I've been thinking lately that there are a lot of old timers that might have some interesting trapping methods. In days long past humane trapping wasn't too big a worry as long as the fur didn't get damaged. Some of these old methods of trapping were brutal but effective. I'd like to start a record of some of these methods. If you have something that's particularily sensitive and not for the public please feel free to PM me.

I'll start it off: I've hear that to trap a wolverine guys would take a tree stump a few feet high and put bait on the top. Then around the perimiter they would put fishhooks.....

I've also heard that to kill canines they would take a sponge, wrap it in string and then soak it in bacon grease. The coyote etc. would swallow it and eventually the string would come off in the guts allowing the sponge to expand.

It's a strange way to spend time but I think it would be interesting to record this stuff before it's lost.

From an old book I read. Marten. Drill a hole in a tree, put the bait at the end of it. Then drive a very sharply pointed spike down at an angle, so it protrudes into the hole. Marten sticks his head in the hole and when he pulls back, gets the spike in the back of the head.

Found this in the woods and am still not sure of what's going on here. There's a wire loop snare inside that can



Grizz

Great Topic, I wish the guys with tricks up their sleeves come forward.(please please) I would love to see this thread full of ideas too.

The trapping community has a big enough target on their backs, I really don't know of anything worth while that could come of this. I encourage posters to use their better judgement before spoon feeding the anti's. Don't think for a second that they don't read these forums as well.

I have a few old german books about hunting. I will have a look and post what i find.

Here a few pics of old traps. All very old and illegal today. Very cruel and completly against the ethics of european hunters.

Some pics are from books some from the inet.

Hooks to catch wolf or fox. They were covered with meat and hung up in a tree. If the poor thing jums to catch the meat it will get caught in his mouth. Used in 18th century.




Very cruel kind of gin trap, 100years old.



Wooden marden trap (picture from 1774)


Fox trap from 1665



old fashiond marden trapp

Looked for a suitable reference site, but came up empty. Last trappers convention, I attended, some guy had a good collection of old time, set guns. Worked for people as well. Of course, there was always strychnine.

Grizz

Yea, Western Wolf hunters would wait till first snow and kill a Buffalo and rub it down with strychnine and then wait for the prairie wolfs to visit, after a meal all they had to do was track them down a very short distance.

We are not talking about a coyote, they were wolfs, calico wolfs, old trappers actually trapped them into extinction.

No need today as "getters have been allowed by the US Gov recently" The getter is a 38 Special cartridge filled wit cynide covered with a small piece of sheep skin, coyote or whatever that pulls the sheep skin gets a mouth full of cynide...I know severl folks who accidently got hit in the face with cynide but survived, I was one of them but just got enough to make me sick for a couple of days..they have been illegal since the 70s, but recently resurected I understand, it was on the internet recently and the libs are in a frenzy, and the law suits are in abundance...

They are extremely effective.. They also work on Lions and wolves..I think the mounting wolf problem like the wild horse problems are out of control and the elk and deer herds are hurting big time and the Libs and gov Like Laural and Hardy " And another mess you've got us in Ollie" Were paying more than a $100.000 a day to feed feral horses aka Mustangs in Oregan alone, History repeating itself except wolves have litters..Coyotes and wolves are all but impossisble to control and hunting won't make a dent I wolf or coyote populations.

I was in Maine a few years back for the bear snaring season as they no longer have a leg hold season on black bears. The guy whom owned the property I was snaring on told me how he used to catch bears. He would hang a bacon rind in a tree about 5' of the ground with an big saltwater treble hook in the rind. the bear would stand on it's back legs and grab the rind an most times snag the hook somewhere on it's mouth or paw. The hook was attached thru a cable. The harder the bear pulled the more he was caught.
That sounds cruel by today's standards. I have walked up to a bear in a snare normally around a paw to find them asleep or just lying there bewildered as what to do. A .22 mag in the ear dims his lights.

quote:

Originally posted by ATpro:
Yea, Western Wolf hunters would wait till first snow and kill a Buffalo and rub it down with strychnine and then wait for the prairie wolfs to visit, after a meal all they had to do was track them down a very short distance.

