Chapter XXVI Water Trapping
Here is where the steel trap reveals its superiority over all other traps, for the homemade ones cannot be used for water sets. Strictly speaking all the “water animals” that are valuable for fur are the otter, beaver and muskrat, although large numbers of both coon and mink are caught at water sets, as they frequent the streams, ponds and lakes, a great deal in search of food.
In the New England states, as well as some other sections, foxes are caught in water sets mostly at springs. They are generally trapped this way in the fall and early winter before freezing weather.
Beaver
The beaver, as I know him, is a very shy and cunning animal, always on guard against danger, which makes it pretty hard to trap, unless the trapper thoroughly knows his ways and habits. My experience has been wholly confined to the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and State of Washington, writes a trapper of experience.
The beaver lives along streams or lakes. On streams he builds dams, thus making a reservoir or lake. Sometimes he builds a dam at the outlet of a natural lake, thus raising the height of the water. After he has prepared his dam and built his home, he commences to gather food, which consists of branches of trees, bushes, and even small trees themselves. He always chooses tender, green ones. These he puts in the bottom of the lake or stream in his hut or lodge. If he be disturbed at any time he will stop work for several days and live off the boughs already gathered and sunken, and it is almost impossible to get him until he commences to gather again.
He usually does his work among young sprouts which grow along the bank of his lake or stream. Sometimes he will go a short ways up the stream and float the boughs down to his dam or hut, and then sink them to the bottom, so when the ice gets thick he has sufficient food sunk in the water to last him.
Beaver, Trap and Trapper
There are several different ways to trap him, but I only know of two or three, and will attempt to give them. The first thing is a No. 3 or 4 Newhouse trap with a long chain and big ring. Then the best way is to take some bait, (described elsewhere), cut some small twigs, one for each trap, and having found the dam of a family of beavers, put on a pair of rubber boots, or remove your boots, and wade up stream along the shore, or go in a boat to where they have been at work gathering the sprouts. Be very careful, and don’t step out of the water on the land so they can see your tracks or scent you, for should his suspicion become aroused by any human smell the beaver will stay in his home for several days, thus making it tedious work to trap him. When you have a place selected where the bank is steep, fasten your trap chain to a strong stake beneath the water. Then fasten a heavy rock to your trap and dig a flat place in the bank a few inches beneath the water, placing your trap thereon. Then dip the twig into the “madcin” and stick the upper end in the ground, just out of the water, and leaning over the trap. Now your trap is ready.
The beaver comes out of his hut as it grows dark and starts toward the ground where he has his feeding place. As he swims along up the stream, his nose comes in contact with a familiar smell, and he will swim right up to the twig to investigate. As his foot touches the ground the trap springs and he at once plunges for deep water. The stone rolls down to the bottom and pulls him under and he drowns in a short time. He makes no noise to scare the rest, and before he has time to gnaw off his foot he is drowned. In this way you can catch the whole family.
Another way is to cut a hole in the top of dam and set the trap just below the top of water just under the hole. Just as soon as he comes out his eyes tell him his dam needs fixing. He goes at it at once, and all the rest help him. He gets into the trap often before the eyes of the rest, and they will leave the place at once never to return.
Another way is to cover the trap carefully in the path where the beaver goes from the water to his feeding grounds, but doing this it is liable to scare the rest of them entirely away.
Otter
The otter is a pretty hard animal to catch. When I set a trap in an otter hole, I cut a chunk of snow with an axe a short distance away and set over the hole, covering it all over with loose snow. That prevents it from freezing up for some time.
The best time to catch otter is in March when the first thaw comes. I have kept traps set all winter for an otter and then got him in the spring. The trap should be set a little to one side of the hole in ten inches of water. I caught an otter once in an otter hole so deep that I had to put in an armful of cedar brush, so as to make it the right depth, and when he came to slide around there he got a surprise, writes a Colorado trapper.
To trap otter cut a log about 18 inches in diameter and about 7 or 8 feet in length, then cut half off five or six inches of one end of the log. Now float your log with the cut end down. Fasten your trap chain to the side of the log. Float your log to just below the point of a stream or a little above an otter slide.
See that the log end on which the trap rests is below the water so as to give the otter a chance to climb onto the log to investigate the scent which should be “Oil of Anise” smeared on to a stick and set upright on the log. If you use good judgment in placing your log-float, you can count the “balls” on the otter’s feet at every set.
I find where the otter comes out of the water, writes an Arkansas trapper, to dung, or slide, as some term it, and I take a No. 4 steel trap and set it where he comes out of the water and about two inches under. Great care should be taken in setting a trap for an otter, not to go too close to the slides. Have a pair of rubber boots and wade in the stream along the edge to where the slide is. Set your trap so as to leave everything just as you found it, as near as possible; if handy, set from boat. No bait is required.
Large Otter Caught in No. 3 Newhouse
Fasten your chain to a pole, say 6 or 8 feet long, leaving some limbs on one end to prevent ring of chain from coming off and wire the other end to a bush or something of that sort as far out in the water as you can so the otter can get into deep water and drown. Have a pole driven in the ground out in the water so the otter will get tangled around the pole. This will prevent him from getting loose, because he has no purchase to pull as he would have if out on the bank.
