I am an old man and have too many traps to use in 1 season, BUT, there was a time I didn't and was always playing "trap mechanic" during the summer off season. I bought used traps with softened springs and replace the ones that I thought were needed, mostly all BG types. Now we have guys "softening # 2 CS springs" to weaken them for muskrat and mink and 4 coiling other predator type CS traps. Because we have a wide variety of furbearers here and not really great numbers or access to large #'s of any one species I have a variety of all types and sizes of BG's. I may not use many 220 size for 5-10 years due to the fur price, work schedule, family responsibility, user group conflicts etc.. As example after moving back to NE from MN in '84 I stored all my 220s (which I used almost exclusively there for water/creek bank traps) due to pheasant dogs being everywhere on the countryside here. Didn't need the hassle even though the dogs weren't on the right side of the fence. Resurrected them in the late 90's - early 2000's as the Pheasant boys got less and less. Some of those 220's were safety locked for 10 yrs. and showed no noticeable metal fatigue. So now when I prep for a coming fur season all larger BG's (120's -330's) are stored unset, but anticipated users are prepped by setting the safety and stored about 1-2 weeks before planned use. In the fields/water when pulled they are clipped with the safety as soon as I pull them for any ride/time in the truck and they stay like that for up to 4 months. At the end of the season (sometime in May) all BG's get unclipped and stored. Only exceptions for me are a few 330's and 280's I use on beaver damage calls as some are in the water 250-300 days/yr. Don't use any Belisles but believe those are about as good as it gets for a BG now-a-days as design and spring strength have proven their worth to others. My experience.................................................. the mike
