Steel Traps / Describes the Various Makes and Tells How to Use Them, Also Chapters on Care of Pelts, Etc.

by A. R. Harding

WOLVES AND COYOTES.

Find an old trail that the coyotes use, plant your trap in as narrow a part of the trail as possible, fasten trap to a good toggle, bury the toggle to one side of the trail. Have a blanket while doing the work. Place all dirt on the blanket. After trap, chain and toggle are put in place and wool has been put under pan, cover all nicely with dirt from the blanket. The dirt should not be over one-fourth of an inch deep. Leave everything looking as it did before you began.

Now have an old stick (not a fresh cut one) the size of your wrist and long enough to reach across the trail and lay it about eight inches from the trap and crosswise of the trail. A coyote won't step on the stick, but will step over it every time. Use caution and leave no human signs and you will get your coyote. This method is used successfully in Texas, says a wolf trapper of that state.

The wolf is a pretty hard animal to trap, writes a Minnesota trapper. Whenever he gets near a bait he is always shy and that is because he can smell iron, but if you put a trap in his track and he comes along he will walk right in and get caught. That is because he thinks there is no danger in his own tracks. There are many times that he falls a victim to the trap that way. I will describe a set most trappers use here in the winter when there is snow on the ground.

They take some horse manure and haul it out on some plowed field and make two heaps not very high and in one of them they put the bait and in the other the traps. Four traps are mostly used, secured to a log. Care must be taken not to cover the traps too much. The best bait, I think, is the entrails from a hog.

Trappers for wolves should not use smaller than No. 3 traps. The No. 4 is known as the wolf trap and will be found suitable for all sections. If wolves have been feasting off the carcass of a sheep, calf or other animal, set your trap there. If you have plenty of traps a half dozen set within eighteen inches of the carcass and carefully covered up, should make a catch.

The trap and fastening, a weight and clog, be it remembered, should be covered. If you dig up the ground in order to conceal the clog, have a basket or something along to put the earth in and carry away some distance. Everything must be left as natural as possible.

Another method is to hang up a dead chicken and place a trap directly under it. Hang the fowl about three feet high.

The secret, at least one of them, in trapping is to leave everything as natural as possible after setting your trap. Most animals will regard with suspicion if there is much change around their den. In the case of skunk it perhaps is not so particular, yet the trapper who carefully conceals his traps will be well repaid for so doing. Even when trapping for skunk you never know what animal may come along.

Then to be ready, adopt the rule of always carefully covering your traps. We all admit that the fox and wolf are shy animals and are rather difficult to catch, yet they are frequently caught by trappers who are only trapping for opossum or skunk. These trappers, of course, had their traps carefully hidden. While fox and wolf are among the smartest animals, yet they can be caught, as the thousands of pelts sold annually is evidence. See to it, trappers, that every trap is set and covered properly and you will be rewarded some morning on visiting your trap by a fox or wolf if they are many in your section.

WOLF CAUGHT AT BANK SET.

Now a word about trapping those cute little coyotes, writes a California trapper. The best way to catch anything that walks on four legs is to make a fool of them. Some people may think that is "hot air," but I know better.

The best way to fool an old coyote is to take a fresh sheep skin and drag it, you riding on a horse, for a mile or so in the hills near where your man is in the habit of going, (now be sure you don't touch it with your hands) until you find an open hill not too high. Have a stake there before hand and your traps set. The traps should be left lying in the sheep pen for a week before setting.

When you get to the stake, hang your pelt on it, so when the wind blows the pelt will move. Mr. Coyote will be sure to find the trail you have made and will follow it until it sees the pelt, and then he will walk around it for a night or so, but he will not get too near the first night or three or four nights, but he will try to pull the skin down and he will forget about the traps and everything else and will be taken in just like all the other suckers.

My outfit consists of the following, writes a well known Western trapper: Sixty No. 3 Newhouse single spring otter traps (I find they will hold any wolf and are easier set than double spring traps), an axe, 60 stakes 16 or 18 inches long, 12 or 15 pounds of wool or cotton, wool preferred, 20 stakes 10 or 12 inches long, a piece of oil cloth or canvas about 3 feet square, a light wagon and team, a good rifle and four stag hounds. The hounds are trained so stay on the wagon until told to go, and will nearly always get a coyote when sent after him.

In setting traps I choose a high knoll or a bare spot on the range — often the bed of a dry creek — where I see plenty of signs, and then proceed as follows: Stick one of the small stakes where I want the bait and from 20 to 24 inches from it lay a trap and stretch the chain straight back, drive stake through chain ring and drive down below the surface of the ground an inch or more. Then fix two more traps the same way at the opposite points of a triangle. Set your traps and place a good wad of wool under the pan so that rabbits and other small game will not spring it, and then proceed to bed the traps and chains, placing all the dirt on the canvas.

Now place your bait (I always use live bait if weather is not too cold, but have had good success with dead bait). Lay an old dead hen or other fowl in the center and drive small stakes through it into the ground firmly; cover end of stake with wing or feathers of bait.

Now step back and take dirt from the canvas and cover traps 1/2 or 5/8 inch deep; also cover your own tracks, and brush over all with a bush. If traps are well set it will be hard to tell where the traps lay. All dirt that is left on canvas should be taken away some distance and dropped. In using live bait proceed the same way with traps, only bait should be tied by the feet with a good stout cord and place a can of corn and one of water within reach of fowl, both cans to be set into the ground level with surface. Do not go nearer to traps than to see that they are not sprung and do not shoot or club game in the traps, but choke to death with a copper wire on the end of a pole; a good stout cord will answer the same purpose. Wipe all blood off traps before setting again and brush out your tracks as before, and above all, don't spit tobacco juice near your traps.

After catching one wolf or coyote, do not use more bait, as the scent is strong enough to draw all that comes near. I do not use any patent decoy or scents, as I consider them useless for any game. The only scent I use is what I make myself, and then only use it from February to April. In the summer I gather up four or five bitch dogs and as fast as they come in heat I kill them and take the organs of generation and pickle them in wide mouth bottles with alcohol enough to cover. I sprinkle a few drops on a stone or bush, stick in center between traps, but use no other bait. This is also good for fox.

The above method is the same as I learned it from an old Hudson Bay trapper, Pierre Deverany, who was born in 1817 and had trapped all through the British possessions and the Rocky Mountains, with whom I trapped for several years.