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(Posted for May-June, 2006)
MAKING THE CUT
by Hal Sullivan
(This article was first published in "The Trapper" September, 1991)
It is a foregone conclusion that in order to function adequately on a trapline, a trapper needs some sort of tool for cutting wood. I'd be willing to bet nearly every trapper has started out with a hatchet or belt axe as their first wood chopping tool. This is especially true since the tool serves two purposes by providing a hammer as well as a cutting tool. I will not denigrate the hatchet as a valuable and versatile tool, but there are other tools that can do the wood cutting chores on a trapline. And often these tools may work better than a standard hatchet.
Since the hatchet, or "axe", family of tools seems to be the most popular, and the standard by which others are judged, let's discuss them first. The design is well proven; folks have been chopping wood with axes for thousands of years. There are many different styles of axes but for the sake of simplicity, I will divide them into the categories of small, medium, and large and specify that they have a blunt end and a sharp end.
Our common hatchet is a small axe with a short handle. It is very portable and will serve adequately to cut smaller limbs and branches, although it may take repeated blows to finish the job. The medium size axes are sometimes known as "cruising" axes because they are carried by foresters who are "cruising", or inspecting, a stand of timber. They are also called "Hudson Bay" axes by some people.
They have a 24 to 30-inch handle, and the head is somewhere between a hatchet and a full size axe in weight. These axes are fairly easy to carry around as evidenced by their use for timber cruising. Packing a little more heft, they can do a job faster than a hatchet. A full size wood chopping axe is a bit too cumbersome and heavy to carry on a trapline. While it is well suited to chopping trees or splitting wood, it is too heavy to be used effectively or safely where smaller sticks and nearby fingers are encountered.
There is an old saying that a dull knife will cut you quicker that a sharp knife, and the same holds true for axes. Axes not only work better when they are sharp, they are also safer. A sharp axe bites into the wood when it strikes. A dull axe, especially if it strikes a glancing blow, can bounce or slide off the wood and end up taking a bite out of you. Safety is no joke when using an axe. Never cut toward your body--watch your fingers and legs. Your axe doesn't need to be sharp as a razor, but you should maintain a reasonably good edge on it.
A second class of tools that could be considered for trapline cutting chores is saws. In some catastrophic instances, like a tree falling across your access road, you might have to fire up a chain saw and do some serious wood cutting on your trapline. That's an extreme measure, and a trapper will probably find more use for a hand powered saw on his line. Some trappers carry a carpenter's saw in the back of their truck. These saws are not very portable and are best suited to sawing lumber. Indeed, some trappers use these saws to make cubbies and other things if they come across some old boards.
A better type of saw for trapline use is a tree pruning saw, one that is specially designed to cut limbs. This saw has a curved blade that helps to keep the teeth in contact with the rounded surface of the limb. The teeth themselves point toward the handle of the saw, and this saw cuts on the pull stroke. A normal saw cuts on the push stroke. If you have tried cutting limbs with a carpenter's saw and found it a frustrating task, you will be surprised how much easier it is when you use a tool designed for the job.
A full size pruning saw would be too large to carry on the trapline. The choice for a trapper would be a smaller folding type saw. These saws have a straight handle that is as long as the blade. The blade pivots on a hinge and can be folded back against the handle when not in use to protect both the blade and the carrier. The one I have is slightly over nine inches long when folded and will fit in the large pockets of my hunting coat.
Personally, I find this saw is easier to use and carry than a hatchet, especially if there is a lot of cutting to be done. If I'm cutting stakes, I'll usually choose the saw. Stakes are sometimes hard to cut with an axe because the smaller limbs bend and bounce when they are struck. The saw exerts a steady even pressure, and you can also hold your hand closer to the cutting point to steady your work. When I cut a stake, I saw through the limb at an angle. This leaves a point on the stake when I'm finished.
I'll pass on couple of helpful hints for those who might try using a pruning saw to cut stakes. A cut near the ground, or near the trunk of a tree is easy to make because that spot is fairly rigid. After you have cut a limb, you may find it is hard to trim the top simply by holding it in your hand. If you can find a solid backing such as an existing limb or branch, you can put your untrimmed stake against this solid object on the side opposite you, and pulling the saw to cut will jam the work against the solid object. If I am cutting stakes from a patch, I try to select a convenient fork in one of the trees that will hold the stakes while I cut them off.
This saw also works infinitely better on dry wood than a hatchet does. Dry wood is hard to chop and most of us simply hit it a couple of licks, then try to bust the stick off at the weakened spot. With a saw, you can go straight through it.
There are a couple of other wood cutting tools that I use in conjunction with the trapline. The first is a pair of long-handled pruning or loping shears. I don't carry these around on my person, but I do carry them in the truck as needed. I find this tool extremely useful for clearing away the brush and branches that grow up along the little-used lanes on my trapline. On scouting trips or my first few days in an area, I carry the loping shears to cut away the limbs and branches that might knock my truck mirrors out of line. This also reduces scratching on your vehicle, if that is a concern. Often I can do this without leaving the truck. I keep the shears beside me on the floor and trim away the offending vegetation through the open window of my truck. I do one side of the lane going in and the other side going out.
Another item which I sometimes do carry on my person is a pair of hand pruning shears. Once I get a line established and have a little less gear to carry, I may stick the pruning shears in my pocket and cut away some twigs or briars that are a nuisance along my route. I don't do this much anymore, because I have found an acceptable substitute that I almost always have with me. A pair of standard linesman's pliers will cut woody material up to three-eights of an inch in diameter. On countless occasions, I have freed myself from a tangle of briars by clipping my way out with the wire cutting jaws of the pliers.
