I go around every fall in August and look for places to catch sly reynard, says an Eastern fox trapper. I look up all the warm springs back in the hills and dig them out and leave a stick or rail there for a clog. I leave it just where I want it, so that they will get used to it.
About the middle of October I go and bait every place, using a piece of chicken or muskrat about as large as a butternut. I place it on a rock in the middle of the spring or about a foot from the bank and put a stone half-way between that and the bank just under water. Then I take a stone, the thinner the better. You can find enough of them around a ledge where the frost has scaled them off. I lay it on the rock that is just under the water so it will stick out of water. It ought to be 2 inches across each way.
I use the scent of the skunk on the sole of my boots so as to kill the scent and handle the bait with a "knife and fork," never with my hands. It won't be long before the bait it gone when I am ready to set my traps, then I move the middle stone and put the thin one on the pan of the trap so it will just stick out of the water. Try this and you will get your fox. Scatter three or four drops of fish oil around trap.
SPRING TRAPPING.
When setting traps for beaver and otter in the early open water, writes a Canadian of experience, the greatest difficulty and annoyance the trapper has to contend against is the varying depths of the water caused by the melting of the snows during the day and the running down of the levels during the frosty nights. This, of course, applies more to rivers than to lakes, but as the rivers open so much earlier than the lakes it is on them the early trapping is prosecuted. It is most exasperating to visit one's trap in the morning and find by the signs that the beaver or otter had paid his visit and that the trap was out of order by being a couple of feet under water, or high and dry up the bank.
To avoid this close observation of the working of the water must be taken note of by the trapper. Weather conditions is a factor to be reckoned with. A rainy night and a cold frosty one have, of course, different effects, and must be considered with all their bearings by the would-be successful trapper. The best time to make a set or final adjustment of one's trap is as late in the afternoon as possible. Then one sees how much the stream has risen since morning, and calculate by his judgment how much it will recede during the coming frosty night. Or if rain has set in or is imminent before morning, how much further the rise will be.
A MORNING'S CATCH OF RATS.
With these daily and nightly variations of the water, of course, traps must be visited each morning and evening. It is therefore good policy at every early visit to make a level mark near each set, whereby in the evening when the trap is to be properly adjusted, the day's changes can be noticed with accuracy. Small streams, of course, fluctuate more than large rivers, the latter generally showing a steady increase in volume from the beginning of the break-up until the lake ice is all melted. There are many tributaries of large streams that one can easily jump across early in the morning, after a sharp frosty night, which are positively raging torrents at sundown. On streams with such wide variances in depth, trapping is almost impossible. At all events, a good deal rests on chance. One has to manage his trap with a large amount of guess work. Streams with a breadth of an acre or so move up and down with a greater degree of uniformity, and the trapper who pays close attention to the movements of the water and weather conditions can set his trap pretty accurately for business. A river such as I have mentioned last, whose feeders are a considerable distance up stream, generally falls a third of what it rose during the daytime. Thus, if you find that since morning the level has risen nine inches it will be safe to set your trap six inches under water. By this calculation there would be three inches over the jaws at the lowest ebb next morning, the night before being cold and dry.