CHAPTER XIX.
MYSTERIOUSLY SPRUNG TRAPS.
In determining the length of time to have a trap set depends largely upon how many other traps you have in the vicinity and what success you are having with them. It may be that a trap will remain at a den for two weeks unsprung and during the next two weeks catch two or three animals. Other traps may be sprung occasionally and not contain game, but if the trapper has followed instructions as previously given there should be little difficulty in catching each and every animal that comes after the bait. The trap should have the animal the first time it attempts to steal the bait, but of course it cannot be expected to every time. A good trapper will get the animal, however, before it fools with the bait many times.
If, on visiting a trap, you find the bait gone, replace it and set the trap as before. The chances are that on the next visit of the animal it will get caught. Should, on the second visit, the bait be gone and the trap unsprung, the chances are that the animal is still in the den and is stealing the bait from within, without stepping over the trap. In this case, either place the bait on the outside of trap or not use any bait for a few nights. The animal will most likely soon venture out, if you quit feeding it, and will get caught.
The ideas advanced by some that animals spring traps after turning them over, with their noses or paws, is all nonsense. It may be possible that they do step over the trap and knock it off with their body, thus not getting caught. Such cases are rare, however. You have no doubt visited your trap and found a few hairs in it. On such occasions it was probably knocked off by the body of the animal. It may be possible that animals have turned traps over in their endeavors to get bait with their nose or paw, but you can rest assured that they did not know by so doing that it lessened the chance of getting caught. If you can induce an animal to come and get the bait there is no doubt but that you will catch your game sooner or later.
In regard to traps being sprung, it is possible they are set too easy, and go off of their own accord, after the trapper has left them. Again they may work too hard, not going off easy enough. All these things the trapper should guard against. If the trap has been properly set there will be no trouble from the source just named, and traps once set the trapper should keep away from, as far as possible when making his rounds, unless they are sprung, the bait gone or contain game.
Should traps be sprung morning after morning without catching the animal it is possible that if you move the trap, or better still leave the one as before and set another, you will be rewarded. Sometimes an animal will manage to get bait without getting caught. At other times it may get bait without knocking off the trap. At such times the bait is too near the trap most likely, the animal reaching it without stepping over the trap, or if the trap has not been properly set the animal may be going around the trap.
Just how long a trap should be left at one place if not bothered is hard to say as so many things bear upon the question; if the weather is cold and few animals moving they should be left much longer than if good trapping weather. If the den has been a good one other years, that is, if you have caught game there, then leave longer than if you never caught anything there. If other traps are making catches near, leave as long as you are trapping there unless you find a much better looking den near and have no trap with you, then take this one.
When traps are sprung and pulled back into the den as far as the chain will allow them to go, the chances are that the animals is still in the den. On the other hand, if the trap is dragged to the outside the game is liable to have gone away. In either case it will likely be around again in a few nights, as having once got a meal it will not be slow to make another visit. If the animal was caught and only escaped after prolonged struggles is may not return for some time and possibly not at all. Yet when a trap is set and fastened as directed, few animals when once caught escape. Here is where proper fastening comes into use; if the trap had a fairly good hold on the animal and the trap was staked solid the game might have escaped but would be so badly injured and frightened that it might never return.
When fastened properly to a bush or light drag, the game rarely escapes even though the trap has only a toe hold, unless the trapper is days in making the rounds. Should an animal escape when only slightly injured it is apt to soon return.
In many cases where game has escaped after once being caught it is not the fault of the trap but of the trapper. Should the bone in the animal's leg be broken and after days of endeavoring the animal frees itself there should be no blame attached to the trap, the fault is with the trapper--he should have visited the trap sooner.
Many trappers believe that animals become so sharp that they will turn traps over. This we hardly believe. At the same time trappers have set traps upside down and caught the animals. This, perhaps, is accounted for from the fact that the animal in reaching for bait would turn the trap. It is usually the case that animals will go about getting bait in a certain manner and the changing of location of trap may be the means of making a catch.
Some years ago when trapping mink, I visited a certain deadfall that was "down" each morning and the bait eaten. The trap was reset and rebaited each time for perhaps a week, even after making the pen smaller and the trap easier to go off, it continued to be down and bait gone. By this time I was anxious, and taking a No. 1 steel trap I carefully set it on the inside of the pen, covered it well and rebaited the deadfall. On my round the next morning neither the trap nor bait were disturbed.
The second morning the deadfall was down and in the steel trap was a small mink--the smallest I ever caught. This accounted for the animal being able to get inside the pen and eat the bait. It was so small that when the log fell its body was entirely inside the fall. I hardly think that small mink, which was less than a year old, knew that it would get caught unless it was inside the fall, but its size was such that it could easily get out of danger, and each time it ate the bait it was in the same position on the inside.