How to Snare Rabbits and Hares

it was me Trevor here recently my buddy Chris the wooded beardsman up in Canada released a sneering video where he was snaring rabbits snowshoe hare and that was one of the most educational videos I think I have seen in a long long time especially concerning snaring the interesting thing is he didn't catch a single rabbit and that's precisely why it's such a great educational tool he's got some awesome game camera footage and he has contacted me for a video response and shared some of his footage with me so let's take a look at what he was doing and how the rabbits were being missed by the snares and then what I'd like to do is share my input now I'm not in northern Canada I don't operate in the snow so I can't comment on all of that but what I can tell you is how I set a rabbit snare and what I think is important in that process so let's go take a look okay before we get started one quick legal note the area where this video was shot it is required by law that they use brass wire for their snares they cannot legally use aircraft cable snares also the size of the loop is limited to four inches I think that's small for the type of animal that they're going after but it is possible to catch them these are just silly regulations in my opinion but it's none of my concern it is what it is so that being said let's go ahead and take a look okay and what we have here is a very well defined rabbit trail through the snow and we have a homemade picture wire snare hung in the trail so let's take a look and let's see what happens you now what we have here is a couple of very very serious and very common errors when it comes to smearing the first error is you're going to notice how the snare is hung vertically notice how it's hanging straight down from the branch over the trail with the open-loop directly in the trail this is incorrect the next thing that you'll notice about this video notice how the snare swung wildly back and forth when the rabbit hit it it was not solidly anchored or solidly supported this is this single most glaring mistake made in this particular set the snare has to be absolutely rock solid when this snare is set properly the only thing that will move at all is the loop when the animal enters the loop nothing else can move and if you'll watch this video you'll see how this loop just swings about wildly it's just flailing about because it has absolutely no solid support whatsoever so we have two primary and glaring mistakes here number one is the snare is hung vertically and number two it's not supported properly so now let me tell you and let me show you how I would go about setting a rabbit snare in a game trail also notice these rabbits know that snare is there you're not going to hide that snare from them they know it's there they can see it they can tell us there and they're either going to make a choice to go through it or go over it or go around it you're not going to fool the animal so you have to make the opening inviting and then you have to set it properly so let's take a look at how I would set this situation up briefly I'd like to explain why you don't see me snaring rabbits on my channel quite honestly I simply got tired of feeding the Coyotes the foxes the raccoons the Hawks and the Owls the majority of the time when I would snare a rabbit by the time I got to it in the morning something else had already found it and had already eaten it now this is not that big of a problem where this video was shot but it's a very big problem where I live and that's why you don't see me doing this on a regular basis alright we're going to assume that this is our rabbit trail right through here and you can see I've got a little tree that I'm going to anchor off of now it doesn't have to be big and strong because we're not snaring wild hogs we're snaring rabbits I'm going to take my snare and go ahead and uncoil it and the first thing that you're going to notice is that this is a modern aircraft cable snare this is not some kind of a piece of wire if you want to know my thoughts on wire snares you can go to my video I think it's called an open letter to primitive trappers now this is a one by nineteen twist 1/16 inch diameter cable this works just fine for rabbits you can also go a little bit lower in diameter you can go down to a three sixty four inch cable and works just as well the reason I don't use 360 for that often is it's just another thing to add to my inventory another size locks and hardware and all of that so you can see this is not a very long snare this is probably I don't know 36 inches long or so I've got a good swivel always like swivels no matter what the first thing I'm going to do and this is sort of my system is always anchor anchor your snare okay you'd be surprised how many times our how easy it is to forget to tie your snare off now if i were sneering anything other than rabbits I would use a double wrap of wire because a single wrap is not going to hold very well but like I say we're nice and errand hogs snaring rabbits next thing I'm gonna do is I've got to support this snare in the trail okay you got to have something that'll hold that snare in position I like a number nine wire a number nine wire is very stiff it's very solid okay I use these pre pre-made supports you can find them on my channel it's just basically a 3/8 inch electric fence post with the wire pre-installed now down here you can see I can just shove that down into the ground and I've got a ready-made snare support now I understand when you're up in the north you've got frozen ground so I'm going to show you a different method of supporting the snare in just a few minutes but this is what I use down here and of course we have our plastic support collar vinyl tubing that simply fits on there like that and at this point I can position this snare wherever I want in this trail exactly like I want it just like that alright now here's the finished set and you see I've got my snare wired to the tree I have my snare support my number 9 wire and that's what supports the snare through the plastic tubing there and there's my snare itself now this loop is about a five and a half inch diameter loop you can see there is my outstretched hand you just have to measure your hand and figure