Go West, Old Man Arizona Desert ' Line

I spent the better part of 50 years trapping in Maine.

- Ron Nickerson

Then, thanks to ill health and bad choices, at the age of 73 I found myself living in the Mohave Desert at the base of the Hualapai Mountains. I had brought a couple dozen No. 2 coil spring Victors, but that was it, and I could not have been more ill-prepared for trapping in Arizona.

For one thing, 85 percent of Arizona is public land where leg hold traps are illegal. I could set cages, but I didn’t have any and didn’t know what I was after, because I didn’t know what was out there. Yet I was intrigued by the desert and couldn’t wait to get started.

Arizona does not allow wild game or parts thereof for bait. Thankfully, jackrabbit are not considered game so I spent my first evening shooting a few.

The next morning I drove about 6 miles to the base of the mountains and found a 40-acre parcel of private land with a passable gravel road. After securing permission from the owner, I took a look around and on the road found what I was sure was fresh coyote scat. There were also some fox droppings.

I figured there had to be a kill nearby. But I couldn’t find it so I decided to just make a dirt hole set. Strange-looking clumps of vegetation grew out of the sand, so I decided to use one for a backing.

The sand kept collapsing into the trap bed I tried to dig, and I soon had a hole about 18 inches across and only 4 inches deep. I crossed 18-inch rebar stakes in the bottom of this over-size trap bed, and about 6 inches down the stakes hit hardpan. Being careful how I drove them, I was able to get an anchor that held the trap to my satisfaction. I bedded the trap to the best of my ability in the loose material, placed a nylon cover over the pan and sifted sand over the whole thing.