Snares according to Coote

coote said:
I had made loops 2 & 3 shorter than is optimal to get everything low enough to line up with the flowerpot bait cubby, (I don't think it is even necessary to have them line up exactly - very little pressure downwards, upwards, or straight line will trip this trigger) and this meant that the angles of these loops was too great. Longer anchor loops would have angles that weren't so badly affected in this way. And besides, I think that if I keep loop 2 shorter than loop 3, then the problem is pretty much solved.

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I set more Doc-triggered traps this afternoon. I kept loop 2 shorter than loop 3 and that made all the difference. No more problems. These triggers are simple and can be very sensitive. If the traps fail tonight, it will not be as a result of poor trigger design. I set them in a small pine plantation just up the road from my place. I guess I could walk from home and inspect the traps and return within an hour. I feel that on any night there may be two possums in the vicinity. I hope to catch at least one of them.
 
Hey coote,

Looking forward to hearing the results.

Just to keep the record straight, the nail trap is not my design - it came from a excellent video by Ron Hood -Traps and Trapping
http://www.survival.com/woodsmaster_.htm
The modification is mine, though. I found it eliminated a problem I was having and that was keeping the loop, going to the bait, from falling down loop 2.

Doc
 
I checked my Doc-O-Matic flower pot possum traps this morning. There was good news and bad news.

I had set six traps.

Three were unsprung.... just as I had left them. I poked the bait sticks with my walking stick, and all of them fired perfectly...like a well-oiled bit of precision machinery. Surprisingly, the trees I had used for lift poles seemed to have retained most of their springiness overnight.

Two were sprung with nothing in the noose. There were some teeth marks on one bait stick, but most of the bait was still there. The other bait stick had been licked clean.

I just cant see how a possum could avoid being caught if it had its head in the pot when the trap sprung. Maybe, just maybe if the front paws were through the noose as well, it could have worked itself out of the snare provided that the noose wasn't behind the shoulders. But I could see no evidence that animals had been in the nooses.

A more likely explanation is that the possum walked over the set first and perhaps bumped the trip cord.

Anyway as a result I have decided to put the flower pots aside for a while. I think the trigger is brilliant, but I need to devise another way to utilise it. Like I have said in an earlier post, it is the building of the bait cubby that is the main problem when you have a number of these traps to set. If I'd had a big brush cubby around these spring-ups instead of a small plastic flower pot I feel sure I would have had better results. The brush cubby would look more natural and would be at a better level than the flowerpot, and furthermore it could be built in such a way to offer protection to the sensitive trip cord.

But I think a better idea still, for my circumstances, would be to rig a trigger with multiple snares around it....much the same as the quail snare shown in W. Hamilton Gibson's book "Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping" (Doc posted a link to an on-line copy of this. I have a paperback from Amazon). Cutting brush sometimes isn't a good option for me... and what self-respecting possum trapper carries a bag full of flower pots? But I can carry a heap of snares. So instead of having a brush wall around the bait, I would just have three or more snares. It's worth a try.

Oh yes... the sixth snare. That had a huge animal in it. It seems surprising that it could get its head into the pot.
 
Here is a picture showing the type of bait stick I used on my latest batch of spring-up traps. The split is packed full of bait and the animal really has to tussle with the stick to get the last bit of it. I first used this idea on the bait sticks of some figure four deadfalls that I set for mice...with outstanding results.

The snare in the picture has an eye made from low density polythene tubing. This allows the snare to run very smoothly. The cord is plenty strong enough on its own... the wire has been added to give the snare stiffness so that it stays open. It is thin copper wire.

The cord has a nominal size of 1.5mm, and is said to have a knotted strength of 130 kilograms. That is phenomenal.
BaitStick.jpg
 
Glad it wasn't a total bust. On the successful snare, did you use my modification or the original design?

Doc
 
I used the design as shown in the latest picture you posted.

I nearly always get some "knocks" (disturbed traps with nothing in them). With plain snares I have come to accept it as normal. It may be the result of a bird trying to land on them, or maybe a larger animal walking over them...even though I feel that it is mostly cunning little possums that are doing it. But I feel that I should get less knocks on ground snares than I do on pole snares because ground snares are where an animal might usually walk, and the snare can be disguised a bit. And I feel I should get even less knocks on a spring-up trap, because to be sprung - in theory - the animal should be in the noose.

But I guess if this business lost its mystery I might get easily tired of it.
 
Here's the latest version from the spring up trap testing laboratories. The one in the picture is a true working model, but it is set up in my neighbour's yard. Occasionally we have a possum visiting, but I am not counting on catching one tonight.

The trigger mechanism is the one that Doc has been describing. I have made a bit of a variation by taking a couple of wraps of the top anchor loop around the trigger stick. This is not necessary, but it can help to make the trigger stick easier to find after the trap has fired. In this case it also provided a means of shortening the top loop to create a better angle for the stick.

As you can see, there is very little need to build a barrier to restrict entrance to the bait. There are two snare openings, and these cover the most likely points of entry. The tree that the anchor loops are tied to forms part of the back wall. On either side of the tree a stake has been hammered into the ground, and one stake is hammered in opposite the tree.

This forms a triangle...with the tree and two stakes forming the back wall or base, and the stick opposite becomes the apex of the triangle.

The anchor loops are made from strips of NZ flax leaf (Phormium tenax). The two snares and spring-up cord are black braided nylon. Each snare is supported by two thin willow pegs that have a split in the top for the cord to sit in.

A split bait stick loaded with bait paste has been lashed to the lower anchor loop.

With this set up, it is unlikely that the target animal will blunder into the trigger mechanism without entering the snare. I think that this model could be very successful. I will endeavor to set one or two of them next time I am setting a line.

TwoNooseSpringup.jpg
 
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