Whether it's making stakes, clearing the trap site, or trimming out a path to travel along, wood cutting tools are an item on every trapper's equipment list. The hatchet is our old standby and will render fair service if it is kept sharp. A folding pruning saw is also good, and though it lacks the versatility of a hatchet it may be a better cutting tool. And you may find that a pair of pruning shears will make life on your trapline a little easier, or you might put your linesman's pliers to the same use. There will almost always be some type of wood that needs to be cut on the trapline, and any way you slice it, one of these tools should be able to do the job.
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For hardware visit the
"Hardware
& Misc." department at the Supply Line
(Posted for March - April, 2006)
Culverts - Natural Fur Funnels
by Hal Sullivan
(This article first appeared in "Fur-Fish-Game" March, 1991)
One of the keys to successful trapping is to place your traps where you know animals are traveling. Besides knowing the habits of the animal, a trapper also takes advantage of natural features that force an animal to travel a given path. This could include things as large as a river or mountain range, but more often a trapper will seek out smaller and more defined features that specifically restrict the animals to a narrow route. There is no better example of this than the forcing and restricting qualities of the drains that are used to channel water under a road, commonly known as culverts.
Culverts are used to channel and direct water underneath a crossing and provide a dry route above. They steer animals along the same routes. An animal that is traveling at the shoreline will be forced to do one of two things when it encounters a culvert. It can go through, or it can go up and over. Either way, you have a good chance of finding a place to catch these animals as they pass by.
Whether or not an animal goes over or through a culvert depends upon several factors. If the culvert has deep water flowing through it, dry land animals like fox will probably go over. Other animals like mink, coon, and muskrats don't seem to mind swimming through a culvert when necessary. If the culvert is dry or has very shallow water, you can expect anything. I have taken a number of fox in mink sets made at shallow culverts.
Muskrats will rarely go over the top of a culvert, but there are a certain number of coon and mink that prefer to stay dry and will take to the high road. The best advice is to check the sign at a culvert. If animals are going through the culvert, they will probably leave tracks somewhere nearby in the dirt or mud. But always check for a trail that leads over the culvert. These are sometimes very faint and hard to spot.
There are so many different sizes, types and configurations of culverts that it is hard to generalize about them. They range is size from the 10 foot concrete tunnels that you could row a boat through, on down to the little six-inch tile that runs under a driveway. Although any culvert can be a good force, ordinarily those in the two to four foot range offer the best opportunities for a trapper. Culverts this size are usually connected with a fairly substantial drainage system which provides habitat, and these culverts are large enough to comfortably admit any animal, while being small enough to allow the trapper the opportunity for making a blind set.
Many culverts are simply wet-weather overflows and may run only a trickle of water most of the time. Usually, the bottom of the culvert has filled with sediment leaving a flat pool in the pipe. But outside the ends of the culvert, the water usually resumes a normal flow and here you may find a narrow channel in which to make a set. If the flow is not naturally restricted, you may use rocks, brush, sod, or other things to block down the channel and steer the animal over the trap.
You can use these objects to narrow and increase the flow of water at a culvert. If you can make a narrow channel of fast water to hold your trap, the set will remain operational even if the temperatures dip below freezing. Rapidly moving water does not freeze as fast a calm water. Sometimes, it is advantageous to make your sets inside the culvert to help hide your catch. If you create a restriction inside a culvert to make a blind set, make sure you use light materials that will wash out and not plug up the culvert in case of a storm.
Other culverts, especially those draining hilly land, may be swept clean by the occasional flood of water. Again, you may find or construct locations at the mouth of these culverts to make sets. You can make sets inside these culverts too, but you may encounter some problems. If there is a trickle of water, you can set a trap right on the bottom of the culvert in the water, but it will be extremely difficult to bed on the hard surface of the culvert. Also, there is a chance that a sudden rush of water through the culvert could knock your trap out of commission.
Sometimes fastening a trap at a culvert can be difficult. If the conditions are right for staking, this is a good method. However, at some culverts the bottom is too mucky to hold a stake, and at others it may be too rocky to drive a stake. Heavy drags like rocks or pieces of iron can be used, but try to avoid using wooden drags unless you are sure your trap will not be carried away by an unexpected rise in the water.
Many of these culverts are made of steel, and I have another method for fastening a trap here. Once while trapping in front of a steel culvert I found an unused rivet hole that was perfectly positioned for me to wire a trap. This gave me an idea. The following summer, I purchased a rechargeable electric drill. As I scouted over my trapline before the season, I carried the drill with a small bit, in my truck. When I found a steel culvert I was going to set up, I drilled a 3/16 inch hole in the edge of it near the bottom. This does no damage to the culvert and is hardly noticeable. Do keep the hole near the bottom so it will be easier to hide the wire.
Blind sets are generally the rule at culverts, but if none can be constructed a baited or lured set can be used. Some culverts hold deep water, and others often have a deep pool at one end. This is a good place to make a pocket set that will catch the eye of an animal swimming through, or going around, the culvert. Also these deep pools offer good opportunities to make a drowning set.
Culverts, by their nature, are usually accessible from a road. This is one of the greatest advantages in trapping a culvert, but it is also one of the major drawbacks. You can often drive within a few feet of a culvert set, but so can anyone else. Thievery can be a big problem if you are trapping culverts along a major right-of-way. It is no secret that culverts are good producers of fur, but this fact is known by trap thieves as well as trappers.
