Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "what about trapping wolves? Are they not worth trapping? Are they hard to catch, or is it not much trouble to catch young wolves?"

"Those that are one to two years old are easy caught, but if a wolf has been traveling the prairie for three or four years, he gets to be pretty smart. Wolf skins are worth from four to six dollars apiece, and so, of course, wolves are worth trapping, but in old times we always used to poison them, and that was cheaper and a whole lot less trouble than catching them in traps. Besides that, a wolf is a powerful, strong animal, and he can pack off a trap with him just as if he weren't carrying anything at all. Then, too, on the prairie there is usually nothing to fasten a trap to, and unless you carry a lot of iron picket pins with you, you lose your traps about as fast as you can set them."

"You have told me all about poisoning wolves, Hugh," said Jack, "but you never said anything about trapping, and I don't understand how you fix the bait in a trap. You certainly can't put it on the pan, for you don't want to catch the wolf by the nose, and if you did, he would pull free."

"Of course he would," said Hugh; "you want to catch a wolf by the foot, and to do that you must scatter your bait around the trap so that he will put his foot in it; but after all, in trapping wolves you don't use bait at all. Generally you use a scent, something that a wolf smells and wants to smell more of, and you raise that above the ground a foot or eighteen inches and set your trap so that he will step into it when he tries to get near the scent."

"That's news to me," said Jack; "I supposed that you always set your traps with something to eat."

"No," said Hugh; "very seldom. The beaver medicine that we use is just something to smell of; not to eat at all. But about wolf bait: the worst smelling thing that you can get hold of is about the best bait for wolves. Some people use asafetida or other drugs that they can buy in the shops, but the best thing that I know of is to take a piece of fresh meat, put it with some grease in a wide-mouthed bottle or jug, and let it stand in the heat for a week or two, until it gets to smelling very badly. Then add to it some beaver castor and about a quart of oil or grease, and cork it up tight. Of course, when you set your trap you must be careful not to leave any scent of yourself on it. Some people smoke their traps every time they set them, and if they can, use a fire of green pine boughs, but I don't count much on that. I believe that though smell of fire may kill the human scent, it makes the wolves suspicious. I think the better way is to wear gloves when you set your traps, and to be careful always to keep the traps to the windward of you. Don't let the wind blow from you to the traps. Of course, in setting, you have to dig out a hole in the ground large enough to let the trap set in it, so that the jaws will be just level with the ground. Then sprinkle over the trap a light covering of dust, and after the trap is set take a stick eighteen inches or two feet long, sharpen one end of it, dip the other end in your bottle of scent, and stick the sharpened end in the ground so that the end with the scent on it will pretty nearly overhang the trap.

"You have to fasten your trap, of course. If you don't do that the wolf will carry it away. The best way to fasten it is to bore a hole through the end of a stick three feet long and as big as the calf of your leg, pass the end of a chain through that, and then drive a staple through the ring and into the log. Then if the wolf gets into the trap, he is not held in one place struggling to get out, and twisting the chain, and so likely to break it, but he starts off dragging the stick, which makes a plain trail, catching every now and then in the sage brush and so making him go slowly. It doesn't give him a chance to fight the trap. If you go to your traps every day, you will find that a wolf will not drag the clog very far before you overtake him. Then you probably have to shoot him.

"As I say, there is a lot of work in trapping wolves that way, and I would hate to have to earn my living by doing it. If it should happen that we should get to any place where wolves are plenty we can set two or three traps for them, but I don't want to do that until we have tried beaver trapping, because I am afraid we will lose some of our traps."

"I had no idea, Hugh," said Jack, "that wolves were so cunning and so powerful."

"Yes," said Hugh, "they are strong animals, and when they have grown old they are pretty smart. They are mighty tough, too. Haven't I ever told you about that wolf that Billy Collins killed three or four years ago at the ranch?"