DEEP WATER SET TRAP FASTENING.
When there is a muddy or sandy bottom, the better way is to allow enough length of pole to bury a foot or so into the bottom. This will hold the pole secure and prevent rolling. Now take two nice, young, juicy popple or young birch, branch them off clear to the small end and have them six to nine feet long; put them in small end first and place one on each side of trap, five inches from it and about the same above. These pieces of food wood can be kept in proper place by packing the butt ends down on the solid ice and putting snow and water on top.
If it is at all cold it will get solid in a few moments. Next process is to cut fifteen or twenty young spruce trees a couple of inches in diameter and about five feet long; place these straight up and down outside the popple wood. This will form a fence at each side with spaces four inches apart. Right up at the end where all your work centers, a few dry branches can be forced in and down to prevent the animal from cutting away the food from the back. With a little practice you can have all this fixed to a nicety.
The beaver entering from the lower slope of the wood and swimming up to gnaw the sticks close to the ice, sets off the trap and in his struggles he pulls it clear from the cleft and in a few moments is drowned. After all is in shape the opening in the ice is dusted over with snow and left to freeze.
In visiting the trap at the end of two or three days, it is only necessary to chisel a very small hole to see if the trap or bait are displaced. This can be readily ascertained by lying flat on the ice, partly cover your head with your coat or blanket and with your face close to the hole all objects in a few moments will become clear.
For otter set, the trap pole is made in the same way, but instead of popple or birch, a small fish is used for bait. Skewer it from the dorsal fin thru to the stomach and suspend it above and back of the trap at the proper distance. As it appears in its natural position in the water and the skewer is hardly visible, an otter swimming past takes it for a live fish and in dashing for his meal gets caught.
I have found this set very successful in creeks and small rivers, even in setting out from the shore.
Otters, like mink, have their feeding grounds on lakes and connecting rivers and are sure to skirt the shores in swimming down or up stream. If the stream is very broad it will be as well to have a trap on each shore and thus enhance the certainty of getting his fur.