I’ve been wanting to practice primitive trapping techniques and finally got the chance. I was joined on this project by my Army buddy Mike.

We started by rigging snares.

The basic principle is that a slip knot noose is tied to a branch. The branch is then spring loaded by bending it downwards and kept in place by a trigger. When the trigger is tripped the branch is whipped upwards into the air, tightening the noose and capturing your prey.

The snare should be located on a game trail. By poking sticks into the ground or building up brush along the trail one can theoretically funnel animals into the snare.

The noose can be held open by placing small forked sticks at it’s edges.

We made a short video of our snare in action.

We also practiced a figure 4 deadfall trap. This one required some primitive machinist skills to notch the sticks correctly. The flat rock is balanced precariously on the sticks so that if the bait stick is disturbed, the rock will crush whatever critter is underneath it. We used peanut butter to cover the tip of the bait stick.

We enhanced our initial design by adding more weight in the form of a cinder block, and placed a rock base to make a better crushing surface. We tested the effectiveness on an empty beer can and feel this could easily handle small game such as squirrels.

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