Fox Trapping.

by A. R. (Arthur Robert) Harding.

INTRODUCTORY.

If all the methods as given in this book had been studied out by one man and he began trapping when Columbus discovered America, more than four hundred years ago, he would not be half completed.

The methods given on the following pages are princ.i.p.ally taken from articles published in the H-T-T, and as the writers give their own most successful methods, the trapper of little experience with fox will find them of great value.

Their articles are from all parts of America, so that trappers from any section will find a method or methods that can be used. The red fox is the one most sets describe, yet what is a good method for one species is apt to be for others.

A. R. HARDING.

FOX TRAPPING

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL INFORMATION.

Foxes are found in all parts of America, but probably most numerous in the New England States and parts of Canada. The range of the red is from Virginia to Alaska; grey, Southern and Southwestern States; cross, Northern New Jersey to Manitoba; black, Alaska, and the territories several hundred miles to the South and East; swift, the prairies or Great Plains; white and blue, the Arctic Regions.

While their fur has been one of value for many, many years, and they have been hunted, trapped and snared, yet their numbers are holding up remarkably well owing to their shrewdness. While many tricks are claimed for foxes that they never did, yet they are very cunning animals and also fleet on foot.

In hilly and mountainous countries they travel much on the highest ground, and have regular "crossings," where the experienced hunter or trapper often makes a kill or catch.

Foxes are carnivorous--living on flesh. Their princ.i.p.al food consists of rabbits, squirrels, mice, birds, bugs, eggs, etc. In some places where the food named is not plenty they visit creeks, lakes and ponds hunting crabs and fish. While they prefer fresh meat, they take stale and even decayed meats in severe weather.

Most wild animals can be attracted a short distance by "scent" or "decoy," and the fox is one of them. Several good recipts for scent are given, but if there are no foxes in your neighborhood you can use all the "scents" and "decoys" you wish on a hundred traps all season without making a catch. There is no "decoy" that will attract a fox a mile, but there are some that are good. That many of the writers made good catches is bourn out by the various photographs, and in some instances by personal visits by the author to the trapper.

Foxes should not be trapped or shot until cold weather. In the states bordering on Canada about November 1st, while to the north they become prime sooner, while to the south they do not become prime until later.

The pelt should be cased, that is skinned without ripping, and drawn upon a board. Several tacks or small nails can be used to hold the skin in place. Leave on the board only two to five days, according to the weather. When removed, turn fur side out. In drying, keep in a cool shady place and free from smoke. The number caught and killed annually is not known, but of the various kinds--red, grey, cross, white, etc.--it is several hundred thousand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALMOST DRY ENOUGH TO TURN.]

The following letters cover trapping and snaring pretty thoroughly, and all who read carefully and set their traps according to directions (if there are any foxes) will probably be successful.

While the No. 2 Newhouse, which is a double spring, is known as the fox trap, the No. 1 1/2 single spring will hold the animal. We have known of several instances where fine "reds" were caught in a No. 1 trap. In those instances, however, the trap was fastened to a loose brush and every time the fox made a lunge the brush gave. In using the larger size, we advise using a brush or clog that will give with every pull or jump of the fox. Traps should be visited every other day, if possible, but never go only near enough to see that nothing has been disturbed.

Owing to the wide distribution of the fox and the fact that they often have crossings near buildings so that their tracks are seen, etc., makes many inexperienced trappers think the number of animals larger than it really is. The fact that foxes travel during the coldest weather as well as any other time, gives the trapper an opportunity to show his skill when such animals as bear, c.o.o.n, skunk, opossum and muskrat are "denned up." Fox skins at such times are at their best.

As mentioned elsewhere, the greater per cent of the methods published in this book are taken from the Hunter-Trader-Trapper, an ill.u.s.trated monthly magazine, of Columbus, Ohio, devoted to Hunting, trapping and raw furs. New trapping methods are constantly being published in that magazine, as experienced trappers from all parts of North America read and write for it.

CHAPTER II.

BAITS AND SCENTS.

I prefer cat or muskrat for bait, says G. W. Asha. Cut it in pieces as large as an egg, place it in a perfectly clean can, zinc, screw cover, place it in the sun, allowing the bait to taint. This must be done in July or August, or can be done about two weeks before using.

In regard to using scents, many don't believe scent is a help to trappers, but I'm one that believes in scent, because if there's a heavy rain storm it takes the scent from the bait. If a little scent is added, your bait is fresh again. Even heavy frosts have the same effect in this case. You have seen advertis.e.m.e.nts saying that scents will call an animal a mile. Don't take any stock in it, because any animal can't smell at the most only a few hundred feet away if the wind is right, not half as far if the wind is not right.

If any of you are beginners trapping fox, scent is a great help, if you happen to tuck anything around the trap that have effect, if a little scent is added. A fox can smell only one thing at a time. If the scent is stronger than human scent, they will not smell the human scent. Too many accidents in this way have their effect because the fox is a forest animal in existence. I use for fall trapping the fox pure skunk glands and pure strained honey (not sugar fed honey) but clover or flower honey. Winter scent, pure matrix from the female fox taken in the running season during the heat, a little muskrat musk and pure strained honey. This scent attracts the male fox and is the strongest scent in existence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VERMONT HUNTER AND FOX SKINS.]

