The trap should be handled carefully. Take to water sufficiently deep to cover the trap and slowly sink and then either weight the trap or hold down until the animal is drowned.
The box trap is a humane trap if visited daily. They are rather unhandy to carry about and few trappers want many, yet under certain conditions they are very useful. They can be made during idle time.
For mink and other shy animals they should be handled as little as possible. They should be made of old boards or at least avoid all appearances of newness.
Some sections saplings to make deadfalls cannot be had and for the benefit of such, a wooden trap, three feet long and six inches wide and deep, is a good manner to take muskrat, writes a Western trapper.
The boards can be cut out of any old lumber. In each end is a wire door, hung on hinges at the top. These doors rise at the slightest push on the outside, but will not open from the inside. The trap is sunk in the water at the entrance to the den and is fastened there. A muskrat in entering or leaving the den is sure to enter the trap.
The animal, of course, could gnaw out, but will drown before it has time to accomplish this. Several rats are often taken, where they are numerous, in a night. Traps of this kind can be used to best advantage in lakes and ponds or where the height of the stream does not vary much. If they are set along creeks and rivers you want to fasten them securely or take them up before heavy rains, as they are almost sure to be washed away.
I see in a recent number where George Walker wanted some one to tell through H-T-T how to make box trap to catch muskrat. Here is a good way:
First take four boards 36 inches long, nail together leaving both ends open. Next a small gate, consisting of a square piece of wood supplied with a few stiff wires is then pivoted inside of each opening so as to work freely and fall easily when raised. The bait is fastened inside the center of the box. The animal in quest of the bait finds an easy entrance, as the wires lift at slight pressure, but the exit after the gate has closed is so difficult that escape is almost beyond question. To insure further strength it is advisable to connect the lower ends of the wires by a cross piece of fine wire twisted about each. If you have good luck you can catch two and three in this trap each night. Set in two or three inches of water where muskrat frequents, or set in skunk dens.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE COOP TRAP.
This trap is used with great success for catching wild turkey, pheasants, quail and other feathered game. In some states the law forbids the use of this and similar traps.
The trap is built like an ordinary rail pen. In fact, some use small rails when constructing this trap for wild turkey, while others build of small straight poles. The pen is usually six feet or more square and about three high. The "coop" is stronger if drawn in from bottom to top (see ill.u.s.tration). The top must be covered and weighted.
A ditch is now dug about a foot wide. This ditch should begin about three feet from coop and lead within. Corn or other grain is scattered on the outside and in the trench leading into the coop. On the inside considerable should be scattered in the leaves and small but short twigs.
The turkeys once on the inside will eat the grain and scratch among the leaves which generally partly fill the trench and as the birds are usually looking up, when not eating, they do not think of the trench thru which they entered.
The same trap will catch quail, but of course is built much smaller.
About three feet square being large enough and a foot high is sufficient. Some have built quail coops out of cornstalks and report catches.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COOP TRAP.]
The quail coop should have the ditch leading to the inside the same as described for turkey. Of course the ditch should be much smaller--only large enough for one bird to enter at a time. On the inside of coop it is a good idea to lay a board six inches or wider over the ditch. The bait should be wheat or other small grain or seeds that the birds like. Scatter thinly on the outside and in the trench, but on the inside place more liberally. Chaff or leaves should be placed on the inside so that the birds in scratching for the grain will partly fill up the hole thru which they came.
Quail, turkey and other feathered game once on the inside and after eating the bait never think of going down into the ditch and out, but walk round and round the coop looking thru the c.h.i.n.ks and trying to escape.
The largest catches are made by baiting where the birds frequent for some days or even weeks before trying to make a catch. It is well to make the coops long in advance so that the birds will be accustomed to them, especially wild turkey.
These traps are some times used with the figure 4 trigger, but when thus set seldom more than one or two birds are caught at a time.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PIT TRAP.
This method of catching game and fur bearing animals is not much used, as the labor in connection with making a pit trap is considerable. The method, however, is an excellent one for taking some of the larger animals, especially when they are wanted for parks, menageries, etc., uninjured.
The pit should be several feet deep and bait placed as shown. Another way is to cover the top with rotten limbs, leaves, etc., and place the bait on this. The animal in trying to secure the bait breaks thru.
