Rock-Steady Trap Bedding With The Mason's Hammer And A Couple Of Tricks
FUR-FISH-GAME|November 2017

With the throttle open, my ATV scooted along a two-track lane that was a little better than most.

Hal Sullivan
Rock-Steady Trap Bedding With The Mason's Hammer And A Couple Of Tricks

The folks who own the farm have easy access to creek gravel, and they use it to shore up the lane. About 100 yards from the sets I was going in to check, the lane drops down to ford the creek where they scoop up that gravel with a front loader.

About 50 yards past the creek, the lane crosses a hump in the field. That is the natural hot spot for coyotes, where I like to make a couple of sets just off the edges of the lane.

When I got to the top of the opposite bank, I could see a coyote circling at one of the sets, paw locked in a foothold securely staked at the edge of the lane.

For a foothold to get that kind of solid pad grip, the animal must commit its weight when it steps on the pan. If some of the weight settles on a lever or the edge of a jaw, and the trap shifts underfoot, the animal may instead pull its paw back. Then the trap can fail to fire, miss, or pinch just toes. Since none of those possibilities is desired, I make sure my foot traps are bedded rock-steady. To do this, I typically dig a deep bed smaller in circumference than the trap itself. Then I pound down just enough of the rim of that hole for the set trap’s jaws to rest on the packed dirt surrounded by still-solid ground.

In clay soil, I can usually bed a trap with relative ease. But it ain’t always that easy. My home trap line is in the foothills of the Appalachians, and much of the ground in this hill country is rocky, in places loaded with gravel that has washed down the slopes. And at this stop, generations of farmers had been adding more gravel to maintain the lane, and that gravel had washed out into the edges of the field— which was rocky to begin with.

I have never been able to dig a trap bed there with just a 3-inch trowel.

This story is from the November 2017 edition of FUR-FISH-GAME.

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This story is from the November 2017 edition of FUR-FISH-GAME.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.