For most days the next few weeks I will post a couple of pictures and a description of some of the sets I use. A few of these may have been posted in past years but if you missed them or are a new member maybe they will help you out. Most of my sets are for snares as that is what we have to use here, but many can easily be adapted to foottraps or conibears.
This first one is how I snare mink on a bridge abutment and avoid the coons that are also using it. Using my "snare on a brick" and a 2 hole concrete block, I simply use the brick to block one hole and set my snare in the other, wedging a small stick or two in the hole to block it down to snare loop size (2.5 inches). Putting a rock or some debris on top of the concrete block finishes the set and pretty much assures the mink will go through the block and not climb over like the coons must do. Mink gets snared, pulls the brick out of the block, it drops in the water, mink drowns, many times so fast that the snare is not damaged and can be reused. After season I just lay the block off to the side of the bridge and use it year after year.
Note: the holes on a 3 hole concrete block are just not big enough and more often than not the mink will not enter them but chose to climb over.

That is a cool set, thank you for sharing.

Thank you, Mr. Space!

I rode along with a man you met from Kentucky one day this season and he showed me some mink in snares. Neat way to catch them.

Thank you. Please keep them coming.

Nice.

That's wicked cool hope this continues for a while.

Lets stay on the topic of under the bridge on the abutment for one more day.
The first picture is a simple snare on a brick where I do not have coons walking along. I set my snare then use the holes in the brick to hold some weeds for blocking/guidance. Notice how the weeds are staggered in length, longest to the left, shortest by the snare to almost guide the mink along into the snare. From the backside as we view it I do not need the weeds for a guide as the abutment is narrow from that side and the mink is funneled into the snare that way.
Picture 2 is set up how I do it if there are squirrels or an occasional coon traveling under the bridge. Blocking is done with a rock, some sod and of course the brick. Then I put a stick about 1 inch in diameter over the snare, wedging it so it is solid.Nine times out of 10 the squirrel will jump onto the stick and thus over my snare, the coon will just step over. Now if you use too big a diameter stick, say 2 or 3 inches some mink will also hop on it and thus over the snare, but rarely will a mink jump onto the 1 inch stick, preferring to go under and into the snare.
I never put only 1 snare or trap at a location, most bridges will have at least 4 snares set, often more. It takes no longer to look at 4 than it does to look at one and you cannot catch 2 mink at the same time if you only have 1 snare set.
Picture 3 is a 110 conibear set up for the same type location. It is fastened to one brick then a second brick is placed on the spring to hold it in place. Weeds and grass complete the vision of a hole and we all know that mink love to go through a hole. For this set use a 110 not a 120 as you want the mink to flop off into the water and not lay dead on the abutment where mice, coons and other varmits can chew on him.

Thanks for sharing Eric. Good stuff

Thanks for posting these sets eric, nice!!

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Trying to up my admittedly weak snare game.

Eric, I think I see the 110 trigger wires are on top .In a V .
Is this the way you like them?
I'am a big fan of Circle triggers.
Or triggers on the bottom .With the V opened up.

Keep up the good posts

Good Stuff!

Way to go.Congrats

Eric what size of cable or wire do you make your snares from. Is there a snare lock. Good sets . old243

Nice sets, thanks for sharing!

This is my go to fox and coyote bait set. I call it a corral set because I am basically making a corral shape out of discarded Christmas trees. After Christmas around here many trees are just tossed out (dumped) in the woods. Some roadside woodlots can wind up with 10 or a dozen a year. I simply pull them 50 to 70 yards off the road into a triangle, rectangle, circle or whatever shape, leaving 3 or 4 openings for my snares. A large bait, I prefer deer guts or half a roadkill deer is thrown in the middle. Another way to make the same set is with a summertime blowndown oak tree. Oaks leaves will stay on these blowdowns for all winter and sometimes for the next winter as well. 2 minutes with a bucksaw and I have enough leafy limbs to make my corral. The best thing about both of these (Christmas trees or oak blowdowns) is that the blocking for the corral is also the eye appeal. Predators check out these "brush piles" as they normally hunt through the woods. I fasten my snares to a drag or a 6 foot long pole so the animal can get away from the area and not destroy the set. An interesting note, the pictures with the Christmas trees, I baled hay right where this set is located up until the mid-1970's. This field grew up quickly into ceders and whitebirch, then ash and oak shaded them out and the result is what you see now, large trees with little undergrowth.

