Got about 6” of snow…still powdery.
Found a bush that fox and coyote are marking and figured I would blind set right where there prints are.
This was my thinking for how to do it but please speak up if it’s wrong.

Anchor trap.
Place a piece of wax paper the size of the trap with the trap pushed down a bit to hold it in place and get depth right.
Wax paper crumbled to cover pan.
Sift snow over from 3’ above.
Make an indentation where prints were

Sounds good to me.

Yup, sounds like a plan keeping it simple and stand off on the downwind side if possible.

Is parchment the same as waxed for this?

Sounds good. Use wax paper, it's not the same as parchment paper

Here is one of the sets

Looks decent. If I crumble and dust snow over top I gotta keep it really thin, hardens right up in the cold. Kinda like building an igloo with the powdery snow. You pile it up and a few hours later it’s hard and you can hollow it out. If you can set while it’s snowing or about to get snow, that’s the cats arse, just protect the pan and nature will blend er in and cover your tracks too. Not sure if it’ll warm up where you are or if it’s going to constantly be below freezing temps?

Below freezing the next 8 days

Don't run the snow through a sifter, it will harden up like a brick. Use a small square nosed shovel, flat piece of plexiglas, or aluminum or anything else you have handy to transfer snow. Try and slide your implement under a half inch or so of snow and lift it up with minimal disturbance to the snow, then slide the snow off of the implement over the trap, moving the snow as little as possible throughout the process. The less you move snow, the less it hardens up. Stout four coiled traps will come up through more crust, but fox aren't very heavy, and if it stiffens up enough for them to walk over the pan without setting the trap off it won't matter.

But yes the set looks good.

When MI went to the “hound stops” I learned snow trapping blind trail setting. I can truthfully say that I always used my screen and never had snow harden as you described, never and I used this method with great success since 2005! Must be just the difference in snow and or the difference in setting locations.

Will try both methods of snow cover and see. The ones I sifted last night didn’t get a shell on. Maybe I got lucky?

How do you guys determine k9 tracks in snow? I know obviously what their prints look like but these are all drifted and you can’t see definition of the foot print itself.

The temps will determine how hard it'll get. Here's a few sets for wolf I made a couple weeks ago. I used a bit of wax paper to protect the pan and sat the traps in pine needles firmly pressed in. No other covering so they were really exposed, but I knew it was going to snow and the wolves probably wouldn't be back for a few weeks. We got snow a day later which covered em nicely. Pans are set to about 10ish lbs. Birds, fox can fool around all they want and shouldn't trip....hopefully. There's a frozen beaver sticking out of the frozen spring. Cams a little wonky...lol

As for tracks, after a while of stopping the skidoo and investigating, you get to the point where you can just cruze and ID the tracks differentiating between deer, wolf coyote etc. The gait and size/shape of hole in the deep snow. At first it's sometimes pretty tough.

As Shakeyjake says. You learn to identify tracks by the gait, really hard to explain, it mainly comes from experience. Canines will drag their feet as they lift them much more so than cats. Occasionally you will see a big tomcat who will drag his feet, but it is rare. As a general rule if it looks messy and is dragging its feet it is a canine, if it looks precise and clean it is more likely a cat. Deer will drag their feet even more than coyotes and take longer strides, if the snow is deep they will sink much deeper, plus you can often see where they go to feed on bushes.

That’s great info there guys. Thanks!