Hey everyone!

I haven't been on in awhile..I'm just finishing up my 3rd semester of veterinary school and will be going back home to PA tmrw. I'm going to hunt the last few days of rifle season and try to get a deer, then I'm switching my gears to trapping. This will be only my second season trapping and I still have a lot to learn. Thankful for @elsmasho82 getting me started and continuing to fill my brain! I have set DPs and footholds. I caught a raccoon and an opossum last season. I am going to try some conibear traps for mink this year. Any information on setting/bedding traps would be highly appreciated! We have lots of coyotes and foxes on camera, so I would like to target them heavily.

My girl is asking for help from the best!!!

Show her how great Trapperman is!!!!

She’s in for a great Xmas break!

Good deal on catching a couple critters…. I can’t comment much on mink but the fox and coyote like a dirthole set down here …. I’ve attached a link to how I catch them … if you sift through the nonsense there’s some set and attractant and location info in there

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/7487383/sing-along#Post7487383

… there are a lot of knowledgeable trappers on here and I’m sure they’ll get you on the right track

Best thing you can do to shorten the learning curve is find a trapper(s) near you that catches a lot of fur and get ride-alongs on their line. I suggest you contact someone from the local trapper association and see if they can line you out with someone. Many good trappers want to see the sport continue and are willing to share their knowledge but the best way to do it is on the trapline.

I remember that thread and it was a great ride-along Savell.

How about don’t let your dad strip the tail bone outta your first coon!

Bottom edge sets for mink, especially if your weather is anything close to ours.

My best suggestion for bedding traps is get out in the yard and practice.

It was a learning curve for me and the more I did it the better I got

The suggestion to get a mentor is the best advice

Can you give us a peek at your trapping grounds?

Best of luck on your hunt!! As Leftlane said, the archives are a great start to find solid advice.

Locations And How To Pick Them
(Previously Published in “The Trapper” September 2004 as
“Keying in on Fox Hot Spots”)

(Authors Note: When I wrote this story I didn’t like the way it came out, so I rewrote it. I read it after the rewrite and still didn’t like it so I changed a few more things and wrote it again. Guess what? I still didn’t like the way it came out! I sent out the draft to my “A” list of story reviewers (Steve Gappa, Asa Lenon, Paul Dobbins, Blake Box, and Bill Crum) and got their responses. Well they all thought it was well written and informational. So for giggles I sent it to Tom Krause of the American Trapper, and Paul Wait of the Trapper. A few months go by and I ask Tom what happened to the article? Well he has been busy and can’t find any photos for it, but still want to use it. OK by me Tom. A few days later I get an email from Paul Wait (editor of The Trapper). Tom Krause had given Paul the ok to use the story and told him he should run it in the Trapper. OK by me guys, but for this I actually get paid instead of the usual free year subscription, EVEN BETTER! A few weeks later Paul email me again and wants to use the story in a small promotional booklet called the “Trapline”, and wanted to see if I was willing to let them. I said sure as I was getting paid again!

p.s. I still don’t really like the way this story reads.)

Just as in real estate the key to trapping success is location, location, location. Generally speaking there are just two types of locations; general location and specific location. General locations are easier to spot and identify than specific locations. General locations cover a broad area where the target animals are likely to travel. While specific locations define a particular spot that the target animals are likely to pass by.

Now for the hard part, teaching you how to pick out a general and then a specific location. As mentioned before general locations cover a broad area, while specific locations identify a small area. Examples of general locations might be: a hedgerow running through a cornfield, a field edge, a mountain pass, a pipeline, an old logging road, a powerline etc. While specific locations would be more like: a break or end of a hedgerow, a field corner, a trail meeting a mountain pass, pipeline, trail, or powerline.

Now I will give you examples of general locations and then specific locations and how I learned to detect and distinguish them.

I was first taught general location my grandfather “Pop”. He would take me down to the small woodlot behind the house, nicknamed Wilson’s (after the owner), to trap coons with him when I was a young boy. He explained why these woods were a good place to trap coons as opposed to the woods right behind the house. “These woods have a small creek for the coons to drink from, many large old hollow trees, and a cornfield at one end and dump at the other end.” “But why is this better than behind the house?” I asked. “Well sets behind the house will catch a few coons that might be trying to acquire a chicken, but there is no water, or other food sources and no suitable denning trees” he replied laughingly.