Very nice.

I went to demo of yours 15 years ago. You were great and mentioned this setup then also. Good demo and and you kept it interesting. Useful set but here in Pa the cable restraints only and they have to be anchored, not drag. good to see you here......jk

Nice setup. I've been enjoying these "set of the day" posts. It's nice to see the way others make sets and to read about something non virus related.

Looks like it works, Eric. Good job!

Thank you, Sir!

Thanks. Interesting how fast the forest takes back a field.

This will need to be added to the archives.
Good stuff

Agreed!

Cool set and story. Most people do not realize how fast mother nature changes.

Awesome Eric.
Mac

Thanks for the info Eric. Nice to see how a veteran snareman sets cable in our area...
I especially enjoy the mink snaring, as im a newbie Keep em comming please!

Thanks for sharing.

I like it .That would be the kind of set you could prepare during the summer .It might not be your primary set but I can see that it would be useful in helping to pick up an additional animal or 2

I'd be curious to hear from Ontario snare men on this set up. Fox yes, hybrid eastern yotes, hardly a chance, IMO. Great posts though, thanks for sharing.

We call that a Jackpot set up.As shown by Eric it works well for cats and fox.
Al, we use a jackpot for timberwolves,so eastern coyotes no problem,just think bigger,Snares should be 50 foot back from bait,minimum,set up in a more naturally thick area and limit the horizontal blocking.

We naturally think of timber wolves as being smarter or more cagy then the hybrids but I doubt that, probably due to their existence with lower human population density. I hear you with the jackpot so long as snares are on travel routes and a fair distance from bait but the idea of funnelling them with unnatural cut ended trees and bait within view of snares I have virtually no success, maybe the odd young of the year or stupid one. What your describing reminds me a lot of how Gordy Klassen describes his set ups in his presentations. Maybe I'm just a lousy snare man. Thank for the help.

Today and tomorrow we will look at culverts. The first picture is how I set a road culvert for coons. I know you are thinking "no big deal I already do that". But do you neck snare over 70% of your coons in your culvert snares? I do. The key is the support system. I cut a green (not dead) stick the same length as the inside diameter of the culvert (be it 18 inches or 4 feet it works the same) and about as big around as my little finger. I wrap a short piece of 14 gauge wire around the stick in a figure 8 before I twist the wire tight (see picture 2), this keeps the support wire from wobbling. The support stick is then wedged in the culvert in an open "C" shape with just a press of the hand. The remaining length of wire is then wrapped like a pigtail around the snare to support it. This gives a SOLID support that does not bend or wobble like an 11 gauge wire run into the culvert from somewhere outside. Bending, wobbley support wire allows the coon to walk his front feet into the snare, a solid support tends to eliminate that. Most of the time the snare can be fastened right to the culvert on an exposed piece of rebar. On a metal or plastic culvert I drill a small hole to fasten the snare to.
As to the trappers that say a coon will pull a snare off his neck try this: put a snare on your own neck pull it snug (not tight!!)like a coon would do before he realizes he is fast. Then see what you have to do with your hands to take it off. You have to do this: #1 Keep the snare cable slack, #2 Back the lock off with one hand while using your other hand to #3 Ease the other side of the loop over your head. Hardly any coons are going to do all 3 three of these things AT THE SAME TIME which is necessary to remove the snare.
This was my go to coon set in the late 1970's and thru the mid 1980's at the height of the fur boom. Between November 15 and December 3 or so I would catch 400 to 600+ coons only in culverts. This while working 7 days a week on the family farm and mink ranch. Before the season I placed 5 precut and pre wired support sticks at each culvert I was going to set. These sticks were just out of the reach of a trapped coon. In 1979 I had an International Scout, left the house at 2:30 AM and was at work at 7:30 AM with 104 coons stacked in that Scout. I could shoot the coon, replace support stick and the snare and be down the road before the coon quit kicking.
Those of us who trapped then remember that theft of catches was rampant. I rarely had a coon stolen from these sets. 2 reasons for that. #1 you have to shoot the coons in these sets, there is no way to bop him on the head in a culvert. To pull him out with the snare cable is an invitation to get bit, and most thieves do not have a 22 with them. # 2 is that more animals are stolen in the back 40 than next to the road because the thief does not know which vehicle driving by is yours!

