WHEN TO BUILD.
If you have determined upon your trapping ground it is best to build
your traps in advance of the trapping season, so that they will
become old and weather beaten. This, of course, is not necessary as
traps are often built, baited and on the return of the trapper the
following morning game securely caught. While the above is often
true, deadfalls can and should be built in advance of the trapping
season. There are at least two reasons for this: first, it allows the
traps to become weather beaten and game is not so suspicious; second,
all the trapper has to do when the trapping season arrives is to
visit and set his traps.
Some object to deadfalls on the ground that they require lots of work
to build and that a trapper's time is valuable at this season of the
year. Such may be true of the amateur, but the professional trapper
usually has much idle time in August, September and early October,
when he is glad to look out for trapping grounds for the coming
winter. It is a day's work for one man to build from eight to twelve
deadfalls, depending of course upon how convenient he finds the pole
to make the fall. The other material is usually not hard to find or
make. That is stakes, chunks and rocks. If you only build six or
eight traps and construct them right they are worth twice as many
poorly built. When properly built they will last for years, requiring
but little mending each fall at the opening of the trapping season.
Taken all in all we do not know that a certain number of deadfalls
take up any more time than an equal number of steel traps. In fact
more deadfalls can be set in a day, after they are built, than steel
traps.
When it is stated that you will perhaps do as well at home as
elsewhere, this, of course, depends upon where you are located, how
many trappers there are in your section, etc. If there is but little
to be caught then you had best go elsewhere, but trappers have been
known in thickly settled sections to catch from $50 to $300 worth of
fur in a season, lasting from November 1 to March 15. Of course in
the far north, where trapping can be carried on from October 15 to
June 15, or eight months, the catch is much larger, and as the
animals caught are more valuable, the catch of a single trapper is
sometimes as high as $600 to $1,000.
The trapper who stays near home has the advantage of knowing the
territory. If he was to visit a strange section, altho a good
trapping locality, he would not do so well as if he were acquainted
with the locality and knew the locations of the best dens. Then again
his expenses are heavier if he goes into a strange section, yet If
there is but little game near your home, and you are going to make a
business of trapping, go and look up a good trapping section. Under
these conditions it is best for two or three to go together. There is
no necessity of carrying but little baggage other than your gun, for
at the season of the year that prospecting is done there is but
little difficulty in killing enough game to live on.
After you have once found a good trapping section, and built your
cabin, deadfalls and snares, you can go there fall after fall with
your line of steel traps, resetting your deadfalls with but little
repairs for years. You will also become better acquainted with the
territory each season and will make larger catches. Do not think that
you have caught all the game the first season, for generally upon
your return the next fall you will find signs of game as numerous as
ever.
In locating new trapping grounds, if two or three are together and it
is a busy time in September, let one of the party go in advance
prospecting. This will save much valuable time when you make the
start for the fall and winter trapping campaign. It will pay you to
know where you are going before you make the final start.