A few years later Pop took me with him to set up Wilsons. After entering the woods we came to the small creek that ran through the center of the woods. “Ok boy, now start looking for spots to set traps” Pop said to me. We walked slowly upstream (Pop insisted on this, as the water we were looking into would not be muddied by our boots) and started looking for sign. After we walked about fifty yards upstream I found a nice collection of coon tracks and excitedly pointed them out to Pop. “Good eye, now why are all of the coon tracks right here?” he asked. I had to look around and take in my surroundings before I answered. “Well I am guessing they are taking this trail up the bank to that cut cornfield on top of the ridge” I told him. He just nodded, and then said “Well make your sets quick, we got more traps to set.” I quickly slapped in a pocket set on the upstream side of the trail, and had Pop put a 160 conibear in the dry land trail.

A little farther along the trail, we came to the conjunction of two streams. Pop had shown me this place many times before. I quickly started rebuilding his cubby as I had seen him do years before. “Why are you making your set there?” he asked. I could have replied, “Because this is where you always make it”, but knew he would get angry if I did. So I said, “Well because two streams come together, and that way any coons following either stream had a chance of getting caught” reciting the exact words he had said to me years before. He just cracked big smile, chuckled and walked upstream to make his own sets.
My Father taught me about general and specific fox locations. We started at the Denneno farm. One of the first things I noticed was that sandwiched between a big corn field on the left and a hay field on the right was a thin sliver of trees and brush. Now that in itself is a good location due just to the three types of environment (cornfield, tree and brush, and hay field), but to sweeten it even further Mr. Denneno had his farm dump at the tip of the woods. He dumped silage, fruits and vegetables, and even dead pigs and cows on his dump. It was truly a text book location. A couple of nice sets on the upwind side of the dump would have surely caught foxes.

As we drove into the field I was sure he’d stop at the dump and put in a few sets, but he drove right on by. “What are you doing?” I asked incredulously. “Why aren’t we putting sets in at the dump? It’s a perfect spot; three types of environments all meeting in one place, food galore. Why didn’t we stop?” I asked. He slowed to a stop toward the end of the cornfield. “Son, Mr. Denenno warned me that there is a large pack of domestic dogs that hang around the dump, and use the field roads, and he’d appreciate it if I didn’t catch any of them.” “So instead I found some other set locations that produce equally well” he said with a smile. He asked me to look out at the field in front of us and pick where the sets were. “I would say were the edge of the field meet the road, and over there were that wedge of weeds juts out into the edge of the cornfield and hay field” I replied. “Very good, that is just where I would put them, except the dogs use the field road, so I didn’t set that, but I did set up the point you mentioned” Dad told me. So even though you may not be able to set up your ideal spot if you look hard enough you may find other equally good, but not as obvious spots.

My old partner Arnold Favinger helped me find a more specific location on gas lines and old logging roads than I ever had before. On pipelines I had always just set the top of any hill, the bottom of the hill, and if I was lucky to find a ridge running across a hill I always set that up as well (and did very well). On logging roads I had found that set were two roads met, did very well, as did sets were the road went along a ridge. Arnold helped show me something I had been overlooking all those years. We were trapping up at the cemetery one season, when I noticed Arnold stop along a straight stretch of pipeline and start making a set. “What the heck are you doing” I asked him. “Putting in a set, what’s it look like?” he replied gruffly. “Ok I can see that, but why right here? There’s no ridge, no path no intersecting road or trail right here” I said exasperated. “That’s where your wrong amigo” Arnold said. “Look right in front of me, and you’ll see what I mean” he said scarcely holding in his laughter. I looked and saw what he was talking about, there was a well used deer trail coming out onto the pipeline right about where he was making his set. He noticed the look of my face, and asked what was wrong. “I can’t believe I missed that for so long, it so obvious and makes such perfect sense” I said in disbelief. “Don’t take it so hard, you are used to trapping in the fields and woods. I learned this trick when I trapped the mountains, and was trapping mainly pipelines. I discovered that the foxes, coon and coyotes, all used the deer trails, so I set accordingly” Arnold revealed to me. I have used that bit of advice on many a set along a field where I could not find a spot I wanted, I went looking for heavily used deer trails to set up on. And, I caught foxes and raccoons in those sets I would not have made without his advice.


Another thing to remember on old logging roads, 4-wheeler trails or pipelines is that anything that narrows the trail is a great location. My best set ever came when a large tree fell across a pipeline blocking ¾ of it. Now the tree was only maybe 18 inches around but the foxes would rather go around than over. I made two sets near that tree and caught nineteen foxes in 3 weeks. SO if you can find a blow down or even move a tree or log out into your trail you will create a specific location out of a general one.