Picture #3 is how I snare mink in culverts in the winter. Taking a 2 quart pop bottle, cut off both ends, making a tube. Cut a slit partially thru the tube so you can slide your support wire and mink snare into the middle of the tube. Then pack snow around the tube leaving the mink a nice hole to run thru to enter the culvert. To do this with a conibear use a 3 quart pop bottle or a milk jug. I do not have a picture of it but on small square bridges I do the same except I put several snare tubes in. This set is death on those bank and ice running buck mink.

We have eastern coyotes here and I have no problem catching them in corral sets. Often I have had them walk up to a snare and refuse to enter, then they jump over the Christmas tree, eat some and then walk out into the same snare they refused on the way in. This set is also good for cats but they are not legal to catch here so I did not mention them. A friend has been quite successful using them to snare fisher in his state.
Also I forgot to mention that I do not set a snare in the opening closest to the road. We can have free roaming dogs here but mostly they come off the road, to the set then back to the road, so I leave them a way in and out. This also helps in catching coyotes, gives them an uninhibbited way in after they come across the road and then they go out the back of the corral into a snare 9 times out of 10. I have caught coyotes within 5 feet of a bait provided they are leaving the bait and not going to it. Going in they can be shy but leaving they are not thinking about a snare.
Last year my Dad (at the age of 90) caught 11 coyotes in his 5 corral sets on his farm. Here's one.

Wonderful that your Dad is still trapping. God Bless him. Enjoying your posts, keep them coming.

I like pic #3. Looks like it would be a killer for mink!

Great info! Thanks.

Pretty cool.

Great info...thanks!

Very cool keep it up

LOVE these sets of the day!

Every swamp has one killer set. The challenge for a trapper is to find it. When that swamp is bisected by a railbed, road or farm lane the killer set is the culvert (or culverts) connecting the swamps. Sometimes this culvert is just to big to block off, but if it is 3 feet or less in diameter I am in business.
The first few pictures are the trap I use. It is 3 to 4 feet long, 6 inches high and either 9 or 10 inches wide. It has 3 doors, one on each end and one 14 inches in from what is the "front" door to make a kill chamber and keep animals from blocking the front door. Doors are cut 8 inches long and the same width as the trap, then I bend 1/2 inch up in a 90 degree angle on each side (see picture). This does 2 things, #1 it makes the door stronger and #2 it makes it tighter so a mink cannot escape alongside the door. Fastened to the front of the trap is a wire pannel big enough to block off the culvert and force the animals to swim through the trap (picture 3)
Now you can use other types of colony traps but these traps will catch muskrats, mink, OTTER and Beaver (up to 25 pounds or so). You can block it off and use a conibear but that means only 1 animal per check. This location is a 300 yard walk so I want to max the catch and not drive there, do the walk for 1 rat.
Ok so now here is the culvert picture, you can see it is completely submerged. I have set this culvert every year since the early 1970's. It is on a rail spur and the swamp is about 10 acres on each side. I fasten the "back" door of my trap shut with a hog ring( this is to keep the door from being opened and held open by a stick or rock inside the culvert ) and slide the trap into the culvert, the wire pannel on the front of the trap blocks the culvert and keeps it from being pushed into the culvert by a big beaver. I cover the top of the wire pannel with some marsh vegetation to keep passerby's from seeing it.
The second culvert is this sequence is on a farm lane and connects a swamp with a river. This one is only about half submerged, but deep enough to get my trap underwater. In these places where there is a current ALWAYS set the downstream side. In case of a flood you do not want the trap to block the culvert and cause road damage. A few catch pictures at the end. One has 5 rats and a mink, another 4 rats, another an otter. A mink in the farm lane culvert. You can see where the middle door keeps the animals from plugging the front door, thus each of these traps was still working when I pulled them out.
A fun way to catch rats in a culvert WITHOUT a trap. I did this some back in the 80's. Take a piece of fine gauge chicken wire that has 2 1/2 inch openings and place it across the underwater culvert opening. Most rats will go into the wire and get caught behind the front legs then drown. It's like gill netting muskrats! I am going to buy me some of this 2 1/2 inch wire and do this this coming winter in some 4 foot culverts I have located. Hopefully I'll have some pics to post with that. It would in essence be a colony trap you could use where they are not legal. Something to ponder.

