Do not make camps too far apart, eight miles is far enough when the snow is soft and deep. Get your traps all strung out before snow comes and have everything ready so as to lighten your work when the time comes, for, even then, it will be hard enough.
Now, in setting traps, you cannot pick out likely places--hollow trees, etc.--do not leave the line even for a few feet to set one in that hollow tree else the trap is apt to be forgotten and lost. Give every tree where a trap is left some mark to indicate its presence.
Use wire staples to fasten traps to the trees and they should be fastened three or four feet above the ground. Set the trap or bend the spring around to fit the curve of the tree. Now drive a 12 penny nail in the tree an inch or so, place the trap so that the cross piece rests flat on the nail and drive two smaller ones between the spring and your trap rests same as if set on the ground. Nail small piece of bait (squirrel, rabbit, or bird is best) eight or ten inches above the trap.
If you desire to shelter the trap, drive a couple of wooden pegs above the bait and lay on a piece of bark or some boughs--this is not necessary if traps are to be looked after regularly, for you can keep the snow brushed off. A large piece of bait is not necessary, but in rebaiting do not remove the old bait, just nail up another. Sometimes I have a half dozen baits by each trap. It is well to try each trap occasionally to see if it will spring with just the right pressure.
If the bait is scarce, set the traps any way and you will soon have enough birds and squirrels.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SHELF SET AND FASTENING.]
In visiting the line, always make your pack as light as possible, four or five pounds of bait, a hatchet, a few nails and staples and a small Stevens 22 cal. pistol is all you will be apt to need for one hundred traps. If you are a trapper by nature, you will know where to put the traps, close together and where there is a probability of making a catch. Some places I put a trap every fifty yards and some places one-half mile apart. Keep your traps freshly baited and do something with each trap every three or four days, if nothing more than to rub a piece of bacon rind or rabbit entrails from the top of the snow to the bait. A drag is good at times and in some places.
Scent is good if bait is frozen.
WHITE WEASEL.
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.
The best bait for weasel is rabbit heads, chicken heads and squirrels. The same sets will also catch mink, but the traps must be covered in that case unless you are making blind sets. I have caught a good many weasel in my mink sets and then again, I have caught them in old muskrat holes or dens along the banks of small streams and also near river banks in deserted rat dens.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SQUIRREL CAUGHT ON STUMP.]
White weasel or ermine are found in Canada and the New England States as well as all other states bordering on Canada, but rarely farther south.
These animals, like all of the weasel kind, are active in their search for food and are easily attracted to bait. They are the smallest of the animals now being sought after by American trappers for their fur. The No. 0 is used in taking this animal, altho many trappers prefer the No. 1 and 1 1/2 as they catch high and the trapper usually finds the weasel dead on his arrival.
MINK.
My father was a successful mink trapper but only trapped when they became bothersome says an experienced trapper. He made mostly dry sets. He would look carefully at a hole in bank of stream or pond, then cut out a place for the trap, drive a stake in bottom of the trap bed, coil trap chain around it and set trap on top, then cover with finely cut gra.s.s, a big leaf or writing paper and lastly with the material he took off the top trap bed. Then he cleared all extra dirt away and put the bait in the edge of the hole or under the edge of a stick or stone, if there was one near the hole.
I went with him once and I said, "Some trappers stick the bait on a stick." He looked at me and said, "You young goose, did you ever know a mink to eat part of a muskrat and hang the rest on a stick?" He used bird, muskrat and fish for bait. If bird, he tore some feathers out and made it appear as if some mink had dragged the bait there and hid it.
For a mink that is not hungry, I find an old muskrat den or a runway through a drift pile is a good place. The great trouble with these two last sets is, the rabbits are liable to get into the trap instead of the mink. There are a good many ways to catch mink, and there are mink that will evade a good many well laid plans for their capture.
My most successful plan for catching mink is this: I get a hollow log--it needn"t be a long one--and if it is open at both ends I close up one end, then a little back of that I put my bait. Now at the other end if the entrance is not slanting so that the mink would run into it easily, I make it so. I then put the trap inside, about a foot from the entrance. The mink will run into the log because he smells the bait, or simply because it is the nature of the beast to make the run of every hollow log he comes to. Finding the other end closed he will have to come back and he is sure to be caught either going or coming. Trailing bait along the ground and up to the back of the log makes the results surer, as mink are great on the scent.
About mink. One man said mink would not take anything dead unless he was very hungry. Now Brother Trappers, you all know a mink will take anything he finds dead and drag it into a hole if he can and when you find where a mink has dragged something into a hole that is a never failing set for if he is not in the hole when you find it he will sure come back to it.
RACc.o.o.n.
Hollow trees in swamps are the favorite denning places of the racc.o.o.n, writes an Eastern trapper of years of experience, but in some sections he is found nearly as often in holes among ledges. If there is a rocky hill or mountain side on your line, inspect it thoroughly. The occupied dens may easily be told by the trodden appearance of the ground about the entrance and an occasional tuft of hair on the projecting edges of the stone. Here are the places for your traps.
Set your traps just outside the entrance, cover well with leaves and rotten wood, and fasten to a clog. We say outside the entrance, for if the trap be placed at a point where the animal is obliged to a.s.sume a crouching posture, it will be sprung by the creature"s belly, and you will find your trap empty save for a fringe of hair.
Even if the dens show no signs of recent occupation, a few traps can hardly be misplaced, for the racc.o.o.n, like every other animal, frequently goes on foraging trips long distances from his actual home, taking up temporary quarters in places like those above described.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RACc.o.o.n CAUGHT IN ONEIDA JUMP.]
