How to catch a porcupine?
Contributors to this thread:Small Game
From: Scrappy
04-Dec-21
Got one spending his nights in my front and porch. He is eating the crabapples. Anybody have any experience with trapping them. Specifically looking for what to bait the live trap with. I have it full of crabapples, regular apple slices, orange slices, and sprinkled with sea salt. Every morning at 4 I look out and he is feeding right by the trap but hasn't went all the way in it so far. Just shooting him is not an option right now until all other options fail due to me living on a Wildlife Refuge. Any suggestions?
From: Overland
04-Dec-21
Don't shoot him or worry about trapping him. Just walk out and catch him. Porcupines are the one critter you can just walk up to. Use a large garbage can and a stick. You'll corner him somewhere, put the garbage can in front of him, and push him into it with a stick. Then drive him several miles away and release him.
From: Scrappy
04-Dec-21
Thanks Overland I was thinking that would work. I'll just have to get the wife up to video it in case it gets western.
From: Bou'bound
04-Dec-21
It won’t go western. They are like catching kids stuffed animal. Will offer no resistance
From: JL
04-Dec-21
The garbage can idea is a good one. I would use a steel rake though as some porkies can get heavy, especially this time of year. I think a rake can direct them better. We have/had them down at the cabin and they did alot of damage chewing on the wood of the cabin structure and chewed holes in the walls in the back oil tank room.
From: tinecounter
04-Dec-21
No "how to" suggestions, other than "carefully."
From: Ambush
04-Dec-21
Put an expensive leather boot in the trap. Or a critical portion of the wiring harness from your new truck.
From: Shuteye
04-Dec-21
When i was deer hunting in Maine, when I was a kid, I used to get .50 cent bounty for them. I carried a 22 pistol to shoot them. You can walk right up to them. I can see the trash can idea would certainly work. Back them there was a $25 bounty on black bears also. I also killed quite a few snowshoe rabbits too and grouse. That was when I was 14-15 and 16 years old and I will be 80 on my next birthday so things have changed. The bounty on the porkies was collected by bringing in the hind feet, no need to bring in the animal.
From: LKH
04-Dec-21
They give $5 for them at the fur dealer.
From: tm
04-Dec-21
Trashcan sounds like the best idea, use a broom to guide it in. Just about anything will kill them with a good whack, but then to get rid of it you will still have to haul it off.
From: Scrappy
04-Dec-21
Shuteye it sounds like you had a very blessed childhood.
Ambush it sounds like you really like them around your place:)
LKH, do you reckon the fur dealer will pay the 5 bucks if it's still alive:)
From: Cazador
05-Dec-21
There was a time in my youth that I was hell on them. These days I get a laugh every time I see one out in the middle of the prairie not a tree around.
I'm glad you're trying to relocate him.
From: Scrappy
05-Dec-21
I successfully encouraged porky to get in the trash can at 4 this morning. He is now homeless down by the green river.
From: txhunter58
05-Dec-21
In the past I would have relocated him. But as a veterinarian who has been up too May times at 3AM removing them from a dogs mouth, I would have walked up to him with the 22 and dispatched him
From: Scrappy
05-Dec-21
Txhunter58, the dogs are the reason he had to leave. Didn't want that vet bill.
From: Overland
05-Dec-21
Well done on the successful relocation!
From: LINK
05-Dec-21
My nephew has helped me pull quills out of his bird dog. This pic was a week ago. No free pass.
My nephew has helped me pull quills out of his bird dog. This pic was a week ago. No free pass.
I was going to go where TX hunter did. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon picking quills out of a bird dog then relocating wouldn’t be an option. They are also hard on trees and there’s few trees where I live. Rattlesnakes, skunks and porcupines do no get a pass. They are worse than coyotes to me. I’ve heard they were originally introduced into the mountains as a food source that could just be walked up on and clubbed.
From: Joey Ward
05-Dec-21
It's not like they hunt your pets out for an easy meal.
Coyotes, on the hand......................