It is not too hard to camouflage a trap and hide it from view, but it's really tough to camouflage a trapped animal. If you are trapping culverts in a theft prone area, try to move back from the mouth of the culvert a significant distance. Try to find the path leading to or from the culvert and trace it back. It is also hard to hide your actions from public view when you are trapping along a road. I have heard of fellows who tried to disguise themselves as telephone repair men. I have sometimes carried a burlap sack with me and pretend I'm picking up cans when someone passes by. This will probably fool the casual observer, but it's really not the casual observer you have to worry about.
When you get away from the public roads, and back into the farms and fields, culverts take on another significance. Up to this point, the discussion has focused on animals traveling with the water flow. But in the more isolated areas, these culverts represent crossing points for canines who do not want to get their feet wet, or do not like to climb down and up the bank to get across a ditch. These culvert crossings are good locations for canine sets.
Many times when I'm trapping fox in the back fields, I utilize these culverts. I always carry along a few extra traps to set underneath the culvert, and sometimes I just use dirty fox traps. I pick up a few extra critters, and I don't have to go out of the way to do it. You might be surprised to learn how many mink will travel into the dry upland areas that the fox prefer. And, you may very well end up with a fox in the bottom of the culvert. Gray fox, especially, seem prone to going through culverts.
You could hardly find a better location for restricting and channeling the travel of furbearers than a culvert. A little investigation will reveal the animal activity at a culvert and will probably yield a good location for a set. If you find a well used culvert, make two sets--one on each end. The culvert will funnel any animal that comes along, and two traps could easily give you a double
catch
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For hardware visit the
"Hardware
& Misc." department at the Supply Line
(Posted for January - February, 2006)
Bag of Tricks
by Hal Sullivan
(This article was first published in "The Trapper" February, 1992)
I was a quarter of a mile from the truck, packing in to make two fox sets. The area was inaccessible to vehicular traffic, but promising enough to make it worth the walk. A strip of high ground ran lengthways across several fields forming a natural travel route for the fox going from one farm to the next. For the first set, I scratched out a dirthole. But when I positioned my stake, and pushed it three quarters of the way in with the palm of my hand, I knew I had problems.
Cross staking was the way to go, and I did have two stakes. But both of the traps I had brought along were rigged with a single S-hook for terminal tackle. The traps I had rigged for double staking were back in the truck, which was a small speck in the distance. But fortunately I didn't have to make that trip. Instead, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my bag of tricks. Here I found the S-hook I needed, and crimped it on with my pliers.
There are no magical devices in my bag of tricks, just common trapline items and a few other things. Typically, I can find an S-hook, drowning slide, swivel, finish nail, roofing nail, fence staple, and trap tag in this box. With these items, I am relatively certain that I can fasten and stabilize a trap in almost any situation. The extra tag can come in handy on the line when one of the originals comes up missing. The nails can also be used in constructing certain sets.
For a short period of time, I simply lined my pockets with the small items I thought I would need. But sometimes finding the specific item, in the bottom of my pockets mixed in with all the other paraphernalia I carry, took almost as long as walking back to the truck for it. Or, the stuff would come raining out of my pockets when I pulled out my gloves, and I would spend five minutes picking it up off the ground.
It is hard to imagine that much good could come from a sore throat, but that is what finally solved my problem of carrying my "tricks" on the trapline. Searching for a package of throat lozenges, I noticed that one particular brand came packed in a small flat metal box about the size of a cigarette pack. This box had rounded corners and a hinged lid, which makes for easy access, even with gloved hands. The box fit nicely in my pocket, and when the lozenges were gone I quickly replaced them with the loose junk riding around in my jacket.
Fast Forward -- I don't know if the "Sucrets" throat lozenges still come in this type of metal box. But there is a type of mints called
"Altoids" that comes in this kind of box.
Now, I could easily locate the stuff. In fact, I could tell which pocket it was in by listening for the rattle. Also, I could readily tell when I was running out of any one item. I could easily inventory the items in the small box and replace what I had used. Before I started carrying the box, there were times I thought I had two or three swivels in my pocket when in reality, I had a bolt and two stones.
This box proved to be so handy, that I acquired two or three more. The extra boxes, I filled with specific items that I might need on a certain line. For example, if I am running a water line, I might take one of the boxes and fill it completely full with drowning slides. If I'm trapping coon in the woods, I may have a box filled with nothing but fence staples. Usually, I carry these extra boxes only when I'm establishing a line and know I will need a quantity of one item.
But I always carry the box of assorted items, no matter what kind of line I'm running. If anything happens, or I hit an unusual situation, I have the trick box for backup. One time while setting up a water line, I dropped my box of drowners and could not retrieve it. Thanks to the three or four sliders I carry in the trick box, I was able to finish the job.
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This small tin box fits readily in the palm of my hand and in my jacket and holds a number of items that are handy in the every day maintenance of a trapline. |
The items that I keep in my trick box are designed to meet my own needs, but they certainly could be customized to suit the demands of the individual trapper and trapline. I find that s-hooks are a very useful item to have on the trapline. They can be used to shorten or lengthen a trap chain or provide terminal fastening for a trap. I always include a spare swivel in my box of tricks. It is available if I encounter a situation where I feel the set or the trap could benefit from added swiveling. Sliding locks are there if I need them to construct a drowning set, but they can also be put to use on dry land to move critters away from entanglement or out of sight. The spare trap tags, as mentioned, are on hand if I need to make an addition or replacement in the field.
