick and become free without much trouble. It was a real let down.
We decided that the next morning we would go back to the drawing board, and this time we were out for blood.
more to come...
Week 2: After our first massive failure, it became fairly apparent that we were going about this all wrong. We decided that our next attempt needed a few important changes:
1) Get better, and larger amounts, of enticing bait.
2) Rely on automated and/or mechanical trapping/weaponry to make up for human flaws and reaction time.
3) Have a cage prepared for after the catch.
We had decided that just a few fish wasn't going to cut it--on top of that, we had some difficulty catching enough fish (we wanted to eat some too on a daily basis). We decided to make a cage structure, very similar to a crab pot, in order to begin catching various underwater bait (crawdads, mainly). On our first trip to Home Depot, we ended up purchasing: Several yards of cage wiring, several 2x4's, 100ft of rope, and some tools. We took about a yard of this caging and folded it into a cylinder. We then took some metal clippers and cut a circle off some of the wiring scraps, and used that as a base (we just intertwined wire thoroughly to attach it to the cylinder). On the other end, we took wiring and folded into a cone shape, and attached it to the still-open end of the cylinder with the small hole facing inwards. We tied about 30ft of rope onto the side, and dropped it into the lake overnight.
We decided that the next days work would be used to develop a cage...
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