The dirt from the pit should be removed in baskets. Catches are made by digging a pit across animal runways or trails. When the ground is not frozen or during rainy weather it is well to place a board several inches wide at top. The animal in going over its usual trail steps upon the frail covering and falls thru.
While the pit trap is mostly used for capturing large game, it can be used to advantage for taking many of the smaller fur bearers.
Where muskrat are numerous, instead of digging a pit, secure a box about three feet deep. The width and length make no difference. Place a few flat rocks in the bottom and place in the water where rats frequent. Make the box solid. The box must be water tight. The weight should bring the top of box to within a few inches of water. A couple of boards or chunks should be so placed that the rats will climb up them and to the box along the edge of which the bait is placed.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PIT TRAP.]
The pit trap can be used where skunk and other animals frequent. Bait the place for some days before the pit is dug.
If the pit is to be used without bait, then find the runways of the animal and dig the pit. While some animals may not be shy, if a little fresh dirt is lying around, yet it is best to be very careful and carry all earth taken out of pit a few rods to one side. Pits of this kind should be several feet deep.
The success the hunter or trapper has in using this method will depend largely upon his knowledge of the game he is after. Unless the animal or animals are wanted alive, the work to make a pit is too great and the chances of a catch never certain. This way is not practicable under ordinary circ.u.mstances, yet where the game is wanted alive and sound, is worth trying.
CHAPTER XXI.
NUMBER OF TRAPS.
In some localities there are not many dens and trappers make use of about all when trapping that section, but in other parts of the country dens are so numerous that to place a trap at each is impossible. In states where groundhogs (woodchucks), are numerous there are often a hundred or more dens along a single bluff or rocky bank. To have enough steel traps to set one at each is something few trappers do, yet two or three deadfalls in connection with a line of steel traps is all that is necessary and the trapper can move on to the next bluff where dens are numerous and set another trap or two.
As a rule it is where there are many dens, close together, that deadfalls make the best catches, yet when you find a good den anywhere, set or construct a deadfall.
All trappers have noticed when tracking animals in the snow that they visit nearly every den along their route, not always going in but just sticking their head in. When thus investigating, the animal smells the bait and is hungry (as nine times out of ten the animal is hunting something to eat), and if your trap is set properly you are reasonably sure to make a catch.
In the North, Canada, Alaska and some of the states on the Canadian border where trapping is made a business, it is no uncommon thing for one man to have as many as one hundred and fifty traps and some have out twice that many, or three hundred. Marten trappers in the trackless forests often blaze out a route fifty or more miles in length, building shelters along the line where nights are spent.
The trapper who only spends a few hours each day at trapping and lives in thickly settled districts will find that it is hard for him to locate suitable places perhaps for more than thirty to fifty traps, yet if these will be looked at properly during the season the catch will justify the time and labor in building.
The number of deadfalls and snares that each trapper should construct in his section must largely be determined by himself, depending upon how large a territory he has to trap over without running into other trappers" grounds. It will be little use to build traps where there are other trappers as trouble will occur, traps may be torn to pieces, etc. Yet there are many good places to build traps in your immediate locality no doubt. If there are any creeks near and woods along the banks you will find good places at both creek and in the woods. If in sections where there is no forest, like some western states, deadfalls trapping may be difficult from the fact that there is nothing to build them with.
In such cases the portable traps, (described elsewhere) in this book, can probably be used to advantage, but best of all in such places is steel traps.
The number of deadfalls and snares that a trapper can attend to is large, from the fact that the game is killed and as the weather is usually cold, the traps need not be looked at only about twice each week.
In the North, many trappers have such long lines that they do not get over them only once a week. The trouble where deadfalls are only looked at once in seven days is that other animals are apt to find the game and may injure the fur, or even destroy the pelt.
Where snares with spring pole attachment are used, and the weather is cold, the trapper need not make the rounds only once a week, as all animals will be suspended in the air and out of the reach of flesh eaters.
South of 40 degrees where the weather is not severe, it is policy to look at traps at least twice a week, and in the extreme South the trapper should make his rounds every day.
It will thus be seen that a trapper in the North can attend more deadfalls and snares than one in the South or even in the Central States. No trapper should have more traps or longer lines than he can properly attend to. The fur bearing animals are none too numerous without having them caught and their pelts and fur spoiled before the arrival of the trapper.