The bottom edge muskrat thread got me thinking of my youth and introduction to trapping. The old boot stomp in the creek bank with an apple and a number 1 long for rats was the first set I learned well over 30 years ago. The deadly beaver or rat bank den with a body grip followed. Then it was the coon cubby, usually a natural cubby or two flat rock stacked like a tent backed into a bank. A can of sardines or homemade bait and a 1 1/2 coil did the trick. Remember my first bait from around the same time. A gallon of fish mixed with molassas and honey that sat on the barn roof for half a summer. Caught a decent amount of fur as a kid with those simple sets. Checked the line on an old DR125 suzuki dirtbike. Good memories.

What were some of you fellas first sets like?

A dirthole and a post set.
I will never the first coyotes.
Jim

Chopped notch on a floating log for rat.
Still use it.

Blind mink and fox sets. And dirt holes for fox. Well that's what they was meant for but I caught a lot of possums. I made a bait it was tainted deer scrapes fermented polkberrys, don't know why I caught so many possums@!!!!?
Colt

One of my uncles was the one that got me going...
Gave me 3 Victor 1 1/2's and showed me the coon cubby set as well.
He loved to catch catfish and would save all the junk stuff in his freezer. May aunt did not appreciate it, but put up with it cause he bought her something nice at Christmas with his fur money.
He'd get me 3 or 4 boxes of 22 shorts for Christmas for trapping but I'd have them all shot up by Jan 1 - LOL!

Pen set baited with and apple and a no. 1 long spring. Didn’t catch many rats but a decent number of ducks. Didn’t know any better but Mom was happy. Statue of limitations has run out.

Cut my teeth with my uncle also and we were water trappers. His father, my gramp, was a well known canine trapper but he was so secretive back then that he wouldn't talk much or show us anything. Both those boys have long passed, so had to learn land trapping through books, trail and error.

330 at a beaver slide, aka "Taylor made set", when I was 44 yrs old in late '03, and was the oldest rookie on this site.
Made it the way Claudie Taylor taught in Trappers Ed Class and BAM......I was hooked.

Next was a "Leaning limb" snare set as in Pauls video Beaver Sites and Sets, with the lure stick barely in, so it floats off once snare is tripped.

Next was a "dam break set" with "breasting sticks".

All these are off the same video and started a nuisance animal removal biz by accident!

I was/am a 60 year old rookie

ply wood platform on a 2x2 for rats. used apple for bait

Dirt hole sets and stone cubbies for coons-caught more 'possums(but they were worth 5 or 6 bucks then) and apple slices on a stick above a #1 longspring for muskrats.