You eastern guys sure overthink those stupid cats. A 5' x 4' piece of sheep fence bent in a upside down U is all you need. Guy can carry 10 of them into the woods, cover with a little brush and your done!

Tossing a drum in the brush is not rocket science either!

I've never seen that tool. I'll look into. I want somethibg that doesn't leave a sharp edge.

Get a guy that's familiar with one and he should be able to walk it around the rim and reduce the chance of the sharp edges and little hammering works also. Ear plugs are a must it's a annoying sound they make.

Walk-thru or blind cubby? A foothold at each end, or just one end? Maybe snare(s)? Been thinking of doing something like this with fencing and would like to know the best way you and others have found.

I'd say 80% of my cats come from the barrel cubbies and they allow a guy to bait without having birds working the same baits the birds shy away from the barrels bigtime here and the barrels are easy to keep working with a whiskbroom and some touchup waxed dirt.

Are cubbies a snow thing? I haven't, nor do I know of anyone that constructs cubbies for cats in these parts.

My guess is they mimic old hollow logs, split stumps from blowdowns and brush piles. The eye appeal is something different and dark on white that they seem to want to check out.

Sawall will remove ends nicely
open both ends.

How do you like to anchor the barrels so they are stable when the cat comes up to them?

The barrels have some weight to them I just set them in the brush, low spots or next to trees.

If we have good snow for my 12/26 bobcat opener, it'll be easy to set it against a tree or brush I suppose. 1 of my barrels is plastic and the other 2 are metal, all ~55 gallon.

A few logs and some spruce bows and I don't have to carry anything In or out.

Are you using those as baited cubbies or more for eye appeal?

Exposed trap baited cubby. Many reasons but the biggest reason is any exposed bait has to be covered from above. They are nice for keeping snow off trap. This picture was from a few weeks ago. I use cubbies year to year and just rebrush them each year. Since I can only take on cat a year I only have a few of these. I will fix them up when out scouting or deer hunting.

I suppose natural cubbies works better than a metal cage or other unnatural cubby.?

Cattrax once posted a great picture of what he used. It was simply a half moon of woven wire with cedar or pine laid over it. A guy could block one end to be a cubby or leave if open to make it a walk thru.

Can't say they work better, I just use what is in the environment. When trapping near beaver ponds there is always building materials. Yesterday while setting some otter traps I found 2 concrete culvert tubes about 2 foot high and maybe 4 foot long and a bobcat had been walking through it regularly. Would have been a great set. There's always next year.

I made up a few wire walk-through cubbies last year and used cheap Walmart camo burlap as a covering and a few boughs for weight to help them stay put. I never did really put them through their paces but there's no doubt in my mind they would work.

Does something like camo burlap keep the snow out? My season starts 12/26. I have various types of cubbies and hope to not get my sets buried in snow regularly.
Some cubbies are barrels or large wire cubbies so I suppose in many of those situations a trap will get bedded outside the cubby, exposed to the elements.
I've heard of some people having cats that don't like to commit, so maybe having the trap just outside a cubby is just fine.