Thank you, Eric.

Great Stuff!

TRULY appreciate the knowledge you are sharing!

Thanks for doing these posts! They are super!

Thank you sir
Mac

Thanks,Eric great info. Have a few locations like your pictures but NY does not allow colony traps. Conibear and 1 rat only! Appreciated you sharing your knowledge.

When a bigger tree goes down perpendicular to the river or stream the best mink set can be a digunder of the log. It may already be there, as in this picture, if not I take a few minutes to make one. I always follow that up with a snare set on top of the log so once a mink is caught in the dig under and another mink comes by he will hang around a little bit and in so doing will run the top of the log lengthwise, getting caught. Sometimes as in the picture with a dusting of snow a smaller log is elevated 6 inches or so so a mink will go under but a coon using the same trail will go over (or a squirrel too for that matter). Picture 4 shows a root wad at waters edge with a nice hole, but the set that caught the most was in front of the root wad under the base of the log.

Nice sets and locations.
One I use on small to medium sized creeks is I locate old abandoned beaver dams,or old debris wash piles and use a sharpened pole to ream out a hole right thru where the debris meets the bank.
I will either set it blind or shove a hunk of bait up in the debris.

Nice love these sets learning a lot

Mink snares, being low to the ground compared to canine or cat snares, can be put out of action by as little as 3 or 4 inches of snow. Where I live ice storms are frequent. These ice storms can freeze up your snare or cover it with ice heavy limbs, weeds or grass. For years I tried all kinds of covering over my mink snares to keep them working. I used bark, made wooden box "tubes", empty pizza boxes, etc but nothing worked more than half of the time. Then I stumbled on an old metal 55 gallon drum that had the top off and the bottom completely rusted out. It had washed up out of the creek and was on the bank only a few feet from a mink trail that I had been setting for a few years. I rolled it over and centered it on the mink trail, put some sand and leaves on the bottom and set my snare in the middle. The next night it snowed 10 inches then rained putting a crust on the snow. That morning I had a mink in the snare in the barrel. He had run on top of the snow crust and then into the snare that had been protected from snow and ice. Back at the home farm we had an old piece of steam boiler pipe about 12 feet long and 20 inches in diameter. I cut that in half making two 6 foot lengths. In the first picture is one of those lengths that I placed alongside an old mill foundation. I do not know the exact year but I do know we were still raising domestic mink at the time so it was before 1986 (it is still there to this day), as the first mink I caught in it was a cross between a wild mink female and an escaped domestic male. Only one of those I ever trapped, I sold it as a domestic with our 25,000 other mink pelts. Floods over the years have filled the "tube" almost halfway with silt. I have a snare at the corner of the foundation (pictures 2,3,4) and then the 2 in the tube about 4 feet away. It is just a guess but I would estimate that I have snared over 300 mink at this location over the years.
I got used pieces or road culvert and cut them in 6 foot lengths, placing them in some of my best mink trail locations. I place a snare about 12 inches inside the tube on each end. The 6 foot length does not allow a mink to knock down the other snare so doubles are common. Once placed I leave them there year round. Many times when I go to set them there are mounds of mink droppings inside.
The key is use a large diameter culvert piece. I do not mess with any that are under 15 inch diameter and prefer 24 inch ones. Small (4 to 8) inch diameters do not work well. Bigger diameters are not snowed under by 8 or 10 or 14 inches of snow, infact they are made better, more mink attractive, by it.

