Art Crane NYS FOX Trapper
In response to an article I had just written in Trappers World, I ended up talking last night with a NYS trapper about historical eastern fox trappers pre 1960 and their contributions to K-9 trapping. He asked if I was considering writing an article on some of these early trappers and I told him it’s under consideration. So, I dug around my library and found this article from Fur Takers to share. I had seen these letters at Tom Parrs and they are well worth reading. As you can see trappers networked in the 30s also, these letters show Crane, Dailey, Rickard, Keith, Arnold, Yancey, Lynch and Mast all knew each other. Lures, sets, the anti’s. bounties and a trapper’s health were the same subject trappers talk about today. There is always some agenda leading to disagreement as is the same today. Of note is the fact that Crane used the dirt hole very early in life (maybe pre Dailey), maybe it was because he had a fox farm and could watch them dig and hide their own food.

This book the PA Game Commission put out in 1924. No mention of a Dirthole for fox. Trail sets, chaff set, water set, and crossing log were mentioned.

Chester Hall wrote a small booklet in that full describes the dirthole set, E Krepps describes a dirthole in a stump in 1909, E F Keith describes a dirt hole in an early 1920s Hunter Trader Trapper, the word dirthole came about in the 30s, before it was called the ground set or Indian set. FQ bunch also wrote about it. The earliest written is Krepps who wrote for HTT and Fur News and 1909 seem to be the earliest date I can find.