This one is meant to maximize whats available around you to limit what you carry in and enable the trap to fire whether its wet, dry, hot or cold. I dont know how the guys would do it when it hard freezes. This works beautifully in sandy, wet, loose, dry or hard conditions. You will find a pine preferably since it smells good too, but any living tree twig will work fine. If you need a pan cover, you can also use 2-3 leaves, or a cross of live pine needles. This one is from one of the old legends who was around when Louisiana trapped more muskrat than Canada trapped animals. Enjoy.

I don't understand what the twig does for u

Pan tension, good idea.

Enable the trap to fire?

That stick will keep the trap from easily firing.

Just who exactly was this legend that come up with that? Have you tried this?

If it does fire on an animals foot,the animal will easily pull out since the stick will create a large gap in the jaws..

Warning:don’t try this at home

Maybe use a smaller diameter twig and place it so when the trap fires it will be in the dirt gap of the trap jaws.

That is a terrible idea.

Must have been a legend indeed.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I couldn't see anything good in that setup. But sometimes I miss things.

The spring will lift the broken ends up towards the top of the jaws.

Well of course it makes for easy trap maintenance, not catching anything means less messing around!

I'm assuming that is supposed to increase pan tension... by someone who has not done much trapping. Bend the dog a little with pliers if you want more pan tension on that trap. The stick will hold the jaws apart, and one that size is liable to create too much pan tension anyways, even if it wasn't between the jaws holding them apart when it fired. Also it does absolutely nothing to prevent dirt from getting under the pan. You can get away without a pan cover or underall if you either use large leaves as pan cover (not really eliminating a pan cover, just using something else) or cover the trap with pine needles or grass rather than dirt, but that stick won't help at all from getting stuff under the pan causing the trap not to fire.

You gotta watch old information. The more I read it, the more it seems that about half of it its misinformation and Im sure some of it was deliberate.

LOL you guys are funny, the trap fires and the animals paw is thicker than the twig diameter..... 2 coyotes in a row using this same method had no issue. The twig in the photo is obviously longer to demonstrate whats going on. How many who are doubting it have tried it?

The main purpose is just to ensure the trap will fire even if sand or dirt gets under the pan. Some people will use sponges, some people use different stuff. This is a tried and true method that works beautifully, the animals foot doesnt get thrown out because the twig is under the pan. The great part is you can adjust the diameter of the twig if you are concerned about the your trap not catching the animal.

2 coyotes, 1st one is a female, 2nd one was a younger male. I dont think you want all my raccoon pictures that I use this same method for if Im not using DP traps

you might want to show the actual usage than an exaggerated version. For this to work, whatever you put under the pan has to be softer than whatever can filter in under the pan to allow the pan to depress. I havent seen too many twigs that are softer than sand that will deform with 10lbs or less of pressure.

You should try it before you hypothesize about it not working. Newfox1 is right too, it does also create pan tension, lots of different benefits. If you guys have a pine in Ohio, that should work good, ours are super soft down here.

Ill post more pics tomorrow, I have a good amount of sets to put in still. What do you want, water, sand, dirt or swamp bog?

its simple physics. Uncompacted dirt/sand is softer than wood. Even cork. Only time it will cause you an issue is when it freezes, or rather the water it traps after a rain/snow melt freezes. Unless you have so much pan travel(as in the pan almost goes to base before firing) on your trap, sand/dirt/clay will depress enough to allow traps to fire. In warm conditions? You'd have to bed intentionally put literal rocks or sticks under the pan to prevent it from firing. Or a trap thats been left out for months in clay and after a monsoon the clay bakes into concrete under the pan.

I still don't understand the physics of how the stick let's ur trap fire with dirt or sand under the pan. If dirt gets under ur pan enough to fill the void not allowing the pan to go down how does the stick remedy this?

I just use coffee filters.

I like the blue shop towels myself. Has multiple applications and I dont use paper filters to make coffee anymore .

I've thought about the garden weed control felt, just haven't. Filters to me are super easy. To each his own.

Which legend bestowed us this blessing of knowledge? If it was April 1st it would make perfect sense lol !

Polyfill works fine for me.

This stick tip makes no sense.

YJ I use poly fill or wax paper but I'm really wanting an explanation on this stick thingy.
My take on this which might be totally wrong is.... some inexperienced person that wants to be a legend thought the purpose of an under all or poly fiil was to hold the pan up and decided to show everyone how clever they were and came up with what they thought was a simpler idea to do the same thing. It's the only explanation i can come up for this idea.They also figured out in their mind the fresh pine would be best because it smells good. I'm betting the "legend" can't be named because he wants to fly under the radar which would of course make it impossible to be a legend if no one knew about u.
Maybe this will get an explanation of how the stick helps the trap fire when dirt gets under the pan.

Nothing personal but that’s a silly idea using a stick!! Use a file. Learn how to adjust traps or just buy some good coil spring traps and be done with it!!!