I appreciate you taking this time to share your knowledge with us.

Thanks for posting such useful information Eric.

Thank you for these sets! Very interesting.

thanks for the Education, Mr. Space!

You da man eric, thank you!!

Awesome. When you put the snares 12" back do you block the bigger diameter pieces down much at that depth? Or just set snares along the sides?

RV6: I block the pieces down and put the snare in the center. Blocking can be what ever is handy, grass, bark, sticks or snow. Guess I should'a included this picture, it shows the blocking (done out front so it would show up for the photo)

There are times that are life changing moments. After Thanksgiving in 1970 my girlfriend Ann and I were doing our usual weekend camping trip in the Snowy Range Mountains outside of Laramie (we both were freshmen at U of Wyo) and we stumbled upon a snare that was setup for bobcats. It profoundly changed how I looked at trapping and got me hooked on snaring. Ann and I had big plans to graduate and move to work and trap in Alaska but she was killed in a car accident in early 1972. It was 43 years later before I got to even see Alaska.
ANYWAY: Before I got hooked on snaring and for all the years I trapped in New York State (I live in New Jersey but only 6 miles from NY so from the 1970's until about 2005 I trapped in both states and NYS does not allow snaring) this was my winter time canine and bobcat set. I was taught it by my grandfather Ralph Space who was the first NJ State Trapper. He called it a Spring Hole set but most know it as a Water Set. Properly done it is a great freeze-proof set mostly used east of the Mississippi.
To make the set you need a #2 or bigger foot-trap, fastened to a drag (the oldtimers always used a "notched rock" called so because notches were tapped in it with the back of a hatchett so the trap could be wired fast and the wire not slip off), a short handled hoe and a pair of needle nosed pliers. Picture 1
Locate a spring, walk up the spring run to the source and using the hoe make a small pond, 2 1/2 to 3 feet across and just deep enough to put the trap underwater. You can do this in other waterbodies but water flow at a spring is constant and a spring will not freeze in even the harshest weather. Picture 2
Place the trap as close to shore as you can and the rock drag out in the middle. Using the needlenose pliers cover all the trap except the pan and all the chain with water soaked leaves. Picture 3
Using the hoe cut 2 pieces of sod/and or moss down the spring run a ways and place one on the trap pan, the other on top of the rock. Picture 4
Place a small bait and lure on the side of the sod on the rock closest to the trap, then cover the bait with a water-soaked leaf to hide it from birds. Picture 5
The set is completed, walk back out down the spring run for at least 10 feet so as not to leave any tracks in the snow.
Most trappers quit trapping when the ground gets to freezing and the snow gets to be a hassel, lets say just before Christmas. But with a few of these sets you can continue trapping right thru fox and bobcat mating time when the animals are on the move. As a kid in the late 1950's and thru the 1960's I was bounty trapping from 20 to 70 fox a winter with maybe a dozen of these sets.

These sets can be adaptive to use in water in Wisconsin....works great.

Great information again! When Eric Space speaks- Trappers Listen!