I “hung up” three one night last fall. When I went to my traps I found one otter that measured 6 feet from tip of nose to tip of tail. I found an otter toe in one trap, another trap being taken off by an otter, as the chain pulled loose at the spring. I was fortunate in finding the otter that got away with the trap four days later, tangled up in some vines about two hundred yards from where he was caught; he measured 5 feet and 11 inches.
Mink
An excellent way to catch mink is to take a fish, cut it in pieces and tie all of them except one or two onto a large stick and fasten it out about two feet from the shore in shallow water. Set your trap about half-way between the shore and the stick and have it fixed so that the covering will make a little mound above the water. Throw the other pieces of fish down on the shore and you will get every mink that comes along. Be sure that your trap is staked in as deep water as is possible, so they will not get away.
In setting any trap it is a very good thing to have rubber boots and stand in the water while setting. Some trappers say it is foolishness because they are not afraid anyway. Well, I have caught mink in an uncovered trap that was in plain sight and then again I couldn’t get them to come near with the trap under water. Some mink are more careful than others and if you set for the wisest ones you will be sure to get them all.
I will give you a good mink set, writes a Minnesota trapper. Here is a trail along the edge of the water. Let us follow it until it takes to the water. In order to pass around a projection in the bank where the bank is so straight up that it is necessary for the animal to go into the edge of the water to pass around this obstruction, and in the edge of the water not more than two inches deep, level a place for the trap and press it down into the ground until the jaws are level with the surface, being careful to remove all mud from under the pan, giving it room for free action. Stake the chain back into the water full length and press it down into the mud.
After doing this get a handful of dry dirt, pulverize it and let it fall gently over the trap, thoroughly covering it at least for a quarter of an inch, even and smooth in all places. Now about eight inches on each side of the trap place a small weed stalk an inch or two above the ground and directly over the path and if you will put a few spots of mud on it just where it crosses the path to give it the appearance of being rubbed against, you will catch every mink that runs this trail from either direction, and without bait or scent.
Muskrat
When setting traps stake well out in the water, so that when the animal is caught he cannot get to land, and nine times out of ten when you visit the trap your game will be drowned. The trap should be in about three inches of water where rats frequent. If set 3 inches or deeper the trap is more apt to catch by the hind leg, which, being large, the bone is not broken so easily. For bait use white corn, apples, parsnips or turnips.
Muskrat Caught in a Double Jaw
The idea advanced that the muskrat gnaws off his foot when caught is erroneous. There are times, however, when the trap has broken the bone in the leg and if the trap is a strong one, the animal frees himself by plunging about until the pressure of the jaws have cut thru the flesh. The flesh of the muskrat is not strong and when the jaws spring together, if they break the bone in the leg, which frequently happens, then the rat often frees himself before the arrival of the trapper.
It is a good plan when making the round of your traps to carry a stout club with which to tap game over the head, killing it, should it be yet alive when you arrive. The entrance of the muskrat’s den is usually under water, unless the streams are very low, then you can often find them.
In the mouth of these dens is an excellent place to set traps, as game is passing in and out quite often and if traps are baited you are pretty sure to catch game in a day or two. Where rats have made a path from the water up the bank is another good place to set a trap. The trap should be set just at the edge of the water.
It is a good idea to cover up your trap, even when trapping for muskrat, for with continued trapping they become sly and learn to shun traps. Along the bank of most all streams green grass can be secured and this placed over your traps will enable you to catch game that otherwise would shun your trap. The trap should be baited, but the covering up of trap and chain will greatly help in catching game. The earlier traps are visited in the morning the better, for should the game still be alive there will be less chance of it getting free.
Coon
Now just a word about trapping coon in water. Set trap in water and bait with fish. Now the right way to use fish is to cut it up in very small pieces, drop some on the ground and some in the water and when Mr. Coon comes along he will find that fish on the ground and then go to feeling in the water and the first thing he knows he is in the trap.
Here is my most successful set for coon. Find a log with one end out of water, and one end running into the water. Place a trap on the log an inch or so under water. Cover it with wet leaves all but the treadle. Then place a few grains of white corn on treadle pan. Mr. Coon will as sure put a foot down to investigate as he runs the log.
Fox
I go around every fall in August and look for places to catch sly reynard, says an Eastern fox trapper. I look up all the warm springs back in the hills and dig them out and leave a stick or rail there for a clog. I leave it just where I want it, so that they will get used to it.
About the middle of October I go and bait every place, using a piece of chicken or muskrat about as large as a butternut. I place it on a rock in the middle of the spring or about a foot from the bank and put a stone half-way between that and the bank just under water. Then I take a stone, the thinner the better. You can find enough of them around a ledge where the frost has scaled them off. I lay it on the rock that is just under the water so it will stick out of water. It ought to be 2 inches across each way.
I use the scent of the skunk on the sole of my boots so as to kill the scent and handle the bait with a “knife and fork,” never with my hands. It won’t be long before the bait it gone when I am ready to set my traps, then I move the middle stone and put the thin one on the pan of the trap so it will just stick out of the water. Try this and you will get your fox. Scatter three or four drops of fish oil around trap.