In preparing for unknown circumstances, how many of us consider these tools.
Hardly any animal cannot be taken in a trap or snare. Food for the table or skins for trade has always been a basic need.
Harvesting food while you doing something else or sleeping is always a good thing.
Fall in the air, powder smoke and venison......

I trap year round but to protect my livestock. There are better things to eat than coons and possums though I reckon if one was starving they would eat them.

We don't trap for food, but we've eatin some young beaver drumsticks and an occasional lynx backstrap. Both are very good but we are in a food rich enviroment here and they make great trapping bait!

I need to get into traps and snares for my primitive survival skills. If you can’t live off the land, you are more likely to be in a bad situation for the SHTF scenarios but there is a satisfaction of trying to see if you could survive in the wilderness or from times long past.

Lots to catch out there besides coons and possums.
The old guys who made it through the depression will tell you that snaring a deer is no big feat at all.
Saves shells, no noise.
Survival skills.
mike

I recall Jed Clampett saying, "MMM, possum + sweet potatoes; almost as good the second day as the 1st." I have eaten that + it wasn't that bad. I would not want it as a steady diet though.

Yeah, but squirrels are so plentiful in the Missouri hardwoods. No need for coon and possum to survive.

There are a couple of squirrels that are in the oak trees outside my shop that drives my blue heeler up the wall. She can't reach them of course so she leaps at the trees + tears off pieces of bark. I need to shoot one at least so she doesn't grow crazy from frustration.

Use a rat trap wired or screwed to the tree. If you have neighbors put it inside a paper bag or plastic bucket. Use peanut butter for bait.

When I built my chicken pen I went down + poured a concrete stem that was too deep for the varmints to did. Then I built a mesh wall + ceiling around the compound (obviously), ut the kicker was that I built an opening in the fenced enclosure that ran parallel to the outer fence. It ran the length of that wall, then I built a trip that dropped the outer 'door' that they came in by. Too far away for them to getaway. Along the line of an extended Hav-A-Hart.It worked well, any predator will take a fence hole rather than dig under (unless it's a fox caught once before).

I trapped a lot in younger years most of the time making more money in a few of weeks.

Then I did in a whole summer of working.

My traps are hanging on the garage wall just waiting to be used.

Traps work 24/7.

quote:

(unless it's a fox caught once before).

Why would a fox get a second chance.

Because the "trapper" underestimated his intelligence.

quote:

I need to get into traps and snares for my primitive survival skills.

Maybe it's time for me to get some instructions on the same. I'm sure that every tracker and skinner in Africa has a doctorate in snaring. Some are former poachers.

A lot depends on the type of trap you are going to use and the method you are going to use.

Two basic methods. One is baiting (luring) the animal to step where your trap or snare is located, and second is to place your trap or snare where you believe the animal will walk ( a trail set).

The other consideration is, of course whether you will use foothold traps, killer (conibear) traps, or snares (either kill or relaxed)

Most animals like holes in the ground. That fact makes what is known as the dirt hole set on of the most used methods for taking animals in foothold traps. You dig a hole at an angle in the ground. You place bait in the hole. You place a trap out in front of the hole. You cover the trap up so that the animal doesn't see the trap. When the animal goes to investigate that "good" smell in the hole it will step on the trap pan and fire the trap, thereby getting caught.

Think of that same theme but using a conibear type trap at a cubby set. You can use a plastic pail with a piece of bait in it, and place a conibear type trap in the opening. As the animal goes for the bait he?she sticker his/her head in the trap and is caught.

Another type of set is the trail set using a snare. Look for a trail in the woods where the animal has been walking. Please a snare in the trail. When the animal returns it will stick its head through the snare loop and be caught.