Make 1 and 2 of hard wood. Saw a block 3 1/2 inches long and split into 3/4 inch squares. Make cuts square with a saw and split out the part you don't want. Bevel ends with a hatchet. Make trigger of green hard wood stick with bark on.
I cut a tree from 8 to 10 inches in diameter and cut off 7 feet long. Split the piece open and bury one piece on a level with the earth — split side up — and place the other half on top. I hew off any bumps and make a perfect fit. Then I cut out bushes the size of my arm, and drive them down on each side of my fall and leave them an inch or two higher than I expect my top log to be when set. Be sure to begin far enough at the back to force the animals to go in at the front. I use the figure four triggers and tie the bait to the long trigger.
Another trigger is made as follows: Cut two forks and lay pole across just in front of the log on top of the forks. Take another piece of timber about four feet long, tie a string to each end and let one end have a trigger and the other be tied on your top log. I drive a nail in the top log and tie the string to it, and I call this my Fly trigger. It acts as a lever, for when the fly comes up over the piece on the forks and the trigger goes over half way back by the side of the log, and the trigger about a foot long — straight and thin, and sticks under the log — have a short trigger tied to the fly pole and a forked sapling the size of your finger and long enough to stick in the ground to hold the trigger. Put the bait on long trigger and catch the short trigger through the fork and let it catch the long trigger. This trigger leaves the fall open in front and is the one I prefer.
Take two small logs about 10 or 12 feet long, large enough to break a coon's back, and make a pen about midway, or one-third from front end, to put the bait in, and the trigger. Two foot boards, or saplings will do, and make the pen so that the animal will have to step across the bottom log and take the bait, and be sure to set so that the top log will fall across the mink, coon, skunk, or opossum, as they are the animals I kill with the fall. Use fly pole triggers as above, for this deadfall.
I make these falls near the runways of the animals I wish to catch. When I am sure to stay at a place, I build my falls in the summer and by the trapping time they look old and natural.
CHAPTER IX.
TRIP TRIGGERS.
The deadfall shown here can be used at dens or in paths where animals travel frequently. When set across the entrance of dens it will catch an animal going in without bait. That is, it will catch an animal going in, as the triggers are so constructed that they can only be pushed towards the bait as shown in illustration. If the trap is to be used at dens without bait the regular figure 4 triggers had best be used, but set extending along the log instead of back into the pen. An animal in entering will strike the trigger and down comes the fall.