Whenever there is a brook or creek in the vicinity of good racc.o.o.n ground, look along it carefully for signs. The racc.o.o.n follows the streams almost as persistently as the mink in quest of frogs, fish or clams, and his track may be easily found along the muddy borders, the print of the hind foot strikingly resembling that of a baby"s bare foot. He is a far less skillful fisher than the mink, usually confining himself to such unwary swimmers as venture up into the shallow water near the bank. He seldom if ever I believe, goes into deep water.
If you find evidence that a racc.o.o.n is patrolling a stream, place a trap without bait at the end of every log affording a crossing place.
The racc.o.o.n seldom wades or swims when he can find dry footing.
If you wish to trap the racc.o.o.n by baiting, you will find nothing that he likes better than an old salt fish skin that has been made odorous by being well smoked. It is not a bad idea to do the smoking near where you are to set the trap. Build up a little stick fire in the woods, hold the fish skin impaled on a green stick, over it until it is thoroughly heated and smoked through, and an odor will be created that will pervade the woods for rods around. And of course if this scent reaches the nostrils of any near-by ringtail that is sleeping away the day, he will lose no time after nightfall in tracing out the source of the appetizing smell, and endeavoring to make a supper off his favorite food. Mice, squirrel, frogs and chicken heads are all good baits, and they are equally good for mink.
Most trappers prefer the No. 1 1/2 Newhouse for racc.o.o.n although some use the No. 2 double spring. The Oneida Jump No. 2 and 2 1/2 are also good c.o.o.n traps as is the H. & N. No. 2. The Stop Thief No. 3 1/2 is also used for c.o.o.n.
FOXES.
Now I will tell you how foxes can be caught on land when the ground is frozen, writes a New England trapper. Take a large bait, entrails or anything that a fox will eat, and put it in some field where the foxes travel; put out with this bait three bags of buckwheat chaff.
Don"t set any traps until foxes begin to eat bait and walk on chaff.
Then take a No. 2 Newhouse trap, smoke it over burning green fir boughs, and smear it with equal parts of oil of amber and beeswax; also, smear the chain and use leather mitts to set trap with, for it is no use setting unless you do. Bury the trap about a foot from the bait, and cover it with chaff. Make everything level and natural.
When you catch a fox, take him out with mitts on and set again if you haven"t a clean trap to put in its place. Always set a clean trap if possible.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RED FOX CAUGHT AT DRY LAND SET.]
My way of catching foxes, writes a Georgia trapper is as follows: I get a lot of dry dust, put it in the hen house and let it stay until I get ready to make my sets; then I take what I can carry handily in a sack to where the foxes "use", dig a hole deep enough for my trap, place a piece of burnt bacon in a hole, cover it up with the dust, burn more bacon, letting the grease drop on and around the dust.
I fix a good many of these places but I do not set my traps the first trip. The next trip I carry my traps with me. If the foxes have found my bait they will dig it out. I then set my trap in the bottom of the hole, driving a stake down in the hole to fasten the trap to. Cover the trap chain and all with dust. I do not put new bait in the hole, but burn more bacon on top.
Try this, brother trappers, and watch results. Do not set traps where the bait has not been disturbed. Carry away all fresh dirt and handle your traps with gloves. In water trapping, form a natural surface over your traps and you will get furs.
I see different ways to catch the fox. They are all right but no person can tell another and guarantee success. The man or boy who sets right will get the fur but careless ones will not. I am going to tell amateurs and boys the secret of an old time trapper. He is alive yet and I guess had a few traps set (altho over eighty years old.) He told me the secret and said at that time he had never told any one but me.
First put out offal of butchering such as beef head; pick out a good place where foxes travel; at the same time, singe the fur on a rabbit or two and put near where you want to set trap; commence baiting early and go there often. Go past close to where you want to set a trap; don"t tramp around much but go on thru, not leaving the end of your trail there; renewing bait and singed rabbit fur as needed.
When ready to set traps, boil them in ashes. Then after drying, fasten traps to bottom of a barrel and burn slowly a lot of rabbit fur under them; handle as little as possible. Set carefully and catch your fox if you can and you can if you are careful enough. He said he caught fifteen in one place that way in one winter. Fasten trap to drag so he can go away and not spoil set.
My best method is to set my trap in an old log road or path where there is no traveling done. We should set the trap level with the ground. The trap should be a No. 2 Newhouse which is the best fox trap made.
OPOSSUM.
The opossum is not a cunning animal and takes bait readily. It is found in the Southern and Central States princ.i.p.ally. This animal cannot live in the extreme north as they die from the severe weather.
They are caught princ.i.p.ally in No. 1 Newhouse traps, at dens or places they frequent in search of food. Almost any fresh meat is good bait: rabbit, squirrel, bird, chicken, etc.
[Ill.u.s.tration: OPOSSUM CAUGHT IN NO. 1 NEWHOUSE.]
The trap can be baited when used at den but this is not necessary.
Along their trails and in thickets they visit a piece of bait suspended a foot or so above the ground and trap under, carefully covered, will catch the opossum. They are also caught by building a pen of stakes, or chunks and stones placing bait in the back part and setting trap in front also at hollow logs where they frequently live.
No. 1 Newhouse trap is used a great deal for this animal, although the No. 1 Victor will hold them; No. 2 Oneida Jump, or No. 2 Tree Trap, are proper sizes to catch this animal.
The Tree Trap can be used to advantage in catching opossum as this trap is so made that it can be nailed to a tree or stump and baited.
BADGER.
The badger is a strong animal for its size, and also slow in its movements. The No. 2 is as small a trap as trappers generally use.
The traps are set at the entrance to their dens, carefully covered and should be fastened to a moveable clog.