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.

Hare Snare

An update on the deadfalls. The trap that didn't collapse last time had done so now, but there was no animal there. I don't know whether the trap wasn't heavy enough to kill it outright, if the squirrel managed to dodge the trap or whether a predator has taken my quarry. If it hadn't snowed so heavily the last days I'd probably see it from the tracks, but they were all gone. I reset the trap a little higher up and with a paiute trigger instead of a figure 4.














This is staged, the noose is too small and too high up, but you get the idea. There seems to be virtually no hares in around this city. Probably due to everyone walking their dogs.

Over a hare trail, find a branch of decent thickness, break off the branches and the top.














Tie a forked stick to a standing tree, or break a suitable branch standing in a good position.














Tie the noose to the the bent down tree. Stretch it out with two small sticks.














When the hare struggles to get loose, the bent branch pops out and tightens the snare even more. If you have sufficient lenght on the bent over tree, the whole hare might become suspended. Below: The triggered snare.

Checking the Traps Again.

Due to a lot of work at school, my traps have been down for quite a while. I have now changed trapping location as I have found a place teeming with squirrels. A few days ago I set two deadfalls, both of them had signs of disturbance today. One had collapsed, but still rested on the upright stick, because of improper setting. A true newbie mistake... Below: See what I mean?














Here the trap is ready for action again.


















The other one was obviously not sensitive enough, and the squirrels had eaten off the bait without releasing the trap. Below: Tracks from one of the squirrels who have had a feast on my almonds.


















I am starting to become a little annoyed by the lack of sensitivity of the figure four trigger. Because of that I set a new trap, this time with the paiute trigger. It seems likely that I will more or less start using this trigger type on the nible squirrels. The stability of the figure four will however still be useful when trapping fox and other large animals. Below: A deadfall set with the paiute trigger.














In addition to this, the prototype trap was set to carry out the field tests.

Traps and Willow

Today I have been catching up on a few things I really should have done over the last days. First, my daughter and I was just up the road here to cut some willow, coppiced by the people maintaining the road, for baskets. There is quite a lot of them there, but my daughter got impatient, so I only got to collect a little before we had to go.


















I used the no tools technique for gathering them.














A few points on willow for baskets:

• The red ones seems better than the ones that have gone green.
• Cut them in winter, when the sap is down.
• Don't scrape off the bark, that is where the strenght lies.
• Dry them before using them, otherwise your baskets will become loose.
  

This knot shows how well willow can take bending.














After having left my daughter at home, I went into the woods. I fished out the elm bark from the stream it has been laying for several days. It is now drying inside.

I also checked my trap, the one on the ground I haven't bothered to set again, so it's the one in the tree I am talking about. The trap had collapsed, there was obvious signs that something had been chewing or pecking on the almond which was the bait. I didn't want to touch the bait with my hand to avoid contamination of my scent. So I left it as it was, since the trigger needed repair. What had released the trap I don't know, but there were lots of tracks from birds and squirrels around in the new snow. I obviously need to make the trigger even more nimble.

It is no coincidence that the first snow gives "results" right away. The snow covers the ground, making food scarce and taking risks to aquire easy food becomes more attractive.

And by the way, I have also taken in my bow-blank to make it dry properly before final tillering. Hopefully this wasn't to soon.

Checking the Traps

I haven't written anything about it yet, but I have been checking my traps every day since I set them. Until now there has been no disturbance. I believe the lack of snow may spoil the squirrels foodwise, making my almonds uninteresting. Below: The collapsed trap.














What I found today however, was that the stone deadfall had fallen down and the baitstick with the bait gone. There was no sign of any squirrels, but it seems like strangely enough, that a roe deer has taken my bait. This trap is lying straight by a well used roe deer path and there were some fresh, but weak tracks. Below: The path.


















I also prepared some elm bark and cut a beaver felled elm to a shaft for a stone axe. Both of these processes will be decribed in posts coming up quite soon (within weeks).

Deadfall Traps

Deadfalls deal crushing damage to the victim and are very effective when used properly. But animals aren't stupid, first you have to lure them into trap and secondly you have to have a trigger so sensitive that the animal will be able to run away with your bait without collapsing it.

There are two emotions an animal is run by when finding a bait (food). The counteracting forces of fear and greed. As a trapper your task is to, as well as presenting it where the animal will find it, to reduce the fear enough to let the greed take over.

Scent is usually the mammals' primary means of identifying enemies, so leaving as little human scent as possible is important to success. The smell will wear off in time, but usually you will want success as soon as possible and then you will have to know how to reduce the scent. Some species are extremely suspecious, squirrels are generally not, so I just gently rubbed the sticks with spruce branches. If I were more serious I would hang them in smoke from spruce branches, rub them with dirt and use gloves, but hopefully this will be enough this time.














I have experimented with a lot of trigger types, but I am most pleased with the common figure 4 type. For the first time I have also set the paiute deadfall. I am pleasantly surprised with how simple it is to make with primitive tools and it's extreme sensitivity. Below is a rather poor photo of the paiute deadfall mechanism.














One was made as a traditional squirrel trap, where I know I have seen squirrels before. The logs were rotted birch, flattened with an antler axe on one side and elevated into a tree, where the squirrel feels safer.














The next one was placed directly on rocky ground under a overhanging rock. This is the experimental one. I haven't seen tracks just there, but it is right by some hazel and a big spruce so even if the trap is on the ground I hope it will be tempted to come down.














I have formerly had success with using walnuts for bait, but lacking that I used some almonds this time. So how do you get a round nut to sit onto a stick then? You drill a hole in it of course. That should also break up the inner shell of the nut and release some pleasant smells. Below: The deadfall under the overhanging rock.