I've tried the polyfill in limited settings, and it just seams like if the set has to soak for a time the fine soil that we have will just filter into it, and will limit the pan travel too much(which could be a tuning problem I spose). The fact that we have little indication who came up with the stick seems to be either, like you stated, or just to get a conversation going, or to steer someone in the wrong direction! I like to give folks on here the benefit of the doubt, so I'll let him weigh in. Until then, I won't ponder it too much.

What kind of vechile did this Legend drive?

It's about enabling the trap to fire when soil gets under the pan, pan tension is just a side benefit.

The OP use to go by Tofan and has posted some off the wall stuff he had no experience with before .

small dowell.

That explains it all, didnt realize that is who the OP was.

Ok, so we are trying to Build a Better Pan Cover? Plenty of very good options already mentioned. Brown coffee filters work great for me.

Who showed you this?

Not hijacking this thread, just 2 cents from my peanut gallery........... If you are trapping where your soil is silty clay w/o much sand, the warmer daytime temp will thaw that/any frozen soil and allow the moisture to to move up/into the filter and refreeze when the temp drops. Coffee filters are like paper towels here,,, they absorb any ground moisture above 32 degrees (even frost) and can form a shell around the trap pan then harden during colder temps for me. Rain before a cold snap is the worse for me, making them really ineffective for a dependable cover. ................................ the mike

MattLA is Tofan? I wondered where he went. Figured that new electric F1fiddy may still be charging...

Unfortunately some of the old methods where deliberate to prevent competition. I know of a fella who is well respected in the trapping community. At the age of 12 the young man was looking for advice on how to trap Fox. The local fox trapper took the young man out to teach him how to catch a fox. The old trapper explain to the young man on how to make a dirt hole set. Then told him to set the trap upside down. The reason being. Fox are so clever. They new there was a trap set. So the fox would try flipping the trap. And get caught. At 12 the young man took this as gospel. Needless to say many snapped traps. This was during the early 1970s when fur prices where increasing. The young man figured he had been gullible. Figured it out on his own. Became a very profitable fox trapper. Bought a car and put himself thru college with those beautiful $100.00 fox pelts. So the age of misinformation is nothing new. Just more prevalent now. That stick in the trap jaw is a good way to catch nothing

I have NEVER had a pan not trip using polyfil or a screen. I have had the jaws cement into place, even then the pan would depress. I’ve caught with polyfil under the pan and screen after 5” of rain.
I don’t like offset traps due to a small stick or pebble getting between the jaws and creating a wider gap than what’s already there. Couldn’t imagine intentionally setting something to create an even wider gap.

Some offset jawed traps have better debris gaps than other.

I put on my thinking cap and came up with 2 possible ways this may be a functional tip. As presented, I think it’s off, but.. 1) The thin bark that forms a loose sleeve around a decomposing branch is used like leaves to block out debris; or 2) a person were to use a pan-width length of very rotten/soft branch.


Soft enough to crush when stepped on as to not prevent firing. Short enough to not interfere with the jaws closing.

I just don’t think putting a stick between the jaws is a tip that beginners should pick up and run with. Pine is soft, but it’s not thatttttt soft, unless it’s been breaking down a while.

This can’t be real can it?

Mad cause they figured out ur secret aren't u

I’m still trying to figure out how a stick keeps out dirt better than polyfil. I’ve left traps in the deck for 4 straight weeks that fired after 5-7” of rain or more during that time frame and the trap still fired. No we don’t have freeze thaw conditions here.

The = Legend of Sleepy Hollow!!!

Real for those people that prevent others from actually succeeding, yes.

Not real, just legendary!

Boone, I precut 3000 sticks of the perfect length and diameter for montanas for optimal pan jamming I’ll let you have a couple if you’re interested.

Now I get it.

For those that doubt, Louisiana led the world in trapping for so long, even 30 years of relative non trapping hasnt been enough for you guys to catch up. We caught in 1 year, what it would take the other top state 4 years in muskrat. We wiped out muskrat, beaver, alligator, wolf, cougar, jaguar, bear. If the old timers down here tell you a method, its tried and true. They made due and figured out how to use what was available in nature at the time. They had to go everywhere by pirogue, and trapped marsh, swamp, forest, muddy bottom, sandy bottom, the list goes on and on.

Aix's post breaks it down perhaps better for some, I dont use it all the time but it will be in my toolbox for a later date.

That's what I thought! LOL

Can you do a demo vid? I think that would clear up the confusion.

If you build an aerated decomposition pond, you could produce perfectly rotted sticks with great efficiency. Then it is just a matter of the proper species for each trap, soaking in glycerin to keep them from drying out, and packaging in hermetically sealed quart jars for distribution. Why make billions when you can make millions?

Only one way to settle this Matt, a state vs state trap-off bracket tournament. Get your sticks ready, I’ll get some pan covers.

