Setting Snares

Wizard · January 27, 2020, 10:52:48 PM

Setting snares can be considered hunting. Maybe, could be, heck I don't know. I've been setting snares about 65 years. I would snare mink, fox and muskrat. Then clean, dry, brush up the fur and sell them to a furrier in St. Louis. If you did it part time before and after school, you could make $200-500 in winter. That was great for several years until the fur market died. The snaring I do today is just to keep a tradition going and feed my appetite for small game. I used to go near the river and set snares around game trails. Today, I just set a few at the rear of my property near a creek. Once they're set I check them twice a day. Do snares work? Well, I'm cooking 3 skillets of fried rabbit as I'm typing. Give it a try.

Wizard
PS. Forgot to say that you start the process for fur after a quick cleaning of the fat on the underside of the skin. Then you stretch the skin before a final scraping of the fat on the underside. Most that snare or trap make high quality stretchers that last for years. For the small animals I caught I used a small semi green limb that I bent into a circle. As the limb dried, it continued to stretch the fur.

Donald Garner · January 28, 2020, 12:04:32 PM

Quote from: Wizard on January 27, 2020, 10:52:48 PM
Do snares work? Well, I'm cooking 3 skillets of fried rabbit as I'm typing. Give it a try. Wizard

You fixing some gravy and biscuits to go with that fried rabbit?

bigjim5589 · January 28, 2020, 01:57:22 PM

Back before I started driving a truck, I did a lot of trapping. Every winter for about 20 years, and I hit it hard. Even took all my vacation time so that I could trap. Back then fur prices were very good for several years, and it paid for some of our Christmas's.

I used some snares too a couple of seasons, until they made them illegal where I was using them. I mostly caught foxes and raccoons in them. They can be a great tool. I liked that they were lighter than traps, and that I could carry a lot of them and wasn't wearing me out.

I miss doing all of that!

TNDiver · January 28, 2020, 02:29:59 PM

I had always wanted to try it just as an additional skill. Do you just use a .22 to finish the animal?

Mike the fox · January 28, 2020, 03:18:43 PM

I did quite a bit of trapping from my teens through my late 20s. Mostly beaver trapping but also caught everything Maine has to offer except a bear. Snared most of my beaver under the ice. Never made much money but had a blast. Quit right before the prices went up around 2012? And never picked it back up. Miss it some days but my shoulders wouldn't take the ice chiseling these days

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Lipripper · January 28, 2020, 08:54:52 PM

Quote from: Donald Garner on January 28, 2020, 12:04:32 PM

You fixing some gravy and biscuits to go with that fried rabbit?

That does sound good Donald. I never got into trapping but grew up hunting with sling shots and Billy clubs.

Jacobguy · January 28, 2020, 09:09:42 PM

Ive been hunting for as long as I can remember and I've read about Snaring/Trapping a bunch and I've really wanted to do it but I'm afraid where we are it would quickly get snatched up by coyotes and bears. Only thing I could catch on our property would be raccoons and foxes, stateland I could get some Beavers too.

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Wizard · February 01, 2020, 11:25:50 AM

I use an old wheel gun that carries 6 rounds of .22 short. I started snaring using green wood and went to wire as they are easy to make and last longer. I like to eat small game but don't want animals to suffer. Wire cuts into their leg so I went back to green wood. I lose a few but they don't suffer. Bad guys deserve what happens to them.

Wizard