Fast Forward -- Today, I always include a couple of quick links in my bag of tricks.
Nails and fence staples are the other items that ride around in my trick box. I often use fence staples to fasten traps at a set if there is solid wood within reach. Nails are also quite handy when you are working with any type of wood. I use them frequently when I am trying to stabilize a trap set on a log or limb. I also use them to construct cubbies or hold pieces of wood, limbs, or other things in place at a set.
There are other bonuses in having a nail or staple handy at all times. This may not seem important to all trappers, but I find that nails are a valuable product in strengthening landowner relations. A few nails driven into loose gates and fences have earned me more goodwill than a dozen "thanks for letting me trap" Christmas cards.
In one memorable incident, I came across a young farmer who had just chased his cattle out of the crops and back through a sagging barbwire fence. He stood scowling at the cattle, who were looking wistfully at the corn. "Can I help?" I asked. He held up the wire that had pulled loose from the post "Don't happen to have a fence staple do you?" he asked with a broad smile that indicated he was half joking. But to his great joy and amazement, I produced a fence staple and got the hammer from my packbasket to drive it.
Over all, my little bag of tricks has proven to be an invaluable addition to my trapping equipment. First of all it saves me time. It has pulled me out of a number of "no can do" situations, without my having to return to my vehicle or wait until the next day to construct a set. Secondly, it helps me to construct improved sets by giving me options that might not otherwise be available. In essence, it places a number of handy little items and fasteners at my immediate disposal that can be put to use on the trapline or in other situations.
I suppose it is not quite proper to call this a bag of tricks when it's not really a bag at all, but a box. Call it what you like; it has worked like a charm for those occasions when I said "Gee, I wish I had a ..." I can't pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I can conjure up some useful little items when I need them on the trapline. And the number of steps saved and sets made, thanks to this little metal box, is unbelievable. Maybe I should call it a magic box instead.
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For hardware visit the
"Hardware
& Misc." department at the Supply Line
(Posted for November - December, 2005)
Beaver with the Best
by Hal Sullivan
(This article first appeared in Fur-Fish-Game April 1992)
I pulled into the small cafe at the edge of the highway. "I'm looking for Charles Dobbins," I addressed the lady behind the counter. "He told me you would be able to direct me to his camp."
"Charles told us to be on the lookout for you," the woman answered. "If you can wait a few minutes, my husband will be back, and he can take you there."
I relaxed for a while and had a cup of coffee. The man I was waiting on, Steve, and his wife Liz ran this small cafe. For a period during the trapping season, Charles Dobbins is a frequent visitor to their cafe, besides being a personal friend. Shortly, Steve returned to the cafe, and soon I was following him down the gravel road that led to Charles Dobbins’ camp.
While there are any number of good trappers in this country, some rank above the rest. In the trapping community, Charles Dobbins in generally recognized as one of the best. His experience and expertise run the gamut of trapline knowledge. In this particular instance, the target was beaver. Southern beaver to be more precise.
Charles was operating south of the Mason Dixon line, and I had arranged to accompany him on the trapline for a few days. My primary responsibility was to shoot photographs, hopefully to become part of a book that Charles has in the making. Beyond this, I was also hoping to pick up a few pointers in the art of beaver trapping. Charles and his partner, Carl Jones, were in camp when I arrived just before dark. They had already started the daily skinning chores. There were a couple of muskrats, a mink, an otter, and a half-dozen beaver laying on the woodpile just outside the door.
"It was not a very good day," Charles said when I commented on the catch. "High water has a lot of our sets out of commission. But it is falling now, and we'll be back in business in a couple of days. In the meantime," he said, "let's get your gear stowed away, and I'll show you where you can bunk."
By trapline standards, we had fairly plush accommodations. We were staying at a deer hunting camp. The camp was equipped with a stove, refrigerator, and hot and cold running water. "This is considerably better than I am used to," Charles confided, "but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth."
My curiosity was getting the better of me so I asked, "Just how did you come up with a place like this for a trapping camp?"
Charles explained the situation, and doing so he shed a great deal of light on beaver trapping in this part of the country. In this immediate area, we were surrounded by flat bottom land bordering a major river. Ditches and levees were built and maintained to channel the water off the agricultural land. However, beaver do not comprehend the purpose of these ditches. To them, it is just another creek. And when the beaver decide to dam up one of these "creeks", some unlucky farmer ends up with a beaver pond across one end of his field.
Much of the land that was not devoted to agriculture was timber land, and here the beaver were a concern also. A strategically located beaver dam can flood acres of timber. Although trees can stand an occasional flooding, most species will not survive in standing water. Beaver also cause another problem in hardwood timber that I had not considered until Charles mentioned it to me. Everyone knows beaver eat trees, but usually they confine themselves to smaller shoreline growth, and no one much complains about the cutting. Periodically, they will chew on a larger tree, but they rarely cut them down.
The health of these larger trees is not ordinarily affected, and they will still be available for timbering - with one glaring exception. When a beaver exposes the inner bark of the tree, the sap begins to oxidize into a brown stain around the edge of the cut. This stain travels up the tree carried along by the fresh sap. Even though the cut may heal over, the stain remains. This staining makes the tree unsuitable for veneer logs and can drastically reduce the price of an otherwise valuable tree.