We are not talking about a coyote, they were wolfs, calico wolfs, old trappers actually trapped them into extinction.

Hunting and trading on the Great Plains 1859-1875 by James Mead.

A 22 mag behind the ear will dim almost any animals lights.

I have a spring loaded contraption that was used for government trappers. A rancher gave me one of his dads when he was a government trapper from the 1920's and 1930's. It uses a 38 shell put into a spring loaded cylinder that has a trigger that is connected to a piece of string that ties onto the bait. It is pushed into the ground from where a 1/2 inch piece of pipe made the hole. The rancher had 30 pounds of cyanide that was buried in the ground under the shed.He said he would put some on the bait when he was killing birds of prey. If the cyanide use used on coyotes it would stain the hide and he could not sell the hide.

Strychnnine is deadly and if you spill some on the ground it will kill for ions to eternity..We had an old fallon down line camp on a ranch I leased and found a dead cow on it several times and I found an old broken bottle of Strychnnine, Knowing better than to touch it I got Fed Ag
officer out there and the end result was they did soil test and the ground was full of the poison They built a 12 ft. steel wire fence around it and over it for 10 feet that a tank r snake couldn't penetrate and that no animal could dig under or bird fly in with a big lock and a big warning sign..They told me it would never be safe under any conditions, never never!! the ground was contaminated Im sure the poison was for coyotes, lions, and Bobcats back in the 1800s when that piece of Texas was Mexico....I was also told an animal killed by that poison would kill any animal that ate it or that dead animal would keep killing one after another and someone said one bait animal would create 3 more bait animals death and on and on.??

How accurate this info is I don't know but it came from pretty good sources including some large animal vets that were involved it seems. Pretty interesting and they were not fooling around they were dead serious..

69 deer, that 38 cartridge was called a " a Getter" and it was a cyanide gun..I recall its proper name was a 10-40 or something like that.

We used them for years, burried in the ground and with a fresh piece of sheep skin on it and when the coyote pulled on the sheep skin to shot him in the mouth and he made it less than 10 ft. and was dead.
It was made illegal sometime in the 70s, as I recall, dont remember when. and lately was returned to legal use..

Could be a Taylor "Fur Getter".



https://www.google.com/search?...ceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8



'

No it was small cylender with a cocking hammer spring loaded with a 38 special round with cyanide for a bullet..

yep, Ray is right

They are known as M44s.

Kinda in a way along the same line; I have big bank safe circa 1909 that is as well as being massive, beautiful early construction 1 ton easily w/ a 4 hour fire wall, has cyanide ampules inserted on the inside of one of the doors under the tumblers. Basically if a thief drilled the safe + opened it, he would be hit in the face w/ cyanide umes. In those days they dealt correctly not PC with robbers. Of course that protection of your own goods in the safe was vetoed as a kicker on the 1934 gun bill. Double tragedy.

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
Kinda in a way along the same line; I have big bank safe circa 1909 that is as well as being massive, beautiful early construction 1 ton easily w/ a 4 hour fire wall, has cyanide ampules inserted on the inside of one of the doors under the tumblers. Basically if a thief drilled the safe + opened it, he would be hit in the face w/ cyanide umes. In those days they dealt correctly not PC with robbers. Of course that protection of your own goods in the safe was vetoed as a kicker on the 1934 gun bill. Double tragedy.

That would hurt.

bingo not 10-40, leave it to the vet and he is spot on its an M-44, comonly known in the old Far West Texas sheep country as a Getter..Most of the sheep country is now cow country in that area..It was at one time the best sheep country and saved many a rancher, and they had a coyote control program that was totally effective, but thats another story..

Back in the late 70's we had a long haired Australian Sheppard, beautiful dog. Couldn't keep it in the yard no matter what we did.

Gave it to a rancher around Gardner. Wife never learned of it. I worked for a guy that knew the dog and helped arrange for the rancher to get it.

He told me the dog would run loose all the time and loved to just run the pastures.

It was killed by one of those Coyote Getters within a month.

George