Trapping: Modifying and Building Snares - In The Loop - The Management Advantage #39

last month we've been trying to get our summer forages in the ground we finally got them in the ground they're up there looking good we're basically on a mating schedule with those crops and we've got some idle time you know me I'm always looking for a reason to do some type of trapping episode so right now we're headed to Robert Waddell's we're going to get inside the mind of a professional trapper on how he builds his snares this show is going to be a little bit longer than normal it's not going to have a bunch of fancy editing but it's going to be solid information for you guys that have either used snares in the past and it bought them or are wanting to use some snares and wanting to know how to build them all right it's early July it's time to start thinking about our equipment ready for this fall I use an awful lot of snares whether I'm in Iowa or in different various other states where they're legal everything from snare and beavers sneering coyote snare and Coons I make my own snares you can buy a commercial snare if you want but once you buy this NER and use it you've already got the components so it could do much snare and you really need to learn how to build your own snares well we're building stairs obviously you're going to need some type of a lock you're going to need the stops for the end cable to go on into the cable whether it's steel and the old nut first off or an aluminium ferrule you'll need the swivel washers to go between the stop and the swivel that we're going to make for the snare obviously you need a chunk of cable this piece of plastic tubing here is 3/16 ID vacuum tubing it goes on the cable we use it as a support collar when we're supporting the loop over the trail or supporting the snare then of course the cable we use small stops what we call it deer stop this will keep that loop from closing down small enough where it could possibly catch a deer by the hind leg basically two and a half to three quarter inch loop and that will allow that beer to if it should come down the trail to step in this loop and pull it shut and then slide it down off the leg without harming the deer this is something that most trappers should seriously consider is using a deer stop on this loop because almost everywhere that we're working coyotes working Coons we've always got incidental deer to worry about that use the same trails especially around the deer feeders and this lets them go through and never have to worry about catching or harming a deer I'm going to cut a chunk of cable we'll cut this here at about 4 foot this is a commercial cable cutter but you can do the same thing with just a set of handheld cable cutters that you can buy from any supply house or home depot to cut your cable and it cuts easy it's just like cutting wire we need to install an in stop the first thing that you're going to do is put a ferrule or an inch stop on your cable you want to stick through just about a sixteenth of an inch just like that and then crimp it with a sway jur like so again bring it through just about sixteenth of an inch and press it down smash it and these are little long stops here so I like to double crimp them you can do the same thing by using an anvil or a piece of railroad iron and a hammer you don't have to smash these plumb out flat but just by smashing the the ferrule onto the cable before we do anything else the cable we need to measure down the cable eight and a half inches and I use a permanent marker this is the eight and a half inch mark on this table and I marked up cable eight-and-a-half inches for the deer stops going to be and it's just real simple easy to do if you mark it before you do anything else to it now holding the cable and keeping everything lined up with itself where the cable is perpendicular with itself we need to put a bend right behind this stop up tight against the stop we call it a figure seven Bend we bend it over hold it with our thumb and then kink it with a pair of pliers just like that that is to allow that lock to be facing the right direction that allow the snare to function properly now we're going to load this snare what we're going to do when we load this snare is we're going to put some memory in the cable to where it wants to throw the lock down the cable will show you the difference between an unloaded staring a load snare in a minute but anyway what we're going to do is a simply drag it around a piece of steel with a little bit of tension and we're looking for a shape like so basically like a candy cane or a shepherd's hook is what we're looking for we want fairly aggressive in the bend here and then tapering off as it comes on around that there would do a nice 8 to 10 inch loop when we drop the lock on the snare it doesn't matter what type of block we use but we always want the side that goes against the animals body to be up when we drop it on that makes it so much easier anyway has the lock facing the right direction when the snares is well assembled now before we feed the cable back through the lock again we need to drop on a small this is a a very small stop that we're going to use for the deer stop slide it down the cable and then simply feed the cable back through the lock like so and we're going to look at it make sure we have a nice round loop is what we're the objective is and that'll let that thing slide down the cable like supposed to actually make the snare jump shut when we do one if we do a snare where it's not loaded you end up with a teardrop shape it won't hardly fall shut on its own the animal has to physically drag the loop shut all the way he has to hit it at a charge he has to be running full blast to drag that loop shut you see our you see the mark the deer stop where we marked with a magic marker when I slide that stop up on there and we want to smash that small micro stop where that mark is just crimp it on there don't have to get super crazy with it just smash it flat now when we smash these we want the flat side of that to go against the animal's body we don't want to smash at the other direction where that where that bur the side of that is is rubbing on the fur and rubbing on the animal on creating a rub so just take a few months and think just think it through when you're assembling this I always put the flat side of these against the animal's body alright we've assembled our loop we've got a deer stop on we're going to drop on a piece of this 3/16 ID vinyl tubing we're going to use for a support color simply slide it down the cable and then we're going to slide on a snare swivel and let's stop and we'll make our own swivels start with typically make most of our swivels out of a piece of number-9 wire this is just black number 9 wire 9 to 10 12 inch lengths of wire this is a swivel tool we're going to put it behind the post like this now bring the wire around dividing it evenly into one above and one below what we call the spindle that's what's going to be in the center of the swivel to create the bear that's where we're going to put a crank on it and simply just crank out our swivel like so and then we have a completed snare swivel you see there's some grease and oil on this wire gets on my hands so that all needs to be clean and boiled off after the snares are built but we have a good high quality snare swivel that will outlive you and I the last for years and years for the snare swivel gets dropped down the cable and then we're going to drop on I like to use to swivel washers those are going to go between the stop they're going to put on the end of the cable and the swivel and then in a kneeled nut on the back end of the cable is on this slicker one by 19 cable is what we're going to