One of the best ways I have found to discover new locations is to wait till you get a dusting of 1 or 2 inches of snow. Less snow is no good and more snow makes walking difficult, as well as making everything look about the same. After the snow wait one night then go out to your trapping locations, and look around. Trails you have never seen before in the grass and weeds will stand out like ribbons of white winding through the brush. They’ll look so obvious you will wonder how you missed them in the past. Another thing to do is find an animal track you like follow it. You will learn more from doing this than I could ever teach you in a short article. Follow a set of fox tracks, and you’ll learn that they look in every groundhog hole they find. Foxes you will find, also stick a great deal closer to cover than you might think. Following a set of mink tracks on a frozen creek will reveal all the nooks and crannies that they can fit into, and hopefully show you places to put your sets.

I hope this helps you to find better locations for your sets. And, like Pop said “Observe don’t just look”, which means pay attention to the small details, and locations will just jump out at you.

Bag of Tricks

We’ve all had it happen to use at one time or another. We check a set and see that the trap has been dug up, flipped out of its bed, scratched at or otherwise disturbed by an animal. Our egocentric view is “must be a trap wise fox/coyote”, when in reality this is not usually the case.

The first thing I suspect when I see a set dug up or a trap flipped from it’s bed is “I must not have had that bedded as well as I thought.” (Sometimes when you are trapping frozen ground, the antifreeze you use will soften the bed and cause tippiness, so check the set for that possibility.) So I normally just reset the trap and make double sure I have it bedded as solidly as possible.

If it happens a second time and I know I had it bedded solidly, I then move on to my second thought of “dirty trap.” This is where you need to pay attention to details, like are more traps than this just this one getting dug up?, did this trap previously make a catch?, and things of that nature. Obviously if more traps than one are being dug up there is a strong likelihood of contamination, and you need to possibly re-dye and re-wax them. (My partner and I had this happen and traced it back to a pot of contaminated wax. It was frustrating week of dug traps let me tell you!)) But if it is just this trap and it had made a catch possibly replacing it will solve the problem. You may also want to move the set 3-4 feet to rule out possible association between the old place that was being dug and the new clean set

OK, we’ve now ruled out bedding, and possible scent contamination. So now you have a problem animal on your hands. Maybe it had dirt thrown in its face while investigating a dirt hole, or had its toes pinched in a flat set. The animal may associate the dirt pattern, along with human odors, and more curious odors down a hole with possible danger. Perhaps it is just me, but most of the diggers, scratchers, and flippers I have had to deal with, seemed to be related to dirt holes. Whatever the reason, you now need to break out the little black bag of tricks.

Most of the time a very small change will put the culprit’s pelt in your fur shed, though sometimes more drastic measures are called for. I have talked before of some “bad” foxes I have known in “Good Fox, Bad Fox”. I talked of the Currey fox I fooled by making a 3 foot dirt pattern in a pasture. The snow fox that Pop had out maneuvered up in the Fire Trails. And, the real trouble fox my Dad caught but never took home at Denenno’s.

Most of my solutions are far simpler than going through the effort of adding an additional trap to the set. Now come along with me and we’ll examine a few more cases of my memorable diggers, scratchers, and flipper and how they were dealt with.

One time up in the Fire Trails, Pop showed me a wonderful trick for dealing with a scratcher. We were checking his sets, and came to a dirt hole where even I could see (I was 6 or 7 years old) something had scratched the dirt off the right side of the trap. Pop let out a low cuss, “He did the same thing two days ago.” “Well I think I got something for him here” Pop said, as pulled out his ancient hook bladed knife (which I know have in my pocket), and cut two pieces of multi flora rose about 8 inches long. I looked at him quizzically, “Foxes don’t like stepping on thorns anymore than you or I do boy” Pop told me knowingly. He carefully placed the sections of rose thorns on the section of the trap bed that had been scratched up. “If he scratches to the left of the thorns he’ll be right on the pan of the trap” Pop said to me. Two days later he caught the old three toed male by the right front foot.
(I have found this works best if the thorn is right near the set, as importing it looks out of place.) This trick also helps when you are bedding in frozen or rocky soil and you can get the trap bedded solid except for one part of the jaw. As an example - my trapping partner Arnold and I were making sets in the frozen tundra of Dennno’s one winter, and Dad had ridden along, to see us set up the farm.
I got my set made except the one jaw was tipsy and a bit above the rest of the bed. “You’d better get that jaw down and bed it solid” Dad told me. Well I got aggravated at his advice, and threw 3 handfuls of dry dirt and knocked them flat with the back of my glove to level the bed. “That jaw is still tipsy” Dad said dryly. I pulled my knife and cut a switch of rose thorn and laid it across the tipsy jaw. “Well then I’ll make sure he doesn’t step there!” I replied in a bit of a huff. And, I had a fox in that set the next morning.

