Deadfalls and Snares: A Book of Instruction for Trappers About These and Other Home-Made TrapsHarding, A. R. (Arthur Robert)
General
Deadfalls and Snares: A Book of Instruction for Trappers About These and Other Home-Made Traps
Harding, A. R. (Arthur Robert)
Animal traps; Animal traps -- Juvenile literature
This deadfall can also be used at runways without bait. No pen or
bait is required. The game will be caught coming from either
direction. The trap is "thrown" by the trigger or pushing against it
when passing thru. During snowstorms the trap requires considerable
attention to keep in perfect working order, but at other times is
always in order when placed at runways where it is used without bait.
The trap can also be used at dens without bait with success. If used
with bait it should be placed a few feet from the den or near any
place frequented by the animal or animals you expect to catch.
Of course we all admit the steel trap is more convenient and
up-to-date, says a New Hampshire trapper. You can make your sets
faster and can change the steel trap from place to place; of course,
the deadfall you cannot. But all this does not signify the deadfall
is no good; they are good and when mink trapping the deadfall is
good. To the trapper who traps in the same locality every year, when
his deadfalls are once built it is only a few minutes' work to put
them in shape, then he has got a trap for the season.
I enclose a diagram of a deadfall (called here Log Trap) which, when
properly made and baited, there is no such a mink catcher in the trap
line yet been devised. This trap requires about an hour to make and
for tools a camp hatchet and a good strong jackknife, also a piece of
strong string, which all trappers carry.
This trap should be about fifteen inches wide with a pen built with
sticks or pieces of boards driven in the ground. (See diagram.) The
jaws of this trap consist of two pieces of board three inches wide
and about three and a half feet long, resting edgeways one on the
other, held firmly by four posts driven in the ground. The top board
or drop should move easily up and down before weights are put on. The
treddle should be set three inches inside level with the top of
bottom board. This is a round stick about three-fourths inch thru,
resting against two pegs driven in the ground. (See diagram.) The
lever should be the same in size. Now put your stout string around
top board. Then set, pass lever thru the string over the cross piece
and latch it in front of the treddle. Then put on weights and adjust
to spring, heavy or light as desired. This trap should be set around
old dams or log jams by the brook, baited with fish, muskrat, rabbit
or chicken.
[Illustration: BOARD OR POLE TRAP.]
I herewith enclose a drawing of a deadfall that I use for everything
up to bear, writes a Rocky Mountain trapper, I hate to acknowledge
that I have used it to get "lope" meat with, because I sometimes
believe in firing as few shots as I can in some parts of the
Mountains.
[Illustration: BAIT SET DEADFALL.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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