Beaver were plentiful here, and they were a problem. So much so, that anyone with beaver trapping skills got a warm welcome in this part of the country. In fact, many of the landowners were willing to pay a bounty for beaver taken on their land. One such gentleman, who had large land and timber holdings, was also responsible for arranging this camp for Charles. He was acutely interested in having the beaver population reduced and figured that Charles would be better able to do this job if he had a decent place to stay while he was in the area.
The next morning, we drove across the bottom land in Charles' four-wheel-drive Toyota and made our way out on one of the levees. We parked and unloaded a canoe from the rack on top of the truck. We put the canoe in the ditch that bordered the levee and paddled toward the river. Charles prefers a canoe for this type of work because of its maneuverability. In some places these ditches were no more than five or six feet wide, and periodically we encountered a beaver dam that we had to drag the canoe across.
I was impressed with the amount of beaver sign. Dams, trails, and stubbed off trees were at every turn and bend in the ditch. Most of the land was separated from the main river by a high levee, and the trails coming over this levee were deeply etched. The beaver were mostly lodged or denned on the river side of the levee, but they crossed over to travel in the ditches that ran along the inside of the levee. Here they would feed on the young trees growing along the ditch or the crops growing in the field. To maintain these ditches for traveling, the beaver constructed dams that would hold back the water.
We were slowly moving along the ditch, checking traps, when Charles hollered. "Whoa! Back up. There is supposed to be a trap at that trail, and I don't see it." I didn't see the trap either, then Charles pointed. "There it is."
Just under the surface of the water I could see an enormous beaver tail. Charles hooked the trap with his shovel, and pulled up one of the biggest beaver I have ever seen. It was held fast by a #330 bodygrip trap, and it took both of us to wrestle the animal into the canoe. Charles reset the trap, then began fishing around in the water with his shovel. I heard a faint metallic clink as the shovel contacted something, and Charles brought up a metal stabilizer for the trap. "Usually the beaver doesn't knock these things over," Charles said, "but this hog must have thrashed around for awhile."
These stabilizers are made of one-quarter inch steel rod and are roughly in the shape of an "H". A bodygrip trap is wedged into the top part of the holder, and the bottom legs are shoved into the mud to hold the trap securely in position. "I like to use these holders when it's possible," Charles commented. It is a lot faster than trying to stabilize the trap with sticks and speed is important when you're trapping for a living."
A majority of the sets here were simple blind sets made at trails and crossovers on the dams. They were made about half and half with bodygrips and footholds, depending on the conditions at the set. On this leg of his line, Charles had made only a couple of castor mound sets, and I asked him why he didn't use more of them. "You'll see more castor mound sets later," he answered, "but along this stretch these trails and
cross-overs provide plenty of opportunities for sets. It doesn't make sense to go out of my way to construct a set when there are so many natural sets available."
We loaded the canoe back on the truck, and we were off to check another leg of the trapline. But this was a different style of trapping. Now we were driving along the gravel roads to the places where the ditches intersected the roads. I thought this was a peculiar way to go about catching beaver, especially since we were traveling a long distance from where the beaver actually made their homes.
Charles gave me an explanation as we drove along. "Beaver will travel a long way from home," Charles said. "They may be seeking out new home sites, or they may just be out wandering around. They seem to be most active in this respect when the water is rising. I suppose the high water gives them access to more places. They will travel for miles up and down theses ditches."
"It has been raining so much," Charles continued, "that I haven't been able to trap the main river. But I have taken a lot of beaver out of these ditches on the high water." We pulled over where a culvert crossed the road, and Charles pointed out a trail that the beaver had made going up over the road. I asked Charles why the beaver didn't just swim through the culvert. "Like I said, these beaver usually come up these ditches on high water. The water is flowing through the culverts at a pretty good clip, and the beaver don't like to fight the current so they just get out and walk."
At the base of these trails, Charles had concealed a foothold trap under the water. And at most of these stops, he also had a castor mound set somewhere in the immediate vicinity. "These beaver are out marking their territory or looking for signs of other beaver in the neighborhood. This makes them very susceptible to castor mounds." Sometimes Charles created his own castor mound, but more often he just utilized one that had already been constructed by the traveling beaver and spiced it up with some of his own lure.
At the castor mound sets, Charles uses foothold traps almost exclusively. All of his footholds are rigged to a drowning slide. The slide wire is fastened near the trap with a stake, and the other end is fastened to a feed sack which is filled with dirt and tossed into deep water. "These feed sacks are really handy for this job," Charles said. "I don't have to carry a lot of heavy weights around with me. I keep a bunch of these sacks in the truck and just fill them with dirt from the set area as I need them."
But the fluctuating water was playing hobb with Charles' foothold traps. The rising water would make the traps too deep, and Charles would reposition them. Then the water would fall leaving the trap too shallow. Charles was not satisfied with his results at one particular location. After adjusting his foothold traps, he took a bodygrip trap and moved down the ditch about twenty-five yards. Here, he selected a narrow spot in the ditch, and fenced it down a little more with some brush and limbs. He positioned the bodygrip trap in mid-channel. The top of the trap was barely out of the water. He selected a long pole about as big around as his wrist and suspended this pole a few inches above the trap by wedging it in the brush he had used for fencing. On either side of the pole, he inserted a couple of stout sticks to hold the pole in place.
"Now," he said, "even if the water comes up again, I'll still have a set working. That pole will float above the trap, and the sticks will hold it in place. Any beaver coming up the ditch will dive when it comes to the pole and end up in that 330." (The wisdom of this theory was proved a couple of days later when the water did indeed rise about eight inches, and Charles took a beaver out of this very set.)