From: Too Many Bows Bob
05-Dec-21
I've got two reasons to kill something. 1. I have a use for it. 2. it's causing harm. I shot a porcupine a few years ago because it kept coming around and my dogs got into it twice. Cost me $400 each time. Twice was enough. TMBB
From: Shuteye
05-Dec-21
They told me in Maine not to leave your ax any place a porky could get to it. They will chew the handle for the salt. They also said don't let dogs pee on your vehicle tires or the porkys will give you a flat tire. They ate the bark off trees is why they paid a bounty. They can save a lost hunter due to being easy to kill, without a weapon. The belly has no quills and the meat isn't bad tasting even raw. At least that is what they told me.
From: Shuteye
05-Dec-21
They told me in Maine not to leave your ax any place a porky could get to it. They will chew the handle for the salt. They also said don't let dogs pee on your vehicle tires or the porkys will give you a flat tire. They ate the bark off trees is why they paid a bounty. They can save a lost hunter due to being easy to kill, without a weapon. The belly has no quills and the meat isn't bad tasting even raw. At least that is what they told me.
From: Gun
05-Dec-21
I've moved a few off our acreage w the trash can method. One of the first things I do w a new pup is Porcupine train. Find a road kill. Toss dead porky in yard. Pull out a quill. on a tight leash bring pup to porky and as it goes to sniff, Say No and poke in the nose w the quill. Shouldn't take more than twice.
From: smarba
06-Dec-21
Good idea Gun
From: ahunter76
06-Dec-21
Years ago I bowhunted on a Sheep ranch for Elk. They had some type permit to poisen & kill them. We were told to kill any we came across. I arrowed one & had it mounted. My Taxi said never again would he do one. It is a cool mount.
From: TRnCO
06-Dec-21
had troubles with them around the treatment plant that I work at so we called in a trapper. He used live traps with cut up fresh apples heavily salted. Guess the smell of the apple is the lure and they love anything that is salty.
From: Fuzzy
07-Dec-21
stick your index finger up his butt and bend the first joint
From: Scrappy
17-Dec-21
So much for thinking I only had one porcupine to deal with. Wrestled two more into totes this morning to relocate.
From: Hancock West
17-Dec-21
Well Scrappy congratulations... You can now knock Porcupine off your hunting bucket list. Looks like a booner to me!
From: Scrappy
17-Dec-21
I think I should start selling them on Facebook market as cute little puppies. Would make for a very interesting transaction.
From: SIP
17-Dec-21
Jumbo hedgehogs
From: drycreek
17-Dec-21
On the deer lease I used to have there were a few porkies. The rancher wanted them killed on sight and we obliged. At the time I had a really good pointer bird dog and he would point the damned things. He never, ever pointed anything other than quail or porkies. I have seen numerous rabbits, several deer, and one fox get up almost under his feet and he paid them no mind. Luckily for me, the porkies would always get up under one of those bushes that looked like an umbrella and he wouldn’t go in after them.
From: Jaquomo
18-Dec-21
My hunting partner killed a cow elk once that looked like tx's dog photo. Grim.
Scrappy, pretty sure you could sell them as jumbo hedgehogs to animal lovers. I know an ARA woman who is convinced prairie dogs are actually small "dogs".
From: Candor
24-Dec-21
Here is how to catch one without getting quilled...watch to the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lw7GKNjEiQ
From: Scrappy
25-Dec-21
Candor, YA NO.....:)
From: PECO
25-Dec-21
I was going to say, don't let your dog get it. My dog didn't get it as bad as the one in the picture above, but it was not fun, well after hours, and $350 visit to the vet.
From: Droptine
25-Dec-21
I agree with what’s been said about dispatching them. My dog got into one and had to get 3 surgeries for Quill removal. Only good one is a dead one in my book.
From: Juancho
26-Dec-21
I have taken a half a dozen with my recurve . Great tasting meat for sure, just make sure you burn the skin so that animals don't get full of them quills . Cleaning them is a chore though
From: Pat Lefemine
26-Dec-21
They love to eat T-111 siding. I had to wrap the bottom of my PA hunting cabin with 24” of brown tin before they chewed there way into my living room.
