62 
FOREST AND STREAM 
February, 1920 
ON THE FINE ART OF FUR TRAPPING 
NOT ONLY MUST THE TRAPPER BE ABLE TO SKILFULLY SECRETE A TRAP BUT -HE 
MUST HAVE A LOGICAL REASON FOR PLACING IT IN THE SPOT HE HAS CHOSEN 
J UST as there is a fine art to fishing, 
so there is to trapping. Trapping 
isn’t all luck nor hard work nor plain 
common sense. The fellow who would 
pit his intelligence against the natural 
instincts of the wary fur bearers must 
exercise some of the rudiments of science 
and art, if he succeeds to an appreciable 
extent. The instinct of self-preservation 
is strong, and some of the fur bearers 
have brains that work to their advant- 
age about as well as the trapper’s brain 
works to his advantage. The trapping 
game is a battle between human intelli- 
gence and animal wariness. 
The fox belongs to the dog family and 
can be rated next to man in intelligence. 
The fox has been credited with more in- 
genious tricks to baffle the trapper than 
the average man could conceive of or be- 
lieve possible. A commonly attributed 
trick is to dig up a trapper’s steel trap 
set for its undoing, turn the trap bottom 
upward, spring it and steal the bait. I 
know from personal experience a fox 
will reach its paw out inch by inch and 
uncover a trap set at the entrance to its 
den, if the trap is suspected or known to 
be there. Near civilization a fox doesn’t 
hesitate to follow a man’s trail, even in 
his recently made tracks, or cross a rail- 
road track or crawl under a barbed wire 
fence. I have trapped in a wilderness 
where foxes never crossed man’s trail, 
and noticed by tracks in the snow where 
a fox approached at right angles my two 
or three days’ old trail and took to its 
back track at a ten foot jump. They sel- 
dom come closer than six feet to a man’s 
trail, then gettng the human odor spring 
wildly into the air for a distance of sev- 
eral feet in the direction from which 
they approached. They usually keep 
running, too. A few times I have known 
them to leap across the trail, but in 
calities where men’s trails are more com- 
mon. 
Man is the greatest enemy of fur bear- 
ers, and most other wild animals, for that 
matter, and they soon learn this fact. 
When they do, they shun man’s trail. 
Knowing this trait of the fur bearers, 
it is a part of the trapper’s art to cover 
his own trail as much as possible and 
seek out the haunts of the wild animals. 
When he invades the isolated spots that 
harbor fur bearers, he should keep his 
presence as quiet as possible. I have 
know trappers who could catch game in 
their own door yards, speaking literally, 
but it is well known that the average 
hunting party must get far from camp 
to bag any worth-while game. Last win- 
ter while in a wilderness trapper’s camp, 
I went out for a short walk expecting to 
shoot a white rabbit for supper. Pard 
and I had been out to the settlement for 
a week and in the meantime a heavy 
snow had fallen, covering all human 
signs. I had to cross a low ridge direct- 
By RICHARD K. WOOD 
Making a cubby pen set for fisher 
ly in front of the camp, and on the op- 
posite side struck the fresh trail of a 
fisher — a deep woods animal — within a 
hundred yards of our camp. I trailed 
the animal only fifty feet to a den tree. 
A little smudge invited him to stick his 
head out of an up-stairs window and a 
steel bullet from my 30-30 brought down 
sixty dollars. While skinning the animal 
I happened to cast an eye toward the op- 
posite ridge and there I saw a nice buck 
trotting down the mountain side at a 
lively clip. The season was on and the 
larder empty at camp, so I let drive and 
A trapper with a large lynx 
broke the deer’s back at the first shot. 
This experience goes to show the effect 
of our week’s absence. We have caught 
mink in sets fifty feet back of the cabin, 
and weasels in traps set for mice, right 
in the camp. 
Nearly every fur bearer has a certain 
weakness that is taken advantage of by 
the expert trapper. It is up to the ama- 
teur trapper to, acquaint himself with 
these weak points in the animal’s nature 
or habits. For instance, the ’coon has a 
curiosity that would lead it blindly into 
a trap, seemingly. I have seen Southern 
trappers catch them by the dozens by 
merely setting out traps with a brass 
button on the pans, the traps being 
placed in riffles which the ’coons visit. 
The raccoon eats mussels and perhaps 
the shiny object has some similarity to a 
clam shell, but it is well known that a 
’coon will investigate almost anything 
out of the ordinary. It is said the musk- 
rat is attracted by a wh'te cloth, but I 
have never tried the experiment. There 
are too many more practical lures for 
this animal, and one acquainted with its 
habits doesn’t have to resort to any at- 
tractor. 
The mink is a widely distributed an- 
imal, not numerous in any section, but 
worth a fair price. This animal is one 
of the slyest and sharpest fur bearers, 
with a keen sense of smell that enables it 
to detect a rusty trap or human odor 
with ease. It has one weakness, how- 
ever, of exploring all holes, burrows, 
hollow logs and stumps and drift piles 
on its route. The animal is a great 
ranger, traveling long distances in one 
night, but it invariably travels the same 
route and visits the same spots. A mink 
will never go over a bridge or other 
barrier if there is a way under. By fol- 
lowing the animal’s trail a short distance, 
the trapper can locate a spot where the 
animal will be forced to step on the trap 
pan in getting by the next trip. 
The otter has about the same habits 
as the mink, except its journeys are on 
a much larger scale. The otter may 
make a circuit of fifty or sixty miles, 
taking a month for the round. On cer- 
tain banks it will have well-worn 
“slides” that are regularly visited. The 
trapper places his trap at the foot of 
the slide and patiently waits the next 
visit of the otter. 
T HE wilderness animals, fisher or 
pekan, marten, fox, beaver, lynx 
and bear have peculiar habits that 
aid the trapper. The fisher is the out- 
law of the woods. He ranges far and 
wide, fearless and daring. This is the 
only fur-bearer that eats with impunity 
the many barbed porcupine, bearding 
porky in its own den. This animal is 
respected by lesser fur animals and ex- 
pert trappers alike. Were it not for 