Every trapper of mink knows they love to go in a hole. But by me there can be 20 or more holes on the high banks per 100 yards. Now they do love to go in a hole, BUT NOT EVERY HOLE! So which holes do you set? If there is snow then you set the one(s) the mink tracks in the snow went into. If one mink went in it almost every mink going by will enter the same hole. Those are the easy ones to see.
If there is no snow I set the biggest one, especially the ones that are collapsed bank beaver bank holes. Picture 1 and the remake is Picture 2. Notice the green can on top of the remake. That is my marker that I can see from the road only 30 or so yards away. Can is moved means something is in the snare. Saves time and steps.
Even better yet is where an undercut system of tree roots has a hole in the back of the roots that leads down to the water edge. Picture 3 has 2 such holes and I set em both.
Lets say you do not have these 2 situations. Then I go through and lightly plug each bank hole with grass or leaves. Come back in a few days and set the one(s) where the plug has been pushed out. Sometimes when I have went to plug a hole on a windy day and the plugging material blows back out from the hole side as I put it in, then I set that hole immediately, as it has an opening down under the bank somewhere. Mink traveling by whether on the bank or under the bank where the hole exits will sense that draft and go thru the hole. That is how I found the holes in Picture 4 (notice the catch circle).
I have tried making my own holes like an elbow set but they do not work as well as a naturally made hole.
Once you find a mink used hole it will be good year after year until it collapses or floods fill it with silt.

Thank you Eric.

Eric, thank you so much for sharing. Awesome instructions that you have shared. Very cool

Mac

It is a darn shame that New York charges such a high non resident trapping license.

Thanks Eric!

Love your posts and search for your sets each day. Confused about the chunk of moss being set right on the trap pan, whats the reason for this? Would it not interfere?

Very nice!

Fox will step right on the moss to avoid stepping in the water to reach the bait.

How does someone who wanted to live in Alaska end up in NJ?
mt

NJ is where I was born and have wound up living here so far for 67 years. I went 3 1/2 years to U of Wyoming, then quit one semester short of graduating, came back here to work on the family farm. Left the farm in 1994 (too many family hassels) to start my nusiance wildlife business.

I know most all of you realize that we cannot use foothold traps in New Jersey. If someone gave me one snare and said "OK, Eric lets see how fast you can catch a fox" a crossing log is the set I would use.
First you have to have the location. I do not mean a stream or small river, pretty much everyone has one somewhere on their line. By me and probably by a lot of you the waters are crossed with more than a few logs. In the early fall before the water gets too cold I take my chain saw, put on an old pair of sneakers and walk the waterways and cut out all the logs except the ONE I want to use. The first time thru there may be quite a lot to cut, but in subsequent years there are usually few to cut. Here by me many waterways are paralleled somewhat by a road. Walking takes time, so if possible I leave my selected log within view of the road. That is what I mean by location, only 1 place to cross.
A crossing log does not have to be a large diameter log, in fact I prefer it to be too small on one end for a person (hunter) to walk across it. If the water is shallow this is not a big concern, but if the water is deep and/or the log is high off the water it is essential that the log not be able to hold a person who might want to cross. I have caught fox on logs that were less than 2 inches in diameter on one end. Here, when I am trapping early in the season when the waterways are not frozen, it is bowhunting season and bowhunters will use a log to cross the water before daylight. I don't want to dunk one.
Dogs rarely cross on logs, they just jump in and swim, so they are not a problem.
The diameter of the snare's cable is important. The snare should be of 1/16 cable. Normally you can snare fox with larger cable (5/64 or 3/32) but on a log fox (and bobcats) will either duck under or very cautiously walk through the larger diameter cable. Think of it this way: If you were walking across the log and a limb the size of your wrist was there you would step over it but if it was the size of your finger you would just brush by with your leg.
The snare loop should be 7 inches or so and 8 inches off the log surface. In picture 1 you will see the position I put the lock in. I want it to drop at the slightest touch.
Picture 2 shows how I fasten the snare, a fence staple is driven into the log and then the snare is wired to it so after a catch I can replace the snare without having to pull the staple. The support wire end is bent in a U and fastened in with 2 poultry staples, this makes it stable.
I do not show it in the picture but as I said before I like to have my log within sight of the road. When setting the snare I slide an old soup can (burnt so it is rusty and old lookin) onto the support wire and down to the log so it sits basically upright on the support wire. Most logs will receive 3 or more snares, each 4 feet or so apart (again you cannot catch 2 fox with one snare). The reason for the cans is I can look out the truck window, if a can is down I've got action. Can check traps at 35 MPH this way!
Picture 3 is an ideal situation. I took the picture from the road, there is one log completely across the stream and another somewhat alongside it. This way I can put in 4 or 5 snares and catch multiple fox in one night.
Notice I have stayed mostly on fox. Bobcats are not legal to trap here so I omitted them. Coyotes can be snared on some crossing logs, but rarely on a smooth limbless log. For coyotes you need a log with limbs preferably like the one in Picture 4. Many times on shallower waterways coyotes will just wade through like a dog will. Fox just do not like to wade even in shallow water.
The catch pictures are pics of photos, sorry if they are not real clear. The log in the first catch picture yielded 41 fox the first year I used it and over 100 in the three seasons until a flood washed it away. I first saw it was gone as I was driving to my oldest daughter's high school graduation. My wife thought I was all choked up over her graduating. I let her think that, happy wife is a happy life, at least for Eric









