Mornin Mole...
71 here this morning...

Happy Birthday!

Where I live the rural municipality (RM) owns all ditches. No private ditches. All ditches can be trapped and the RM prefers it for all the damage rats and beavers do to the roads. Could be different in other provinces but I don’t know. Just info from my experience. We don’t have a lot of trappers in our province, maybe 4-5000 licens sold every year. That being said some people were asking about making funnels. Snapped a few pics and gave some info on why and how I do things. Most of the metal I use is scrap pieces from an eave’s trough business. Always have end rolls they can’t use so the give them to me or I get them for next to nothing. Aluminum, metal whatever I could get for as cheap as possible.


Still have a hundred or more cones waiting to be built into colonies. No muskrats no one buying traps


Wire coat hanger gate. Can be bent in or out for size of hole. Flips up and down like butter. Bad picture cause the hole looks huge , next picture is the same hole
I make the gate clips out of the same material as the cones. Best tip I can give you for this is when you fold it over put a nail where the coat hanger sits. Make sure the nail is bigger than the coat hanger wire. Take a pair of plyers and squish the metal around the nail. It makes the gate flip up and down easy. Built a few traps before I learnt a huge upgrade to the gate.

Two rivets to hold the gate. I always try to put white side out. Gates I always put the attachment to a dark color. Sometimes I forget. The reason is when I put them in a culvert I know the topside of my colony and know the gate is down. You learn a lot of info when you put the colony in with the gate open and check and find no rats

Insides are usually brown, green or black on the metal I get, or I spray paint them a dark color. The rats see the opening in the cone and it looks like a den entrance to them. At least that’s what I believe

Three rivets to close the cone. Vise grip on each end and it’s easy

Wood pattern I clamp my blanks on to drill holes for hog rings to attach to wire cage

Blank pattern I had a buddy who is a tin basher make. Very thick and I trace my pattern with it on to my pieces

Finished cone before I rivet it together

I miss trapping high numbers of rats. Probably have 1000s of pictures on my old phone. Maybe with all the rain we are getting they’ll make a comeback. Got 3 inches yesterday an another 2 today. Forecast says rain for the next week. The been dry here for the last 7-8 years.

I had a horse that was buddy.Sour... And I thought that horse in circles train to settle it down because it wanted to go back home. I took it 3 miles down the road and tied it up in some shade
To a fence post on the edge of the woods then I tried scouting for deer
Made me so nervous the horse never shut up the whole time.And I could hear it's partner and crime. Most of the way down, I could hear the 2 horses talking, and I said, my 4 Wheeler never treated me this way. So I got rid of the horses and got a newer. Twenty twenty two can am five seventy love it

maybe a dozen I got one back probably 20 years after I lost it.

an old timer one of the USA old timers , they were going through my great aunts house if she found something cleaning she would put it in one of a few decorative pots with lids around the house . she passed in July 2024 , in Oct 2025 I was visiting the house and my cousin who owns it now she opened up this pot and asked if I knew what any of this was.

well my dad had a knife in there , I had a knife and a compass in there , and there were 3-4 of the compasses my uncle carried but he is dead. some 20ga slugs a few rounds of 22lr we hunted from her house so anything we ever lost in a couch cushion was in that jar , probably intending that she would give it to use next time we visited and she always forgot.

she was a child of the depression she saved so many things.


we had a buck contest one year , no one shot a buck but we had all put 20 bucks in the envelope , it sat in her China hutch for a few years , and she said I found this envelope of money in the China hutch labeled buck contest , we remembered but couldn't even remember what year it was so we decided she should just have it and she refused so we agreed to buy beer for everyone with it in town the next day.

As stated, as old as he is going to get. But I would say an older yote. I usually judge them as a pup, young, prime of life, or old. Now exactly what years fit each of those except pup, is up for debate, somewhat. But I'd judge this one as being on the younger end of the old category. Maybe 5-6?

Those will be worth more than a quarter immediately.

Keith

I have 6 of the long 10 foot white ones. I painted them camel. When I first got them and they're half white. Now never had a problem with beaver shying away from them. I wish I would have bought twenty of them when they were available

To show what?

No, that is not the best thing to do with collector traps. They are your traps, you can do what you like, but if you want to preserve them and thier collector value, WD40 is a good way to clean them up. You can use WD40, steel wool and a hand held wire brush, just don't get too carried away. You want to keep the patina, natural brown color of the metal. After you have cleaned them up, dry them with paper towels. The WD40 gives them a nice dark brown color.

I go driving in the evening to watch the sunset and look at wildlife, I know I see a lot more far away deer as I age, lol I do see a few up close as well.

Yeah...get yourself a file and go to work on those floppy Montgomery dogless pans to achieve that desired pan tension.

And, as I mentioned in your Live Market thread.....offset jawed traps cause more foot cutting than regular jawed traps. The gap allows just enough sliding back and forth thruout the night's tussle to cut the skin on nearly every coyote or fox foot.

Regular jaws clamp and hold (if springs are strong). Most of the time...there is not even a small nick in top of the foot.

Agreed, even today with the lures that are made a 1 oz. bottle will make quite a few sets.