you can use wax paper, crumple it into a ball then use so it doesn't crackle when stepped on. You can use just plain dry dirt, Here is an unpublished article I wrote on in
Once you decide that you’re going to land trap in colder weather, you will need a good anti-freeze set. I think the very best anti-freeze would have to be calcium chloride; it is very effective when used properly.
Calcium chloride (or plain no iodized salt) can be purchased at places like Agway or a farm store; it comes in 100 lb. bags of flakes. Now you need a blender to grind your flakes into a powder form. I would not use the one your wife has you cold be in trouble if you burn it up (one from a yard sale or just buy your wife a new one and use hers) wash out the blender and make sure it's dry inside before you start, place a couple of cups of flakes in at a time. Grind a little while and then give it a shake upside down and grind again until it’s a powder. Now put the powder in a clean dry (Qt. or pt.) glass jar. I place a piece of plastic wrap on the top of the jar because the calcium will rust the lid. Now keep in cool dry place until trapping season. If you have a couple qt.'s jars of powder calcium on hand for the season you should be pretty well set. (You must keep your calcium dry, if you get it wet it will melt and turn in to a lump. The 100 lb bag has a plastic liner, so if you double wrap it with a trash bag and seal it should keep until next year.)
First thing you should do when using calcium chloride, make sure all your traps and stakes are waxed, to protect the from the rusting you will get when using calcium. Second thing you'll need is bone dry dirt, I don’t mean dry dirt, I mean bone dry. You will have to do some summer work to get bone dry dirt. It is in your best interest to sift your dirt before you place it on your dirt drying boards. It will dry faster and it will be much easier to handle. Place a couple of sheet's of plywood on some workhorse's in the summer sun, put your sifted dirt on the plywood a couple of inches deep let it sit in the summer sun a hour or so the go out and turn the dirt over by hand (with rubber trapping gloves) do this until their is no color change in the dirt The top and bottom are the same color. Now put your bone dry dirt in a clean 5galbucket or a clean new plastic trash can, put a lid on the buckets or cover on the trash can put in shed or some other dry place until season. I use to use two 15 ft. long pieces of corrugated steel roofing to dry dirt on. How much bone dry dirt you need is up to you but you never have too much.
If you start to use calcium early in your season its best, to just put a light coat of calcium in the bottom of your trap bed once your trap is bedded then you want another light coat of calcium before you put on your top coat of dirt. Once you’re in to real cold winter trapping you will have to change your sets over to keep them f from freezing down.
Now is when the fun begins, the ground is frozen hard as flint, and the frost is a foot or more in the ground, you just got the farm you have always wanted to trap and the ground is like a rock. Pick out your set location get your traps and bone dry dirt, calcium and your HATCHET, yes the very best trap bed maker for frozen ground. Now you may not need an 18 " stake about 8" in permafrost is fine, chop your trap bed; it's like chopping wood accept you get hit in the face with dirt. Try to keep your bed close to your trap size (No.2 victor is easy to bed and chop out because of its shape). Make your trap bed a little deeper so you can put a little bone dry dirt in the bottom, now put a good coat of calcium down, then bed your trap, I always like to use a foam underall (you can use waxpaper as well), under the trap pan. Bone dry dirt will get under your trap pan without it. Bone dry dirt does not pack down around your trap jaws so try to keep your trap bed bottom as flat as you can. (Always use a hair trigger.) After your trap is bedded place a light coat of bone dry dirt down just to cover the white and then more calcium and then your finish coat of bone dry dirt. Carry your bone dry dirt in a small plastic bucket to your set, you can get two or three sets to a small bucket.
Calcium Chloride will also thaw out a frozen trap if sprinkled on the top of the trap