Here is a first cla.s.s fox decoy which can be made very easily, write Irving Brown, of Vermont. Take one half pint of skunk oil and the musk glands of a muskrat and one scent bag of a skunk, and you have the celebrated scent of Schofield, one of the first water set fox trappers in the East. This should be made in spring, but it is all right made at any time. It is not the best scent, however, but it is a most excellent one.

Here is the secret of the best and it is hard to prepare because you cannot get the female fox in the running season, which is February or March, in this climate very easily. Take the matrix of a female fox taken in the running season or, in other words, cut out the entire s.e.xual organs and place them in a pint of alcohol, and the result will be the best scent ever made. Some do not use alcohol but salt the matrix. This is the scent you will buy the secret for $5.00, and you will be told that foxes are just crazy to get it. This is in a measure true, but a red fox will not step into a trap unless you use care in setting it, with any kind of scent. I don't care how frantic a fox is to get at the bait. They don't commit suicide if they know it.

There are many other ways to prepare for both mink and fox, all of them possessing merit, but my aim is to give the best, not those which are no use to the trapper. The more simple, as a rule, are the best. Some trappers are opposed to the use of scent, but you will find that man far behind others. The capture of fur bearing animals has become a science, as mink and fox become more wary so does man become more skillful in overcoming their shyness. We hear lots of secrets that were learned of the Indians. No doubt they had some good ones too, but the white trapper in the same place will outdistance any Indian I have ever seen or heard of. My experience among those people is that they are too lazy to use the care that a white man will use in either setting traps or stretching skins.

I have had a fox get into my snowshoes tracks and follow a long way because it was better traveling, says M. H. McAllister. Now that shows he was not afraid of human scent. Now about iron. How often does a fox go through a wire fence, or go near an old sugar house where there are iron gates? That shows he is not afraid of scent of iron.

Once there was an old trapper here, and the young men wanted him to show them how to set a fox trap, and he told them he would. So he got them out to show them how, and this is what he told them: "Remove all suspicion and lay a great temptation." Well, there it is. Now, in order to remove all suspicion you must remove all things that are not natural. A man's tracks and where he has been digging around with a spade or with his hands are not natural around a spring, are they?

No. Well then, there is where the human scent question comes in. By instinct he is shown that man is his enemy, and when a man has pawed the bait over he uses his sense and knows that there is danger, for it is not natural.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEFT FOR THE FOXES TO DEVOUR.]

Now I have a question at hand. In one place he is not afraid and around the trap he is afraid. Now, how does he know when to be afraid or not? I think because when he sees a piece of bait in a new place it is not natural. Once last winter I knew where there was a dead horse and I used to go by it, and one day my brother was with me and of course he knew I could get a fox there, so to please him I set a trap, and not another fox came near. Well I smoked that trap, boiled it in hemlock and then smeared it with tallow, but the fox knew and never came within ten feet of it again, when they were coming every night before. When I went by there before I set my trap I left as much scent as after, and how could he tell when there was a foot of snow blown there by the wind after I set my trap.

Now they don't appear to be afraid of human scent or iron in some places and around a trap they are, so now why should they know where to be shy? Well, because it may be in an unnatural place, unless it is instinct or good sharp sense. As for scent, I know that rotten eggs and onions are not natural, although the matrix of the female fox in the running season is very good. Also such as skunk or muskrat scent or fish, as it smells rotten and makes a strong smell.

One word to the novice fox trapper, and I will leave s.p.a.ce for something more valuable. You must make things look natural around the spring and smell natural, and put before them the food that G.o.d has provided for them, and you will have success by placing the trap in the mud of the spring, and putting a sod on the pan of the trap that has not been handled by the hand of a human being.

CHAPTER III.

FOXES AND ODOR.

Last winter I could not trap much because the river along which I do my trapping and the woods all around were full of lumbermen, and I was afraid my traps would be stolen. I did a little experimenting on foxes in their relations to the odor of man and iron, says Omer Carmerk, of Quebec.

The results of my experiences confirmed my previous observation that foxes are not afraid of the odor of iron, neither of the odor of man, but mighty suspicious of a bait connected with both odors. I made a trail about two miles long, scattered about it pieces of meat, chicken, rabbit, cheese, etc. I dragged a dead chicken, but I set no trap. Prior to my baiting the trail foxes were crossing it and following it without hesitation, but after I had put out the bait not a fox had ventured to cross that trail again.

One day I saw where a fox had come near the trail, stopped, wheeled about and bounded off like a frightened deer. Another day, a fox tried to cross it at three different places but could not summon up enough courage, and at last, by making a long detour he crossed it at a place where there was no bait, not 20 yards from my cabin. One time a fox walked parallel to the trail several rods, then came nearer to it, stopped and turned back at full speed. The same foxes which were so afraid of my trail were going every night on the public road to eat horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GOOD RUNNER.]

I will now relate one instance showing that the foxes smell traps.

One day I chopped a chicken on a log. I threw the big pieces in the middle of three traps I had set the week before and left many small pieces on the log. The day after the snow around and on the log was all tramped down by foxes. One fox walked towards the big piece of meat, and when about two inches from a trap he stopped and turned back. I have no doubt he smelled the trap. When the traps are in the snow or wet ground the oxidation of iron produces a peculiar odor noticeable even to the human nostrils.

One day I was going to look at a trap in a swamp road. My dog was trotting ahead of me, and when about ten feet from the trap he stopped and turned around. He detected the odor of the trap for he had not seen me set it, and he had good reasons to avoid it because when young he had often been pinched.