.

Thanks for sharing.

Really enjoying your posts Eric.

Thank You!

Thanks Eric

Nice.

I'm sorry to hear about your girl and assume that is why you dropped out of college. Sounds awful and still must hurt. I wish you the best and hope your mind is at ease. I'm really enjoying these posts. Some of the best informative posts I've seen in quit sometime. Nothing ever happens the way you plan and I'm glad everything turned out good for you sir. Thank you.

Gotta comment on your log diameter info....was trapping late in Winter one season and was in the creek trying to catch beaver. Noticed an old log crossing the creek and walked over. A set of coyote tracks were visible because of the frost and muddy paws....couldn’t believe it as the log was only about 3 inches in diameter.
Thanks for taking the time to post this great pieces of info!

Yes thank you Michigan is very restricted in cable use but I find your post interesting
Years back I followed 2 coyote thru a dense swamp maybe 2-4 in. of snow the smaller of the pair jumped up and walked on every blowdown they came across whether it was a small log laying on the ground or up 3=4 feet in the air seen this behavior in most animal species

Great set Eric Now you got me thinking last few or more seasons have had lots of rain water everywhere

Great stuff...thanks for sharing!

Super great information Eric! Thanks a bunch!

Thanks again, Eric!

Thank you!

Mink snares work great in water adapting Erics methods, has increased my take over the years, cheaper in high trap theft areas.

This is not a fur trapping set but is how I do groundhogs (or as we call them here, woodchucks) that are not living in a hole under or near a house. I use a small diameter cable either 3/64 or 1/16, snare length about 24 inches, with just a loop end (no swivel). You can use a lock or use a tied knot type lock as in the first 2 pictures. The key is to fasten the snare to a stick about 18 inches long, I use a piece of 14 gauge wire to fasten the snare to the stick, leaving a long enough tail to double as a snare support. This is twisted on about 6 inches from the end of the stick. The stick is only stuck in the ground only enough to give a solid "set" to the snare when the woodchuck is caught. Then he pulls it loose and takes the stick down his hole. It wedges underground, woodchuck expires, end of problem. Of course he smells bad down there underground, that is why you do not do this by a house, especially if the holes go under the house, cause the smell will seep thru the foundation.
This way I do not have to handle and dispose of any woodchucks. I do not have to take them out of 220's after they have been in them for a day in the mid-summer heat.
In the last few years I have started to do the same thing with summer beaver complaints. I fasten the 4 foot long beaver snare to a brick. The caught beaver will head back to its lodge or bank hole, tangle there and drown. I find that by catching 1 beaver this way all the rest of the beaver will move out most of the time. So by killing only one beaver I can usually solve the problem. I just don't like to kill a bunch of beaver when the pelts are worthless if I do not have to. Now I want you to know I do not charge farmers for beaver removal, rather I trade them beaver control for fur trapping rights to the farm. I have more places to trap than I can get to. Jeff, a local farmer summed it up best when a member of the gun club that rents his farm complained about me trapping " I can make a call and have a different gun club rent my farm in 2 minutes, there is no one else I can call to keep the beaver from flooding my corn. QYB".