Back at camp, Charles demonstrated his skill at skinning and handling beaver. "I like to clean-skin all my beaver," Charles said as he sliced away at a
flattail. "It's really six of one or half a dozen of the other. It takes me almost as much time to rough skin one and flesh it as it does to just skin it out clean. The nice thing about clean skinning is I can sit down and sort of relax while I do it. A man can really work up a sweat fleshing a beaver on a beam."
I was intrigued by Charles' method of clean skinning. As he worked around the beaver, he bunched the hide up in his hand and extended his fingers out underneath the pelt on the part he was about to shave off. "I keep my fingers there so I can feel what I'm doing," he explained. "I can feel the pressure of the knife, and I can push up on the spot I'm skinning so the knife blade makes better contact." He was very fast and kept his knife in almost constant motion. When I commented on this he laughed. "It's just a matter of practice. The first hundred or so are the hardest."
When the beaver is skinned, Charles tacks it out in an oval shape on a sheet of plywood. I asked him about using patterns for stretching beaver. "They're alright," he said, "but I've done this enough that I can get the proper shape by eye. I think it’s probably good for a beginner to use a pattern until he gets the idea of what shape the beaver are supposed to be."
When the beaver was stretched, Charles took a dull knife, and scraped away any traces of fat that remained from the skinning process. Then he took the board into the house and set it behind the stove. "You have to use heat to dry your fur in this country," Charles explained. "The weather is just too humid to let the pelt dry naturally. I learned this the hard way. A few years back, I was trying to dry fur in a similar situation. I began to notice a bad smell in my skinning room, but I thought it was just the gut buckets stinking up the place. The smell got worse, so I started checking around. Before it was over with, I had to throw away forty rotten beaver hides."
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By the time I was ready to leave, dried beaver pelts were stacked up like giant furry potato chips in the camp. Charles continued to check and move traps, contending with the constantly rising and falling water. Throughout the south, and in many other areas of the country, the beaver population has made a dramatic increase. This in turn has generated a demand for trappers who can help to keep these animals in check. I'm sure there are many such trappers who are suited to the task. Others may be equally proficient, but I would hesitate to say there are any better than Charles Dobbins.
Charles
Dobbins on his beaver line in the early 1990's
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Bigger for Beaver
Catching beaver in foothold traps has always presented a major challenge for trappers. Many of the problems stem from the size of the beaver's back foot. While the front foot of a beaver is not particularly large, the back foot of an adult beaver is often as large as a human hand.
It is not hard to envision what may happen when a beaver steps on a trap with its back foot. While it may, and quite often does, land on the pan of the trap there is a great possibility that a portion of this large appendage will come to rest on top of the trap jaws. If and when the trap fires, the rising jaws often pick up the foot and throw it clear of the trap before the jaws close. The trapper ends up with a snapped trap and an educated beaver.
Traps in the #3 size are generally considered a bare minimum for beaver, and most beaver trappers prefer #4 traps. One of the largest foothold traps on the market today is the #5 Bridger. This double longspring trap, with a jaw spread of nearly eight inches, is designed exclusively for beaver. Weighing over four pounds it also helps to drown the animal quickly. Drowning sets are mandatory when using footholds on beaver. The larger size beaver traps should never be employed as dryland traps, and many states prohibit the use of these traps unless they are completely covered by water.
Fast Forward -- Today there are quite a few 7.5" traps on the market, including a #5 Bridger coilspring, CDR 7.5, and MB 750.
In reality, traps #4 size and larger find little practical application outside the beaver line. Most of the other four-legged critters are more equally apportioned from front to back, and smaller size traps serve better to make a good pad catch on a front or hind foot. But when a good size beaver Big-Foot's it across your trap, you must have the footwear to accommodate. In general, bigger is better.
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(Posted for September - October, 2005)
Leaves to be Desired
by Hal Sullivan
(This article was first published in "The Trapper" August, 1990)
It
would be very hard to find a more natural trap covering than leaves. Most
prime furbearer habitat contains some sort of trees, bushes, or shrubs;
and the ground is littered with their seasonal refuse. Rarely is an animal
hesitant to step on a leaf. But unlike the other two popular trap
coverings, dirt and water, leaves do not have a uniform texture, they come
in all shapes, sizes, and various states of decay. In using leaves for
trap covering, I have found that there are several different methods for
applying them. And I've also learned there are problems that can arise
from improperly covering a trap with leaves.
There
is some contention, which has its basis in fact, that leaves between the
jaws of the trap will allow an animal to slip its foot out. This is
ordinarily the result of using too many leaves to cover the trap. I once
told a young possum trapper to cover his traps with "a few
leaves" meaning three or four. When he complained of reoccurring pull
outs, I went to look at his line. We found a trap that was empty except
for a big wad of leaves clutched between the jaws. When I asked him how
many leaves he had put over the trap he said, "Just a few", and
indicated a depth of about four inches!
That
was certainly an extreme case; there were so many leaves in the trap that
the spring would barely rise on the jaws. But the biggest problem created
by over covering a trap with leaves is the lubricating effect that a
multiple layer of leaves can produce. You can experience this yourself if
you pick up two fresh dried leaves and rub them against each other. If a
trap closing on an animal's foot picks up several layers of leaves, there
is the potential for slipping. While the animal's foot might not slip
against a leaf and a leaf might not slip against the jaw, the
leaf-against-leaf layers could give the animal enough slippage to power
out of the trap.