it out but you guys snowshoe hares up there are bigger than our little Cottontail rabbits but you can see in the list I hope you can see that showing up on camera that's what you on right there about a five five and a half inch loop just a inch and a half two inches off the ground or off the walking surface because up there your walking surface is going to be snow now here's a couple of tips and this is the important thing you'll notice how my snare lock and my snare support are not vertical they're not on top of the snare they're at about the two o'clock position you wanted it about the 10 o'clock or the 2 o'clock position okay you don't want the thing hanging down directly from above the reason for that and this is important and this is why I think those misses are occurring the only thing that should move on your snare is the loop itself once the animal hits it let me repeat that the only thing that should move on your snare is the loop itself once the animal hits it that's why I'm a such a big fan of the number 9 wire because it's a very thick very solid support wire you can see how I have that coming down and then angling up to the 2 o'clock position right there now this when the animal hits this you can see I want you to watch this none of this is none of this is moving nothing's dangling or flopping the only thing that's moving see how that's still over there and that's under that's under tension that's under pressure see that's that's not moving my supports not moving all of that and he's caught okay that that's the important part this has to be solid has to be rock-solid now you can see the importance of that being solid see if something hits this either way goes over the top or what have you see that's taken a lot of abuse the lock is still set the snare is still operational it's still it's still ready to catch you've got to actually get in it and knock it down like that you've got to work at it to get this thing to where it's not going to make a catch all right so if you're in frozen ground and you can't just stick a support in or number-9 wire is not practical or you don't have it what I'm going to do is show you a different method here what this is is this is 14 gauge tie wire I've stripped off about 6 feet and I've formed it over into a u and and wrapped it around itself just twisted it together so that I now have a three-foot section of wire that's been twisted together this is designed to give it a little more stiffness I'm going to use this 3 foot piece of wire as my snare anchor and support all in one so the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to pass one end of it through the swivel you can see like that and I'm going to use this an anchor to the tree there we go you can see that now what I'm going to do is I'm now going to twist this together again just like that now you can see this is going to anchor my snare and serve as my snare support all in one so now wrap that around and now what I'm going to do is I'm going to bend this up let me get that straight then that down there we go you can let me give you a close-up shot of that something about like that now I'm going to weave the snare through here let me show you how that looks let's see if I can get that to focus you can see how the snare is woven back and forth through there and what that does that applies tension and holds that snare up so that I can set the loop and that I can bend this up or down until I get that snare exactly where I want it very simple very easy very cheap the same wire is anchoring the snare right there and supporting the snare so with this method I've got my snare and about six feet of wire of cheap wire and the end result is the same in that I hear that out getting dark but when the animal hits this you can see that support is still pretty stiff and it's going to pull like that in my opinion this is not as stable and sturdy as that 9 gauge but sometimes you got to go with what you got and there's more than one way to skin a cat well I hope that was useful the most important takeaway should be that your snare has to be supported properly and solidly stability is the key the only thing that should move is the loop when the animal enters the snare nothing else that's far more important in my opinion than whether you have a four inch loop or a 5 inch loop whether it's one and a half inches off the ground or two and a half inches off the ground all of that stuff is secondary you can see from the footage that the rabbit knows the snares there you're not going to hide that from them they're either going to make a decision to either go through it or to go around it and once that decision is made the next thing is is your snare going to wobble out of the way is it going to get knocked down or is it going to catch the animal on that point make sure you don't over fence your snares that's the second most common mistake that people make they think they have to build a Taj Mahal where the only possible way through is to go through the snare now they'll just go around it go over it or they'll turn around go back the other way you can fence subtly but you don't have to try and force the animal through the snare there's plenty of woods out there and plenty of other places for that animal to go so just sort of gently guide them into the snare and if you are going to fence don't fence right up next to the snare build sort of a v-shaped funnel as you're going away from the set to sort of gently guide them over time you don't want to just have this impenetrable wall with a hole through it okay you want to sort of nudge them in the right direction over time over several feet so keep that in mind as well but anyway I hope this was useful thanks for watching great Channel Chris loved your videos and that is some great footage you got awesome job dude we'll see you next time

Channel: The Meat Trapper

Views: 802,717

Rating: 4.5877957 out of 5

Keywords: beaver trapping, how to catch beavers, survival trapping, snaring, survival snaring, how to build a snare, prepper, meat trapping, trapping for meat, how to catch food, how to snare rabbits, how to trap turtles, trapping snapping turtles, how to catch turtles, how to catch snappers

Id: 3ACoGi8d3oY

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2017