Thanks for the new ideas!

This will be the last "Set of the Day" so we will go with what I have been doing for the last 11 summers, snapping turtle trapping. Snapper trapping is as much fun as fur trapping and if you can find a market for them, can be a profitable endeavor. Even if you just want to catch a few for your own use it is fun to see how big a turtle you can catch. Now that NJ has forced us to be housebound (I was stopped 2 nights ago because I was driving on the roads at 8:10 PM, 10 minutes after curfew) I have watched almost every turtle trapping video on YouTube. 99% of them are a joke, using some of the worst contraptions for catching a turtle ever made. If the turtle market holds up this summer I plan to make a YouTube video on snapper trapping.
Snappers can be caught in many types of waterbodies, lakes, ponds, rivers and swamps but if I was catching some for personal use I would go to a good freshwater stream. Picture 1. The fresher the water the better the turtle tastes, just like some fish taste better in the clear water of spring vs the late summer muddy water conditions.
The stream does not have to be deep or very wide (I have stuffed traps full of snappers in streams only 3 feet wide), the trap set in Picture 2 is 12 inches high and is only about 2 inches under the surface here in the deepest part of this brook (snapper's head can be seen above the water as he stuck it out of the top breather hole). Picture 3 is an average catch of 4 snappers. Bait was the backend of a carp, bait is only good for 1 night, once it gets sour the turtles do not want it.
Many guys use jugs and hooks on a line for turtles. This method works but most turtles swallow the hook and will die of infection when released if they are undersized or you have caught more than your states daily limit. Use of a trap allows you to keep the turtles you want and release unharmed the ones you do not want.
The last 2 pictures are just catch pictures. The net trap (made by Beaverfoot ) has 15 snappers, total weight 332 pounds. I had to hook a rope to my truck to drag this one out of a muddy ditch in order to get the turtles out. Bent up the frame some. The other picture is another of my cage traps with 13 snappers.
Trapping turtles in summer or fur trapping in the winter always take a few moments to marvel at the world around you and be glad to be alive.

Thank you Eric for sharing all that you have.
Mac

Thank you for making these "Set of the Day" posts.

When I first started turtle trapping, I was surprised how many times I had multiple turtles per trap. I never had as many as your pictures though.

Eric, do you think pvc pipe would work for the front and back support on your cage traps? Again, great stuff, thanks for posting!

Hat's off to you, Sir!

Thank You!

Thanks for doing these sets of the day. I've learned a bunch.

This is one of Eric's mink snares. 1/16 7x7 cable, whammy fits 14 gauge wire, steel nuts for stops. lock must be positioned at 12:00 with a 2.5" to 3" loop.

This is one of Eric's mink snares. 1/16 7x7 cable, whammy fits 14 gauge wire, steel nuts for stops. lock must be positioned at 12:00 with a 2.5" to 3" loop.

This is one of Eric's mink snares. 1/16 7x7 cable, whammy fits 14 gauge wire, steel nuts for stops. lock must be positioned at 12:00 with a 2.5" to 3" loop.

This is one of Eric's mink snares. 1/16 7x7 cable, whammy fits 14 gauge wire, steel nuts for stops. lock must be positioned at 12:00 with a 2.5" to 3" loop.

This is one of Eric's mink snares. 1/16 7x7 cable, whammy fits 14 gauge wire, steel nuts for stops. lock must be positioned at 12:00 with a 2.5" to 3" loop.

What snare lock does he use?

Am not positive but think it is a Sure lock or BMI Slide Free lock.

Thanks!

Everyone Mr.Eric did a wonderful job doing these daily posts to try to show some cool and productive sets, to make archiving and reading easier I've merged his day #1-12 set day posts together. Let me know how the post looks and where y'all think it will best fit inside archives.
Thanks!

Ttt

Wow I forgot this thread those are awesome.sets.

Great ideas on all ! Keep on posting

Bumping this back up before it goes back to the archives

Ttt