use for the in stop this nut has been through a fire has removed the temper from it and it's just soft steel we do not want to use a nut directly from the hardware store that nuts going to be hard and we smash of the nut will crack and the threads in the nut when that nut is full temper act as little chisels and are actually cutting the cable so we want to use an annealed soft nut and just like you don't have to use a special crimper with them but you want that cable to stick through about a sixteenth of an inch and then just simply take a hammer and then smack until it just goes flat and that will hold as much or more than what this cable out here can hold that makes a very good end stop for the snare the last thing before we finish we want to line everything up and you see how this cable has got this loop got a little bit of a bin we want straighten that out it just takes a little tweaking right here by hand we want that loop to be everything perpendicular everything needs to be lined up perfectly with itself we have a nice round loop now when we set this in the field something to remember if you set the lock let's see the support wires back here where my thumb and index finger are if you set that lock all the way back against that support wiring animal gets up against that loop he's pulling it won't jump shut you want to have that lock out in front about 3/4 to an inch from that support wire and then that snare will snap shut will actually jump shut on its own do it again for you you see and you end up with a good neck catch on that animal which is the ideal catch that we're looking for after your snares are assembled this new cable your new wire if you use a new wire making new swivels it's got grease and cosmoline on it oil from the machining process of when the cable was made and we need to get rid of this oil off of the wire off of the new cable so that basically it's sent free so the animal does not smell it notice that you're saying thing in the trail when it's coming down the trail where it takes a loop like it's supposed to and doesn't smell anything out of the ordinary the easiest way to accomplish this I roll my snares up of course you're going to transform rolled up keep them everything like so and in a five or six quart pan or just any type of a pan a little bit of baking soda and some water and I bring them to a boil not much baking soda maybe half a teaspoon to a two gallon of water and bring them to a boil you'll notice some black oil and stuff come off that wire come off the cable you'll see a little bit of flecks of oil up on the top of the water as when you bring it to a boil and then shut shut the burner off and simply pour the water off the snares that way you're pouring the oil off the top of the water and to get the oil out of the cable and then rinse them good if you do use a baking soda boil you want to reget rinse all that baking soda out of the cable so it doesn't corrode or or eat on the cable as time goes on and then we're simply going to paint the snares to camouflaging Cheerilee I paint four to six snares at a time before these snares are painted we're going to open them up to roughly the diameter of the loop that we're going to use in the field eight or 10 inch loop like so and like I said I paint four to six of them at a time and just simply some nails on a tree make it easier to hold the loops open there is a reason to the paint scheme that I use on these snares when they're set in the field and we go setting a snare after a while you'll understand the paint scheme so much better but basically the top of the loop coming around to about with the loops facing this direction coming around to about four o'clock we're going to paint an OD green it just simply a rust-oleum camouflage low gloss paint that you can buy at any hardware store same stain you'd use on your duck boats or on your deer stands and we're going to paint that cable paint those locks down about so and of course you can paint the rest of the cable as well if you want the bottom of the loop which is going to be down in the grass just above the ground from whatever that it is eight o'clock over here to four o'clock we painted a very light tan looks like dead fox tail like so I'm sorry the outside of the loop from ten o'clock down again to eight o'clock over here we actually pay in a dark color we want the animal to see that part of the loop that will be the off side from where the snare support is and we wanted to see that much of the loop it helps bring their face back over and Center it in the loop when we set these after a bit it'll become very self-explanatory as far as the the color scheme now when these are dry and it just takes a moment for this aerosol paint to dry simply turn those snares around and we repeat the painting process again the same paint scheme alright we have a painting camouflage snare one of the things when we get the field you have to think about is how you're going to anchor this snare and you've got your snare swivel here and basically the easiest way if you remember when you're building your extension cables or your earth anchors if you leave the eye open on them decent size you know a decent sized eye on the end the cable you can simply pass it through the snare swivel like so then you're going to take the snare itself in the lock and pass back through this cable like this we call this square knotting them together and simply get that I had that cable that loop down on that's terrible like that you notice how everything swivels and functions just fine we didn't have to go by a split ring or a quick-connect or a lap link or anything like that to connect them and it's just real simple the same way if we're tying these off if we're trapping beaver we need a little more extension cable to go up and go around the tree we can simply hook another cable on to it like that or we can use the same thing when we're actually attaching the snare to North anchor if you leave the eye of you if you leave the eye there think you're open big enough like this you can attach this directly to the snare swivel just like we did the eye of this extension cable and to take them apart same just reverse process it simply pull the loop back through the snare loop and the lock back through the eye of the cable and unthread it you don't need a lot of specialty tools or much of other hardware to tack to keep track up to attach your extension cable to your snare sometimes when you get into these demos I feel like I'm ready to ask for questions after doing this so many years at the trappers collagen and teaching at the trappers College for the FTA if you're looking for an additional instructions and and some on the line experience as far as from a variety of different instructors the trappers College is probably the most economical place to go for trapper education to learn to become proficient with not only snares but any of the tools that modern-day trappers use there's a place I go tuck back in we're a Greenfield rose my little paradise I'm thankful for this land and the life that it provides see the measure of a man is what he leaves behind take what you need and pass it on down Oh give a little back this sacred ground sometimes you just got to get on all checked on sake letting this go I am what I am if you sit me down I'm going talk like this box that I plug in pine plantations nothing can be better rather than good if he hadn't just pull those the camera

Channel: ManagementAdvantage

Views: 222,900

Rating: 4.8663697 out of 5

Keywords: trapping, trapping predators, snares for trapping, trapping with snares, predator management, wildlife management, coyote trapping, beaver trapping

Id: z8arMDCghlM

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2013