The
"quality" of the leaves also helps to determine how much
slippage they might cause in a trap. Weathered or very fragile leaves are
usually preferable because they disintegrate in the jaws of the trap. Very
tough and heavy leaves might slide against the foot or jaw without
breaking up. This can be especially true of leaves that have recently
fallen, and have not had a chance to season out and become brittle. Once
they have undergone this process, or have soaked in the water for a few
weeks, most of these leaves will be weakened to the point that they will
not present a problem.
Sometimes,
I cover traps by simply sprinkling them with a handful of small willow
leaves. Any kind of very small, fine leaves can be used to cover traps in
this manner, sort of like using course hulls. When the trap fires, these
small leaves scatter in all directions and present no problem whatsoever.
A similar method is to take some crumbling leaves, and grind them through
your dirt sifter to cover the trap. Sometimes you can crumble leaves with
your hands to cover traps but don't leave wads of rolled up leaves on the
trap. This is rather unnatural, and the animal may avoid placing its foot
on top of a leaf wad.
Most
often covering a trap involves arranging moderate size leaves over the
trap. I stress the term "arrange" here because it involves more
than throwing a handful of leaves at the trap. To preclude excess leaves
from clogging the jaws and still sufficiently cover the trap, the leaves
should be placed like pieces to a rough puzzle so they are only one layer
deep.
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Here
a trap is being covered with leaves at a flat set. |
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The
leaves should be arranged individually over the trap, like
assembling a jigsaw puzzle. |
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The
trap is completely covered with just one layer of leaves. |
For
less wary critters, it is only necessary to break up the outline of the
trap, and three or four leaves might accomplish this. These leaves would
not need to be overlapped as long as they generally disguise the trap.
This pertains mostly to water trapping where three or four wet leaves can
be draped on and over the trap to break up its outline. Traps set
underwater really don't need to be camouflaged from the critters, but a
leaf or two can help to hide the trap from human eyes.
You
can use leaf coverings for more wary critters, even fox, when the
conditions warrant it. The difference here is that the leaves must be very
carefully placed so they cover the entire trap, but are no more than one
layer thick. To avoid having a leaf covering appear unnatural on a set
like this, it is almost necessary to find a location where leaves are the
predominate ground covering.
I like
to find an area where the leaves are slightly matted down. I carefully
remove the top layer of leaves to give me just enough room to dig a bed
exactly the size of the trap. I bed the trap very firmly in the snug
fitting hole, just slightly below ground level. Then I replace the leaves,
slightly overlapping them, until they form a single thickness over the
trap.
I
sometimes have problems with wind blowing the leaves away from these
traps, but mostly I use this as a wet weather alternative, and the damp
leaves stay in place. These sets will stand quite a bit of rain, and in
fact a good shower will repack the leaf cover and render the trap site
nearly invisible. If there is a water source near by, and the ground is
already saturated, I may deliberately pour a little water over the covered
trap to kill the fresh sign I have made. An alternative method is to
sprinkle a little dirt from the sifter to hold down the leaves that cover
the trap, and then sift a little more dirt around the set area so that the
trap site does not appear to be different than the surrounding ground.
Not
all leaves grow on trees, and I frequently make sets in corn fields using
the leaves and husks of this plant as a primary trap covering. I use the
same bedding procedure, but here I try to blend a loose scattering of dirt
back over the leaves. This doesn't necessarily provide one hundred percent
camouflage to the trap site, but it is again a viable alternative,
especially in wet weather.
In my
area, the sycamore trees shed an abundance of individual leaves that are
large enough to cover a whole trap, and I don't hesitate to use them or
any other large single leaf to cover a trap. This applies mainly to the
water line, where I can find a well soaked big leaf to lay over the trap.
I usually select a partially decayed specimen, because it will lay flat
over the trap, and break up when the trap fires.
I also
like to make use of these big leaves if I am trying to maintain some
pocket sets during freezing and thawing weather. If I am expecting a
freeze at a pocket set, I often move the traps above the water level, and
into the mouth of the pocket. To keep the traps from freezing down, I line
the bed with leaves. Then I find a large dry leaf to cover the
trap. Covering the trap with a wet leaf, and having that leaf freeze,
would be like placing a thin piece of metal over the trap.
I lay the dry leaf over the trap, and use my fingers to push some mud
around the edges of the leaf to hold it in place. This keeps the dry leaf
from blowing off the trap. Even if the edges of the leaf freeze down, the
center will remain flexible and allow the animal to fire the trap. When
the trap fires, it will break through the dry leaf with little trouble.
Using
leaves to cover traps is certainly not a novel idea. But the instruction
to: "Cover the trap with leaves" does not suffice to explain the
more detailed aspects of this process. This is why some trappers have
trouble with leaves and declare them unsuitable as a trap covering
material. Too many leaves over a trap can be a problem, but if the leaf
covering is no more than one layer thick, rarely will it interfere with
the action of the trap. Leaves are an acceptable, and sometimes
preferable, covering for a trap as long as a little discretion is used in
their selection and placement.
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(Posted for July-August 2005)
Stepping Sticks
by Hal Sullivan
(This article was first published in "The Trapper" May, 1990)
The first time I saw some clown use stepping sticks, I was impressed. That fella (although it could have been a gal for all I know), stood up as tall as the elephants. The way he could get around walking on those long poles amazed me and really topped off my day at the circus.
