Modern Trapping Methods 
Detailing the Plan of Campaign—Part Five 
4 Bie most important matter to be 
dealt with, assuming one has his 
outfit ready, is the location of the 
trapline. No outfit, however complete, 
is of any use in a country destitute of 
fur-bearing animals. But, no amount 
of reading or thinking will get you into 
the hoped-for trapper’s paradise so we 
will consider actual ways and means. 
First you must decide, in a general 
way, on the State or Province you wish 
to locate in. Northern Ontario, some 
parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Al- 
berta and British Columbia still have 
some excellent trapping territory and 
there is lots of room for the auto trap- 
per out west in Washington, Montana 
and Idaho. The latter must expect to 
work largely on coyotes, although he 
can find mink on some of the streams, 
’coons in the myriads of canyons and 
some muskrats in small lakes scattered 
about. If he’s a rustler he’ll get the 
fur. The writer traveled several thou- 
sand miles in a car and climbed many 
mountains, looking for marten out west 
but was disappointed. There are a few 
left in the Cascades, but if you want 
real marten country you’ve got to tackle 
British Columbia and northern Alberta 
to find anything worth while. 
Granting one has landed at the 
‘Jumping off place,” so to speak, he has 
yet the hardest work in hand. You 
can’t put too much faith in what local 
trappers tell you, for the motives which 
actuate them are often selfish and un- 
reliable, naturally. You can hardly 
expect a total stranger to give you in- ~ 
formation that might result in the cur- 
tailing of his own trapping efforts. A 
lot of them will tell you there isn’t any 
fur left in the country. If you are 
lucky enough to meet up with a man 
who is disinterested enough to give you 
real information, you may congratulate 
yourself. 
OUR best plan is to stand four- 
square on your own feet, find out 
what you can without antagonizing 
anyone and then set forth with a small 
outfit to look over territory which has 
no appearance of being trapped. The 
farther back from any trayeled route 
you get, the better. Let us suppose you 
have a good map of the district on 
which is marked the approximate loca- 
tion of sizable streams, lakes and moun- 
tains. Say you have reached a point 
some fifty miles or so distant from any 
settlement, a matter not hard to accom- 
Page 11 
By RAYMOND THOMPSON 
plish in western Canada for instance. 
The best time to explore is in early 
fall for the weather is mild and one 
can camp out without experiencing any 
degree of hardship. 
The tyro should accustom himself to 
the use of a compass and always carry 
the instrument with him. Two part- 
ners work better in the matter of locat- 
ing fur country. Now you have come 
to what looks like virgin wilds, how 
proceed in order to tell what manner 
of furbearers dwell in the woods and 
streams? Select a sizable creek and 
follow it for a few miles, examining 
the banks and bottoms for signs of 
mink. Their trails may be seen in the 
sand and their tracks in the mud and 
if you have sharp eyes you can locate 
their dens under tree roots along the 
danks. 
You won’t have to be much of a 
woodsman to discover the haunts of 
the beaver, for evidence of his work 
will be along the stream and back in 
the woods a hundred yards or more. If 
there are any otter using that creek 
as a regular route their dens and slides 
will be in evidence. 
Keep in mind the general direction 
the stream flows in, making a rough 
map of the route traveled and you will 
be surprised how much it will help in 
getting the lay of the land. If you are 
working upstream make particular note 
of all tributaries with a view of explor- 
ing them later. The tyro may become 
confused, traveling upstream, and fol- 
low up a small branch instead of keep- 
ing to the main creek. 
HIS is perfectly natural for when 
one keeps to one side of a stream 
the branches coming in at angles al- 
most parallel with the course he is trav- 
eling are easily mistaken for the main 
flow of water. Going downstream all 
the branches angle toward the common 
valley and it is absolutely impossible 
for one to stray far as long as he keeps 
within sight or hearing of the water. 
These simple rules are easily remem- 
bered but because they are simple don’t 
run away with the notion they’re un- 
important—they may save you a lot of 
trouble some time. 
Water animals are not the only wild 
folk that travel along streams. The 
lynx, bear, fox and wolf all make it a 
point to visit lakes, rivers and creeks. 
Their telltale footprints will be in the 
nice smooth sandbars and in the soft 
mud of a freshly repaired beaver dam. 
Of course it is harder for the amateur 
to locate these fur signs than for the 
trained woodsman; it is likewise harder 
for any man, however trained in woods 
lore, to make an estimate of the wild 
jife situation when the ground is bare 
instead of covered with a telltale 
blanket of white. 
N the north country we trappers put 
a lot of faith in the number of snow- 
shoe rabbits; that is, if they are plenti- 
ful it is a pretty good indication that 
carnivorous animals roam the woods. 
Any trapper, or would-be trapper, can 
tell whether the rabbits are plentiful 
for they are easy to see and their trails 
are everywhere. 
So, when you are prospecting for 
your permanent location, keep tab on 
the rabbits, and in a like manner on 
grouse and other game birds; for these 
latter wild creatures are hunted far 
and wide by the lynx, the fox and the 
wolf. You will find bears in localities 
where wild berries grow in abundance. 
While working over new territory 
you will often find a fair-sized lake 
snuggled down in a hollow, with the 
little stream you have been exploring, 
running through it. These little lakes 
are often a veritable gold mine to the 
trapper and the writer has trapped as 
many as eight or ten different species 
of furbearers in and around the waters 
of just such a pond. Ordinarily some 
such a place makes an ideal head- 
quarters, where the trapper may erect 
his main camp and work his traplines 
in different directions from it. 
But all of your lines will not be along 
streams or around the shores of lakes. 
You will want to prospect the swamps, 
the high bare hills and the lower ranges 
for fox and lynx pockets. 
ND the minute our’ uninitiated 
friend leaves the valleys and com- 
mences prospecting in the hills and 
swamps, he has set foot in the maze 
of tangled unfriendly wilds which, if 
‘he is not very cautious, will trip him 
up and set him down, not too gently, 
LOST. The old saw, ‘follow your 
nose and you’ll get there,’ surely 
doesn’t amount to much in the woods. 
Some men have a natural instinct or 
sense of direction which is positively 
uncanny to the greenhorn. Here’s a 
confession—the writer never owned a 
compass in his life! This is no criterion 
