Trapping Secrets: Methods, Tricks, and Tips of a Fifty-Year Fur Trapper by William Wasserman

Author:William Wasserman [Wasserman, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780971890749
Amazon: 0971890749
Publisher: Penn's Woods Publications
Published: 2013-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Rock Solid Bodygrippers

TRAPPING IN NORTHEASTERN Pennsylvania can be difficult due to the rocky terrain that trappers are forced to deal with. Often, it is nearly impossible to pound a stake into the ground. This is especially true with water trapping, where many of our streambeds are granite hard and lined by rocky outcroppings.

I began using rocks to stabilize bodygrippers many years ago when trapping beaver along a rocky streambed. A landowner had contacted me the day before beaver season ended and asked me if I could clean out the entire colony.

Due to the thin ice around the dam, I found few suitable trap locations. But I did notice that the beavers were walking up and down the shallow streambed above the dam. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to stick a number of bodygrippers in the center of the creek where the beavers were moving upstream for food.

Of course, it was impossible to stake my traps, so I simply set them in the center of the two-inch-deep streambed with their springs extending straight out like the wings on an airplane. I filled the space under each spring with a large flat rock and placed another heavy rock on top, sandwiching them (it isn’t always necessary to brace both springs when supporting bodygrippers). The rocks not only stabilized my traps but also served as stone columns for the beaver to pass through.

The following morning my experiment paid off better than I had ever dreamed. Each trap held a prime beaver. They had walked unafraid, right into my exposed bodygrippers.

While trapping muskrats and mink in rocky streams, I also come across good set locations where it’s impossible to stake my trap solid. After all, the trap must be held firmly in place as the animal passes through the jaws, and most of us are used to simply running a stake through the trap springs or between the jaws and into the ground to accomplish this. But when setting traps along rocky streams, we often have to resort to alternative methods.

While bodygripping traps can be stabilized quickly and efficiently using rocks, we also need to anchor the trap to something. To remedy this, I either wire my trap chain to a heavy rock or center a wooden stake through the chain ring and lay it on the ground with a good-sized rock on top of the stake. The wooden stake helps the rocks bite down on the chain ring and keeps it from slipping off the stake. A properly sized and adjusted bodygripper in good condition will kill a muskrat or mink quickly, so it’s not necessary to anchor it as firmly as a foothold trap.

I have two favorite spots to trap muskrats in a farm pond near my home. The pond has lots of muskrats but the water is dark and the rocks are covered with silt, and extremely slippery. Walking in the pond, attempting to find muskrat dens by prodding with my boots, proved comical. I spent most of the time with my arms flailing about like a drunken tightrope walker.

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