Finally made an Arapuca trap

C

coote

Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
1,465
Well actually I made a trap using the Arapuca trigger mechanism. Instead of making the trap cage from sticks, I used an old plastic bread crate and extended the sides with some planks. I would have made the primitive stick version if I had ready access to some nice straight sticks, but I didn't.

Arapuca0410b.jpg


Here is a closer view of the trigger. It consists of four sticks. A short forked stick is propped up against the edge of the cage. Another fairly straight stick is jammed into a step cut in the side of the forked stick. The forked stick wants to rotate into the cage.... but it cant because two light sticks are wedged between the bottom of the forked stick and the back corners of the cage. The knife is a carbon steel Mora... an excellent general purpose tool.

Arapuca0410a.jpg


There are quite a few rabbits around where I'm staying, so maybe one might venture under the trap in the next few days.

To see Pict's original description of making and setting an Arapuca trap, have a look at his post on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iR_3zWd0hA&feature=PlayList&p=AEC396F035D800DD&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=1
 
hey SC, what took you so long? The Arapuca is one of the highlights of W&SS for me. I love trap triggers and this one is slick!

BTW, are your corner sticks just a little heavy?

One of the cool things about this trap is all the trap pieces can be made out of dried, dead herbaceous plants, like Teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris) or Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) which are a lot quicker to process than actual wood - of course, this may have been mentioned in the videos - I don't watch them.

Doc
 
The corner sticks are a bit lighter than they look. They are made from dead bamboo. I found that it didn't take much to knock them out of place... thus triggering the trap.

Yes.... this is a great trap with an effective trigger.

I'm looking forward to making a cage out of stalks. Pict makes the construction look easy on his video.

One thing I'd be tempted to use (besides mullein and foxglove stalks) is the pampas grass flower stalk. The stalks around here are plenty strong enough to contain a bird or a bunny.
 
I checked the trap just after dark and found that I'd caught a hedgehog. I didn't take a photo because I was fairly sure the darn thing would be in the trap again in the morning. But it wasn't.
 
coote said:
I checked the trap just after dark and found that I'd caught a hedgehog. I didn't take a photo because I was fairly sure the darn thing would be in the trap again in the morning. But it wasn't.
Click to expand...

They're slippery SOB's, they can dig and climb pretty well.
 
actually this reminds me of a story. my parents' house is 35 feet tall, a big 150 year old victorian. one summer my dad used a rotary tool to strip 6 layers of lead paint off the exterior of the house, and built a big 2x4 and plastic sheeting box to do all the grinding in to try to contain the mess, as to not put the neighborhood kids at risk of consuming the lead. It took 2 of us to haul this 150 pound contraption up a 30 foot ladder and screw it into the wall. That summer my brother was watching his class pet hedgehog. The day before it had somehow escaped out of it's cage and we never saw it again. My brother asked what we were doing with the big box on the wall (he was 6 or 7 at the time and greatly distressed over the loss of the hedgehog) so we told him we were building a big hedgehog trap. He bought it hook line and sinker.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top