Another example of a true pain in the neck was “Old Slick”, he was a large fox that gave me fits on the powerline behind my grandmothers. I first encountered him in my senior year of high school, when I had a very short line out. I had 1 set that toward the end of the season would be scratched, dug or flipped about every 3 days. As I was just running a short line I didn’t bother with him at that time, and he was left alone till the next year.
The next fall Arnold and I teamed up and trapped the powerline and were doing fairly well on it, and then we started getting dug traps again. But they were only dug in one certain area and nowhere else on the line. Unfortunately Arnold had some family problems that year so our season was cut short and “Old Slick” survived another year.
Then Arnold and I teamed up again, and trapped the powerline. This time when the traps invariably got dug up I decided enough was enough. I pulled my favorite trick when I have a digger, I blended the set in.. I turned the dirthole I had originally into a flat set that blended the pattern in so perfectly I looked back and couldn’t tell where the set was. The next day the set was undisturbed, but I add half a quail wing to the hole, leaving just a few feathers sticking up to catch the wind.
I was hoping the combo of the blended set and the distraction of the feathers might prove to be Slick’s undoing. The next day there he was, big, burly, barrel-chested and mad as all get out. As I got closer I noticed something odd, he wasn’t caught by the foot. He was caught by the elbow of his right leg! I have never caught another this way and often wondered if he was creeping in to pounce on the feathers and got nailed.

The last one I will tell you about is one I had out at Twadell’s farm. It was late winter, and there was 6 inches of snow on the ground, when this story takes place. I had one set down in a little hollow. It was a dirthole (see a pattern?) I had baited with some special late season bait and it had been dug out the last time I checked it but the trap had been frozen in it’s bed. I remade the set and made sure it was properly antifreezed with dry dirt and calcium chloride. Two day later I came back but the trap was dug this time and not the hole. Hmmmm, maybe he caught his toenail on it when he was digging the hole, I thought. Ok rebed the trap tight and cover with dry dirt again. Two days later the trap is flipped out and upside down, ok Houston we have a problem. As I had made a catch in this trap I though ok maybe it is dirty, so I pulled the set and made a new set with a fresh trap just outside the original trap circle. I then lured and baited it with a big chunk of bait. Problem was I didn’t have enough dry dirt to finish the set and you could clearly see the pan and jaws through the dirt. I had no more dirt in the truck, and home was 5 miles away and I was already getting dark. So what to do? Leave it as is? (No looked stupid and I doubted an already sly fox would fall for it.) Snap and pull trap and remake tomorrow? (Considered doing this for a long time, then remembered it was supposed to snow, but only like 20% chance.) I was getting desperate for a solution, and then I remembered the snow fox Pop had outmaneuvered up in the Fire trails, but unlike then the chance of me getting snow was very slight. Ok new plan, I walked about 20 yards away and using my dirt bucket as a shovel scooped up a bucket of dry snow, and headed back to my set. Instead of dumping the snow on my set and possibly freezing, I threw ½ the bucket in the air letting the snow drift and fall over my set. It had covered it with about a ½ inch of light fluffy snow, but the trap was still semi visible. I threw the other ½ of my bucket of snow and let it settle. Perfect! The set looked just like any other part of the hollow now. I left the hollow saying a small prayer that the weatherman was right and I would get some snow. Next morning dawned and no new snow, I uttered a bad word and went to check my sets. As I got to the set in the hollow I got excited, as I could see dirty snow! I cam around the corner and had a gorgeous cherry red fox in the set. I took 3 pictures of him as he was so beautiful. (Wouldn’t you know all three pictures failed to come out!)

Well I hope you learned something new for your own bag of tricks, and remember often just a little change will help you catch the problem. Hopefully these tricks will help you on your line as they have helped me on mine. Now go get ‘em and I’ll see you down the trail.

Savell,

I went through the thread you pasted above, I noticed that a lot of your sets include a rock. Are you putting that there as a backing, an attractant to the eye, or do you have your lure under it?

Boy you better answer her or I’ll hit you so hard when you wake up your clothes’ll be outta style

… I apologize… I was busy atoning for past transgressions

…. Yes feather .. I’ll collect rocks from the road side to use for backing

… I typically make my dirthole then put the rock partially covering the hole

.. this way I can put my set directly on sign without having to move to a natural backing