Traditional Squirrel Deadfall

Due to my very limited success with my improvised deadfalls, I decided to add a strictly traditional Norwegian setup to my line. The advantages of this design should be:

• The trap is put into the squirrel's domain, the conifer trees.
• The trap is set so high that it is harder for most predators to pick the squirrel out of the trap.

On the negative side, this trap involves quite a lot of extra work compared to the stone deadfalls. Use densly grained spruce or pine or preferably broken trees that has split naturally. That will save you a lot ow energy.

First chop the tree down. To give you as little chopping with the antler axe as possible, break it after only having chopped around slightly. Cut off where you find it to be a good length. Longer length makes for quicker action on collapsing.














Split it down the middle.














Wedge the bottom log between two trunks to make it sit securely. This will also make the upper log fall directly down. But you need to make sure you remove any twigs or cracked bark in the way, otherwise it will not fall freely.

I used a regular figure 4. I have found a way to make them more sensitive and more quickly producable with stone as tools and spruce twigs as materials.














The bait is walnuts, a bait I have had success with in previous years.