I suggest you get rid of all the local coons starting at least (2) weeks before your corn is ripe. Get yourself a couple large, live traps and bait them with peanut butter coated marshmellows. A coon is just about the easiest animal there is to trap. They prefer not-quite-ripe corn and if you dont take them out first, they will take out that little patch before you get any. Coons will truely devestate a corn patch, nocking down many stalks and just taking a bite or two from each ear. I grow a couple acres of sweetcorn each year and usually take out about a dozen coons. It is a good idea to plant several times about (2) weeks apart. You will get most of the coons in the first planting, plus you will have ripe corn over a much longer period. I also plant 70, 80, and 90 day varieties to spread out the harvest from a single planting.
Can I plant corn??
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N80
Super Member
I'm only there on weekends, sometimes less often than that, so I probably won't be able to trap. And we got coons out the whazoo (did I spell that right?) So, I'll probably end up with a few happy deer and racoons and no corn. We'll see.
ihookem
Gold Member
Wolk 123 is right, the coons will totaly destroy your corn, period. When we grew sweet corn two years ago we went out on a Wednesday night before church and me and my wife said two or three more days and we'll have a ton of sweet corn. Went on to church thanking God for it. Friday night I get a call from my wife, with a quiver in her voice to tell me the corn is almost completely GONE!. Next year I trapped seven coons and thought I had them all,just to come home one night around dusk to see seven more coming out from the creek, across the road into our yard. Seven more coons trapped in a week or so and we still had coons. A month after After the corn was picked, five more cross the road. I honestly believe they will pass up a t bone for sweet corn.We are not doing sweet corn because a farmer down the road sells it for 2.50 a dozen. But good luck in South Carolina.
I am just thankfull that coons are so easy to trap. Maybe you can buy some traps and hire a local kid to check them for you. I love the box traps because I can line them across the front of the patch with the openings facing my house and look them all over before I go to work in the morning to see if the doors are down. There is also a leg-hold trap called the little griz which is supposed to catch only coons. From what I hear, they cost just as much as the box traps however.
ihookem
Gold Member
No problem trapping coons, my 11 year old boy likes to "take them out" with the .22. It's when you get a scunk in. Do you shoot it or let it die on it's own. Shoot it and you might smell skunk for the next two weeks. I shoot them and hope they don't live long enough to spray. I had a skunk in the trap last winter. I knew it was going to get cold so it would die that night. Nope, it lived through the night at-4. Ok colder tonight and it will die. Nope -6 and lived. Ok tonight colder, nope -8 and was still alive so I had my kid shoot it with the .410. They are tough and hate them in a trap. Any other suggestions.
I use a .22 on the coons. I get a skunk or two every year. On those, I use a shotgun and birdshot, aiming at the head from about 20 yds upwind. I have never had one spray after this treatment. I have heard that some folks place a blanket over the trap then lower it in the water to drown the skunk, again no spray.
For a smaller plot you don't need a planter. My father just used a piece of aluminum conduit and pointed where he wanted the seed, then dropped it down the pipe. No aching back and the corn seed goes where you want it.