I get No. 14 brass wire (mind, you must temper the wire) that I find the hardest part of the game. Cut your wire about 34 or 36 inches long, make it into rings round, put in a good hot fire for three or four minutes, or until red. Be very careful and not let it lie on coal, handle very carefully; don't strike against anything while hot, as it will break like glass, but if you have it tempered you cannot break it. I have caught three foxes in the same snare, says Larry Burns, of Canada.
You must make your snare just the same as a rabbit snare, only make a loop about six inches around. Find when the fox passes under a fence or on a cow path, in winter, find where they make a habit of going. Set your snare in such places or around old carrion in bushes, cedar is best, use weeds rolled round your snare, don't use too many as they will notice. Use a green stick to hold your snare fast, You wire about a foot from large end. Always stand up the stick just the same as growing. The stick should be 1 1/2 inches thick. Be careful and make as few foot marks as possible and stand on one side of your snare. While setting don't spit tobacco juice near snare.
A great many foxes have been caught in this country by the plan of the drawing outlined, writes J. C. Hunter, of Canada. A--the snare, should be made of rabbit wire, four or five strands twisted together. Should be long enough to make a loop about seven inches in diameter when set. Bottom side of snare should be about six inches from the ground. E--is a little stick, sharp at one end and split at the other, to stick in the ground and slip bottom of snare in split end, to hold snare steady.
SPRING POLE SNARE.
B--is catch to hold down spring pole. C--is stake. D--is spring pole. Some bend down a sapling for a spring pole, but we think the best way is to cut and trim up a small pole about ten feet long; fasten the big end under a root and bend it down over a crotch, stake or small tree. Snare should be set on a summer sheep path, where it goes through the bushes.
Stake might be driven down a foot or more back from the path, where a branch of an evergreen bush would hang over it so as to hide it and a string long enough from stake or trigger to snare to allow snare to rest over path.
Of course, in making this set you will have to use care and your own ingenuity to a great extent, to suit the requirements of the surroundings. Another way is to find a log, tree or pole that lies across a brook that is too wide for a fox to jump from one bank to the other. Set snare on log, but in this case, bottom side of snare should be only about four inches from log, as a fox will carry his nose lower while crossing a stream on a log. If the log is near the water, a spring pole should be used; if the log is high up from the water, fasten snare to log by driving in a wooden pin in the side of the log, and when the fox gets in snare he will tear around, fall off of log and hang all right.