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قراءة كتاب Fox Trapping: A Book of Instruction Telling How to Trap, Snare, Poison and Shoot A Valuable Book for Trappers

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Fox Trapping: A Book of Instruction Telling How to Trap, Snare, Poison and Shoot
A Valuable Book for Trappers

Fox Trapping: A Book of Instruction Telling How to Trap, Snare, Poison and Shoot A Valuable Book for Trappers

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 7

next snow.

One morning I thought it looked as though it was fixing for a snow. I got three No. 2 Victor traps and told my wife I was going to catch that old fox that night if it snowed. I went to the three places and was very careful not to tear things up any more than just to dig places the size of the traps. I had grapnels fastened to chains and dug holes deep enough to bury them, so that when the traps were set on top of them it would be just a little below level of the surface of the ground, and covered all up with dead grapevine leaves. About the time I got the last trap set it commenced snowing and quit snowing before dark.

TRAP AND GRAPNEL.
TRAP AND GRAPNEL.

Next morning I went early to get my fox before the hound men got out, thinking sure I would have her. When I got within one hundred yards of set No. 1 I saw her tracks leading straight to it. She went up within five or six feet of the trap, turned short off to the right and went down to set No. 2, went up within five or six inches of trap where she turned short off to the right again, made a few jumps down the hill, jumped over top of fence, circle back up the hill to sheep path, followed it out to set No. 3. She went up to this trap, raked every bit of snow and leaves off of trap and left trap bare and in plain sight, not even springing trap. I covered trap up again thinking I might fool some other fox, but in about half an hour the hounds came along on her track and one of them set his foot in the trap and his owner let him loose and threw the trap away.

The hounds followed the fox up over the hill, routed it and ran it about an hour and holed it under a big rock, and the men went off and left it. Now the hounds had been in the habit of holing this fox under the same rock, and the most of us know that when a pack of hounds hole a fox they generally tear things up some. In other words, they leave some signs. I set the traps as nice as I knew how, and when I went back the next morning traps were turned upside-down and fox gone.

So I concluded I would follow the track and see if I couldn't find her asleep and shoot her, but had not gone far when I found the snow had drifted so I could not follow her. I came back home discouraged. Next morning I thought I would go and see if she had been back on the hill. When I got to set No. 2 I saw where she had come up from the opposite side from what she had been in the habit of doing and stuck her right foot square in the trap. She went about one hundred yards where she got tangled in some grapevines and was waiting for me.

Now I think there are instances where the scent of steel or human scent will scare animals away from your sets, and when you mix them both together they are a sure warning of danger with all shy animals. Now if this fox did not locate that trap at set No. 3 with her nose I would like to know how she did it, for I removed every bit of dirt I took out to make set and left all level and two and a half inches of snow ought to make things look as natural as any fox could expect to find a set, and at a rock where she had been in the habit of seeing things torn up by the dogs when she came out on previous occasions, and traps hidden out of sight, her nose surely told her where they were set.


CHAPTER VIII.
TRAPPING RED FOX.

In the many years that he has been striving for his glossy pelt, man has evolved numerous clever schemes for outwitting the fox, but in the meantime Reynard has not been an idle observer regarding the ways of the human enemy, says J. L. Woodbury, of Maine. He lacks the advantage of books or tradition for handing down his store of accumulated knowledge, but in some mysterious way it is transmitted from generation to generation, nevertheless. So it is that the fox of the older and more thickly settled sections is a very different animal from the fox--even though it be of the same variety or species--inhabiting a part of the country where its kind has not been so persistently hunted. Tricks that prove effective with the latter are utterly lost on his better-schooled brother. Hence the simple methods advanced by some trappers are a bit amusing to the trappers here in the East, where the subject of this sketch reaches the acme of wisdom, and is, we believe, the peer in shrewdness and cunning of any animal in the world. However, we do not wish to be understood as ridiculing anybody's methods. We read the crudest of them with interest, realizing that they are all right in the region whence they came.

CAUGHT IN MAINE.
CAUGHT IN MAINE.

I would advise the amateur fox trapper to begin with the water set if practicable. Nearly any one of the many different forms are good enough, with such modifications as will be found necessary to adapt it to varying conditions of different sets. As one should not begin operations until freezing weather, spring water should be selected for the trap. A good-sized spring works best, but if this is not to be had, utilize some of the little springs to be found in plenty near the sources of brooks. One with a dark bottom is to be preferred, as then there will be no sand to clog the trap, which may be pressed down into the mud until it is all hidden but the pan. This should be about an inch under the water, and covered with a lump of moss.

The position of trap with relation to bait has so often been explained I need not dwell upon it here. If the spring be a large one it is easy to place the bait so that it will be protected by water on all sides save the one desired, but if a smaller pool be employed the side opposite the trap should be barricaded with stumps or brush; which work, by the way, had better be done some time during the previous summer. And rather than leave too narrow an approach to the bait if is better to set two or even more traps, for reynard's suspicions are quickly aroused by anything resembling an inclosure.

As to the matter of bait, it may be said in general that foxes like about all kinds of meat. Yet the task of selecting a killing bait is not always as easy as might be expected from this, as individuals seem to have their particular preferences, while the morsel that would be eagerly sought by the same fox at one season will have no attraction for him at another. If you find "signs" in the vicinity of your sets, yet they remain unmolested, experiment with different kinds of baits, as the angler tries a variety of flies at every likely-looking pool. It is certain that mice, rabbits and grouse are among the best baits.

For the "scent" part, some trappers claim to do well without them, but a good scent is unquestionably a great help. Many of those for which receipts are given I know to be effective. But the most tempting bait and the strongest lure will jointly prove unavailing if one's set be unskillfully made, and carelessness be practiced in going to and from trap.

Water, of course, leaves no scent where it is possible to reach the set by boat or wading, but where this is impracticable arrange to go to trap but rarely, if it remain undisturbed. The height of springs vary but little with wet or dry weather, and this fact should be taken full advantage of by the fox-trapper. Carefully select a trap that will not spring of itself. See that the trigger is pushed well into the notch, pick out a good, close-fibred piece of moss for pan, not large enough to clog the jaws, and stick a few small twigs around it to hold it in place. Push the chain well down into the mud, have the bait exactly in the right place, and in fact use every care to have things fixed so that they will not be disarranged by trivial causes. Then in visiting, go no nearer than is necessary to see that bait or trap have not been disturbed.

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