A. R. Harding

“ When trapping weasel, writes a Northern trapper, I set my traps near small streams or in swamps, old ditches, beneath old roots and under shelving banks, near running water, and sometimes they may be caught in woodchuck holes. The white weasel and all other weasel are regular dummies, going headlong into a trap, even if they are in plain view. You don't need to cover up your trap at all unless you want to, as the weasel will walk right in to get the bait and click bang and you have your weasel hard and fast. ”

“ While baiting traps is not necessary when trapping at dens, yet the trapper who baits his traps will catch more game than if the traps were not baited. To show where a baited trap has the advantage, we will suppose that an animal passes a den where a trap is set but not baited. It is just as a notion takes the animal — it may pay a visit to the den and go in, and again it may not. If a trap is baited the chances are that if the animal passes within a few feet, it will reach the bait. ”

“ The best and most enduring hold a trap can have on an animal is the paw or just above where it joins the bottom of the leg. I have found this with beaver, foxes, marten, lynx, bear, and in fact all animals I have caught. Just above and the paw itself is a mass of sinews and muscle enveloped with a stronger skin than any part of the leg, and therefore must give more resistance. I have found a fox that was caught in a No. 2 Newhouse after three nights' struggle as secure as if newly seized. The jaws having closed securely across the thick part of the forepaw. ”

“ Some say it is too slow work to trap out a skunk den; I will tell you a quick way that I have tried with success. Build three or four pens near the den, put a bait in each pen and a trap at the entrance of each. I have caught as high as three in a night from one den, that way.
Now trappers, let us strive the coming season, to protect the homes of our fur-bearers, so we can enjoy the pleasures and profits of trapping in the years to come. Let us take the fellow that digs out the dens aside and give him a little good advice and show him where he is working against his own good. ”

“ A trap with springs with a strength out of reason is awkward and vexatious to open, and when the animal is caught goes on with its continued pressure until the jaws of their own action almost sever the paw or leg, and the animal with very little struggling finishing the amputation.
I knew an Indian once who had a bear trap which was not much larger in spread than a No. 4 trap. An ordinary man by placing a foot on each spring could set it, and yet that trap was his most reliable one. ”

“ When your traps are set everything should be as natural as before. By that I mean that when you are trapping for the shrewdest game, such as fox, mink, otter, wolves, etc. For other animals such as skunk and muskrat, you need not use such caution, for they will blunder into a trap no matter how carelessly it is set. Still it is always best to cover your signs properly for you can never know what animal may come along. If your traps are carefully covered you are as liable to get a valuable pelt as a low priced one. ”

“ The jaw of a trap should have a good wide bearing surface, otherwise it will be apt to break the animal's leg bone, a calamity always to be avoided, especially in dry land trapping, for as before remarked "legging" is thus likely to follow. Anything like a sharp cutting edge or a saw tooth is especially objectionable, for our object in catching an animal is to obtain its fur and not to amputate its limbs. ”

“ A trapper always should be on the outlook for signs of game. These include dung at dens, tracks at dens and along creeks and low wet places, feathers and bones at dens, etc. A close inspection of dens, will also show long hairs, if the same is used much by animals just before the fur begins to get good, as they then shed many of the long hairs. The experienced trapper knows from these just what kind of an animal is using a certain den, and of course he knows what sized trap to use and how to proceed to set the same for the capture of the game. ”

“ During the summer months when you are running around through the fields and woods fishing and hunting and having a good time, then is the time to start the foundation for the coming season's trapping. ”

“ Find a place where they are liable to come, and tramp and tread around just like an unexperienced trapper would do, taking an old rusty or new trap, handling with naked hands and set either concealed or naked, stick a chunk of meat up over it on a stick, and then remove sticks and stones making a disturbance. This will make mink afraid of human scent in that place. A great many are afraid of a bait stuck up on a stick if there is human scent around it, so I think it is a combination of these; namely, disturbances, human scent and the unnatural place to find food that scares them away. ”

“ It is most exasperating to visit one's trap in the morning and find by the signs that the beaver or otter had paid his visit and that the trap was out of order by being a couple of feet under water, or high and dry up the bank. ”

“ Once there was an old trapper here, and the young men wanted him to show them how to set a fox trap, and he told them he would, so he got them out to show them how, and this is what he told them. "Remove all suspicion and lay a great temptation." Well there it is. Now in order to remove all suspicion you must remove all things that are not natural. A man's tracks, and where he has been digging around with a spade or with his hands are not natural around a spring, are they? No. Well then, there is where the human scent question comes in. ”

“ The entrails of muskrat, rabbit, chicken or duck will make far better bait than the animal or bird itself. In very cold weather I use the oil of wild duck which I save in the fall, but even in using the baits I speak of I invariably dig up the ground, unless it is a water set or a swamp set on some log.
In cold weather, or in fact during the entire trapping season, fur-bearing animals are searching for something to eat and consequently the trap that is baited is more liable to catch than one that is not. Fresh rabbit is an excellent bait for most animals. ”

“ Every trapper, like all other classes, have many things to contend with. One of the worst, perhaps, is the trap stealer, who having once found one of your traps will follow up your line and take them all. If he can not find them by your tracks, he is apt to hide close by and wait until you go the round, then follow up and take your entire outfit of traps. To be sure that they are your property you should mark each and every trap before the trapping season or just as soon as they are bought, at any rate before they are set. ”

“ When fastened properly to a bush or light drag, the game rarely escapes even though the trap has only a toe hold, unless the trapper is days in making the rounds. Should an animal escape when only slightly injured it is apt to soon return.
In many cases where game has escaped after once being caught it is not the fault of the trap but of the trapper. Should the bone in the animal's leg be broken and after days of endeavoring the animal frees itself there should be no blame attached to the trap, the fault is with the trapper — he should have visited the trap sooner. ”

“ The slyer animals, such as the fox and mink, soon learn to associate all fancy smells with danger, and then most scents act as warning instead of a lure, writes an Ohio trapper. For mink bait I think a fresh muskrat carcass is about the best of anything, because muskrat is their common food and therefore they are not nearly as liable to be suspicious of it as of some strange scent, such as amber oil, anise oil, oil of cinnamon or oil of lavender, one or more of which is nearly always used in combination scents. ”

“ To place a bait anywhere above the trap is well enough for an animal of less cunning than a fox. But to challenge that cunning in a fox, better way is to bury the bait. The proper way to go about it is to make a trail by dragging through the brush or thicket a hare, squirrel or bird, and at the proper distances along this blind trail, strew the feathers of some bird, or make a bed for your bait, no trap being set, until you "take the sign" of one of your varmints. ”

“ When the rivers and lakes are fast bound with the grip of winter, it is not always convenient to find a suitable place to set a beaver or otter trap under the ice, says Martin Hunter in the H-T-T. The shore line may drop away into too deep water to set at the bank, or, it may be uneven rocks which preclude the possibility of making a safe and sure set. ”