Man after all the talk about legends from this guy and how people should just follow him to save trapping on his other posts . Im thinkin this guy actually drank the bong water or is a anti

Lot of the old tried and t rue methods didn't work the way they thought they worked. Or the method was just completely irrelevant(which is what I believe this "method" is, its irrelevant) to why they caught they way they did.

If you can post pictures or a video as promised then we can stop guessing about what the actual method your talking about is.

When he first started posting I thought it was Savell or Jtrapper trying to create another coonman.

Matt we need the name of this legend or a good reason why not...
If its Aix ur going to have throw him overboard to save ur self

Will keep a watch on this one.
I'm night shift tonight so nothing but time

No intentional sticks in the jaws for me.

Didn't figure it was just me being humorous
Next tip will b a small pebble setting at pivot point of jaws to help bed the trap solid.

I still stand by my first response.
This is a terrible idea.

Looks and sounds like a ridiculous idea.

I never asked you or anybody to follow me, just let me advise you and provide recommendations to help you guys since incompetence seems to run deep in NM. Remember my state wasnt the one that lost public land trapping, LTAHA actually knows what its doing. Tight lines!

U going to give us a name

I think its elmer fudd.

I never asked you or anybody to follow me, just let me advise you and provide recommendations to help you guys since incompetence seems to run deep in NM. Remember my state wasnt the one that lost public land trapping, LTAHA actually knows what its doing. Tight lines! [/quote


Quit "Methin around" and answer the question, who was the "legend", and how the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) could this possibly help ANYONE actually catch something??? Or did ya think you came up with something new and post it before actually thinking it through?

I think there is a flat tool that you can put under the pan to allow you to pack dirt around the pan. The tool keeps you from firing it. You still need something to keep the dirt from getting under your pan. But. You have to remove the tool. When finished. That’s the only way I can think of doing that! This might be what he is thinking about. I don’t know.

Think your talking about the Mitlyng Trap Bedder? Used to use the Trapper Caps but the mitlyng would be a bit more universal though you can still get some loose stuff under the pan, which really wouldnt be a problem unless you get a hard rain followed by a freeze before you can rework the bed.

Please explain how you have been instrumental in the success of the LTAHA?

Or are you just riding on the coat tails and not contributing anything other than criticism of those actually trying to contribute

He hasn't.

To be quite honest I'd like to know the full extent of you working with government. I'm not one to pry but u have brought it up numerous times and I do believe an explanation is needed. I'd also be interested in what you do for a living were your income comes from. U have avoided these questions in the past and it makes it look suspicious. Especially when u come in with all the ideas to " save trapper" from themselves. You want validity to you trying to lead trapping to a new future I think some answers would be justified. If not I think a good explanation is in order.

I kind of doubt LA led the world in trapping. Some Northern folks would have something to say about that. I think folks in Hudson Bay area and the Rockies have done more for the trapping and fur industry than your Louisiana guys. But hey, you seem to know it all so come on up and show us how it's done.
I'm betting that stick trick wouldn't work so well up here with snow.

Icobod Crane was = The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I think he was from = Caddico Parrish Lousiana? Maybe thats him?? LOL!

You wiped out muskrat,beaver,etc.Really? Come on,man!

I think in all seriousness this guy is mentally ill

No trav, he is a highly important government related official so important he lives off of coon meat and always talks about being on a budget

I'm also curious Matt, what is it that you do? Other than criticizing trapping organizations

We (hunters and trappers) are all in it together. It doesn’t matter what your targets are or what state you live in. It’s very similar to gun ownership. Banning of one type is bad for owners of all types, and the antis will never, ever be satisfied. Just because they get something banned doesn’t mean they’ll stop. Quite the opposite in my opinion. They see their twisted victories as a reason to keep pushing. They’re well funded, well organized, and often times making decisions based on emotions. A setback in New Mexico is a shame and a potential future threat for Louisiana trappers and hunters.



I agree with that. I think the organization is in good hands and run by people that actually care about what they’re doing.

So you holier than thou trappers-tell me-what is the benefit of ridiculing a greenhorn who is interested in promoting trapping and the trapping lifestyle?
Keep on alienating,some so called trappers are the best tools the antis have I swear.

Boco, there is a right and a wrong way to promote trapping and the trapping lifestyle. The wrong way is by making snide remarks and criticizing those that have been fighting extremely hard to maintain that way of life in their state. That is what Matt is doing and that is where I find an issue. There’s nothing at all wrong with being passionate about an issue, but don’t talk down to others on a situation you know nothing about until you have a little skin in the game

I dont disagree with that but there is no need to denigrate the guy.That will just alienate a potential ally.
He likely took that defensive attitude in response to the name calling.

Which year do you want to compare? Like I said, nobody was even remotely close to Louisiana. They next closest state would have to trap 3 season to even match what we did in 1 year. This is just these few years, there are many more like it. Take out squirrels For Wisconsin and they drop significantly, but add ours in and the gap widens even more.