The bait and trap should be from 30 to 40 feet apart — gauge the distance according to the lay of the ground where the trap is set. When the wolf scents the bait, he will approach it with great caution and endeavor to reach it by jumping. After several unsuccessful attempts to reach it, he will proceed to the highest ground in the immediate vicinity of the bait, where he will set himself upon his haunches and set up a great howl, calling every wolf within the hearing of his voice to the spot.
Your trap, you see, is set upon the highest point of this mound or knoll, and a wolf is almost certain to get into the concealed trap. I sometimes set as many as eight traps on a mound in the vicinity of the bait, and I have caught from two to four wolves in a single night in this way. This was in cases, of course, where a pack arrived before the original finder of the bait was caught. You see if they had found him in a trap when they arrived on the scene, they would not come within yards of the place, but would cut out for tall timber at once, even if they did get a whiff of the bait on the sapling.
Wolves are even more easily caught in the spring of the year than at any other time. This is, of course, after the close of the hunting season. They are hunters themselves and prefer to chase and kill their own game and this accounts for the fact that they will seldom ever touch a deer carcass left in the woods by hunters. When the snow is deep they hunt deer by following their tracks for hours, even days, until they finally get their prey into a place where the animal can't run or defend itself. The feast is then on in short order.
Wolves kill more deer in this country than two legged hunters. If the state is going to do the right thing to protect the deer, just let them put a bounty of $50.00 on the wolves in every county in the Upper Peninsula. Then the woods will be full of men with rifles, and in a year or two there wouldn't be a wolf in Northern Michigan.
If the state did this instead of getting out a lot of swell books on the game laws, we would have the deer with us a few years yet But as it is now, the wolves alone will pick the bones of the last deer in this whole Northern Michigan in less than three years from now. Mark you these words, the state now pays $25.00 for every pelt, but it don't seem to induce hunters and trappers to make a business of wolf trapping. Even with plenty of wolves to catch, following the business for a living is one of extreme hardship, but if they put the bounty in the $50.00 notch, then there would be something doing and the hardship would have no terrors to the men who took up the hunt in earnest."
I spent a week with this interesting man. He has over 300 Newhouse traps of all sizes and quite a pile of mink and skunk skins. He said he never trapped for muskrats as he didn't consider them worth while. His forte being mink, otter, skunk, fox and wild cat, with wolves a side line — although it didn't appear as such to me.
He was greatly interested in my 35 caliber Automatic Winchester rifle and when I fired it a few shots for him, as quick as I could, his eyes stuck out like tea cups. "Say, Hank, you ought to get one." "Not if I know myself, them pop guns is all right for dudes and those fellows with that tired feelin'. Old Betsy is good enough for me." So saying, he took down "Betsy" for my inspection. It was a Sharpe's rifle and a good one, too. It shoots a 45-100 Sharpe's special with a 550 grain ball set trigger, open and peep sights, and weighs 12 pounds. And just to show me how she behaved, he blew a two quart jug off a stump at an estimated distance of 500 yards. "How many deer have you ever killed, Uncle?" I asked. "Well, I can't say, Jack, but give me a dead rest and I can plug a dollar every time at 100 yards." "Well, for heaven's sake, how many have you shot at?" "Well, I can't tell, Jack, but I must have shot at more than 1,000 of 'em at not over 50 yards."
As a pledge of my friendship, I gave him my Marble pocket axe and knife. It was with a heavy heart that I grasped his honest hand to say good bye — perhaps for the last time on this earth. If so, I sincerely hope to meet him in the "Happy Hunting Grounds" to part no more.