Okay, that's enough clowning. "Stepping sticks" as a trapper defines them, are sticks placed near the trap that are intended to guide the foot of the animal squarely into the trap. The idea of walking on a pair of stilts is, however, useful in helping to explain the theory and application of stepping sticks. Very few people will get on pair of stilts because they are soon thrown off balance. In the same manner, most critters will avoid a properly placed stepping stick because it presents a situation that will cause them to lose their balance, or at least throw them off stride.
A keen sense of balance is necessary for survival in the wild, and most furbearers will avoid unsound footing. Humans are no different. Lay a broom across the sidewalk and see how many people will avoid stepping on the handle. If you watched long enough, you would soon be able to tell where the next person coming along was going to step in relation to the broom handle. You can achieve the same effect on the trapline by placing a stick in the path of the animal you are trying to catch.
In its simplest form, a stepping stick is some type of twig, limb, or branch, that is laid on the ground a certain distance away from the trap. Granted that is a broad definition, but like almost all other aspects of trapping, stepping sticks must be tailored to the set and to the target species. The size of the target animal along with its walking or loping habits will determine what size stepping stick to use and how far to place it from the trap.
The term stepping stick may be a little confusing, because in practice the animal does not step on the stick. The term "guide stick" may be better because the animal's foot should be guided to a point on either side of that stick as it
avoids stepping on the stick. On a one-way set, where an animal can approach the trap from only one direction, the animal's foot is directed beyond the stick onto the trap. On a blind or trail set that could be approached from either direction, the stepping stick must be placed so that it will serve as a guide in both directions.
In general, the size of the target animal determines the size of the stick to use, especially when the stick is just laid on the ground. A stepping stick for mink could be as small as a pencil, and a stepping stick for coyote could be as big as a fence post. The idea is to make the animal think its foot will roll off if it steps on the stick. To this end, it is usually better to use very smooth round sticks in this application. If the stick is too small, the animal will just step on it, if it is too large, the animal may stand on it. The rule of thumb is to select a stick that provides uncomfortable footing for the size of the target animal's paw.
The second condition which must be evaluated is the length of the target animal's stride as it passes over the stick. Different animals take different sized steps, and even the same animal may use a different stride when it is moving rapidly than it does when it is walking or stalking prey (or a set). As a rule of thumb, an animal's footsteps will be farther apart as its speed increases. Therefore, a stepping stick used at a trail set would generally be farther from the trap than one used at an attractor set, where the animal would be moving very slowly as it approached the set. The best way to determine the spacing between the trap pan and the stepping stick is to study the tracks of the various animals. Watch where they pass over these types of objects and familiarize yourself with the length of their steps.
Laying a stick on the ground in front of the trap is the basic method for using sticks to get the animal to step in your trap. But there are other methods. If the proper conditions exist at a set, you can suspend the stepping stick above the ground. A good example would be at a blind set made against a vertical bank. Here, a small stick could be shoved into the bank so that it is parallel with the ground and an inch or two above it. This arrangement is meant to completely stop the animal and cause it to high-step over the stick. It is important to use a small stick that will not support the weight of the animal, so that the animal does not try to perch on the stick. In this application, the stick should be very near the trap because the animal will have to place its foot close to the suspended stick as it reaches over, and will be close to the stick as it steps down on the other side.
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This shows the placement of a stepping stick. The trap will be camouflaged to complete the set. |
A modified form of this arrangement involves using a very large stick, or small log to position the animal. Depending on the size of the object, the animal can be made to high step over, or using a fairly large size object, the animal can be made to step up on the guide. Using the latter method, the trap must be placed so that the animal will step in it as it climbs up or down from the stick. This placement is usually further back than when using a straight "step over" stick. However, it is not advisable to use a suspended stick or a "climb over" stick at a set where the animal will be traveling at some speed, because it may leap the stick and clear the set entirely.
Up to this point, we have dealt with animals going over the stick and stepping into the trap. But you can sometimes make the animal go around or under the stick and achieve the same results. This is a less direct method of getting the critter to step in the trap, but as an animal breaks stride to go around or slither under an object, its steps become shorter, and there is an increased likelihood that one of these steps will fall on the trap pan. I sometimes refer to these as "face" sticks because they are usually planted at face height to the animal and slightly lower than the animal's shoulders. A "face" stick can be supported by brush or debris on either side of the trap approach, or one can be made by planting a sharply forked stick alongside the approach, with the fork acting as the face stick.
If there is no room to get around the trap, the animal will slither under a face stick placed in the trail. You might think of this arrangement as a dryland "dive" stick. Another option is to steer the animal around the face stick. This is best applied where an animal has to change course sharply to get around the stick, then continues the same route on the other side. Generally, when an animal makes a sharp detour it will place its foot exactly on the outside point of the obstruction because here it must change course, and this is the shortest path around.
Using sticks in this manner can also have advantages in steering nontarget animals out of the trap. A face stick can be used in a trail set for fox. Set at the proper height, it causes fox to duck under the stick, but animals like dogs and deer jump over the stick and clear the trap entirely. These are often referred to as jump sticks for that reason. In the same manner, a face stick at a trail set for mink could be provided with a detour that would cause coon to walk around the stick, while a mink slithered under.
Small sticks, branches, and limbs are a very natural part of the environment for most furbearers. Most animals are accustomed to stepping over, under, or around this randomly scattered woody debris. Taking advantage of this natural tendency, a trapper can strategically place a stick of his own to get an animal to step in a trap that is not so randomly placed. Stepping sticks are one more advantage that a trapper can use to get an animal, that has the whole outdoors to choose from, to put its foot on that tiny spot above the trap pan.
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