CHAPTER XIII.
TENNESSEE TRAPPER'S METHODS.
Do you trap foxes? If you do I bet you have some favorite way, and too, doubtless in most respects it's different from my way of trapping them, as there seems to be almost as many methods as there are successful trappers; nor either is the same confined to the methods used, but to the kind of traps employed, baits, scents, etc., says B. P. Pickens.
The Water Set, the Sheep Path Methods, are national, and known to be O. K., though the former requires bait attractions, and lots of other preparations, while the latter with me has never necessarily required baits or scents to make it a good success.
I do not confine my fox trapping to any one method long, for I am always governed by the surroundings, and conditions, yet my traps are set and concealed the same way, no matter for what animals I intend to trap.
My traps set for skunk and rats are just as carefully set and concealed as though they were set for fox and coon.
My favorite is a Newhouse Fox Trap for every purpose, as it will hold.
My reasons for using nothing smaller than a No. 2 Fox Trap is that a fellow does not always know if a fox will happen about his skunk traps or a big coon about his rat traps, and since I have found Mr. Fox and Mr. Coon a few times in the toils I make every preparation for his reception.
I will endeavor to tell some of the things I do, which is a good way to take a fox. I commence early in the spring, if the ground is not ready to arrange for my fall and winter trapping, looking out for their signs, and continue to keep my eyes open all summer and around the pastures, in the fields, old roads, and in the woods, gullies and washouts. I arrange to trap them in stock paths by laying a limb or fence rail across these paths, while the use of stock all summer renders it old, and on either side of this path obstruction is just the place for a fox trap. I cut and wire my trap chain to the middle of a brush, one that a fox can drag some distance away, which leaves this same place a good risk for another catch, where if stapled to something he could not move he would render the place unfit for the rest of the season.