Trapping without a cartridge

Why this chapter exists

A trap does not need powder, a primer, or a trip to town. Set it at dusk, check it at dawn. On these ridges that is how you take raccoon off the henhouse, muskrat out of a Laughery slough, and a winter possum when the freezer is a hole in the clay.

Location beats iron. A $2 box of wire on the right trail outperforms a garage of unused traps on the wrong one. Walk first. Set second.

Tip. While law still exists you need an Indiana trapping license (gooutdoorsin.com). Tag every trap with your name. Check live sets every 24 hours; drowning or body-grip water sets at least every 48. Snares only on land you own, or with written permission.

Seasons, 2026–27

River otter and bobcat have quota seasons and extra rules — leave them unless you already hold the right paper. Do not snare a deer. That is not a food trick; it is a crime and a cruelty.

A raccoon in the henhouse tonight is livestock defense. A trap line on the creek in July is out of season. Know the difference.

Warning. Body-grip traps on a land trail will kill a dog. If kids or dogs use the hollow, use cage traps. Indiana limits land body-grips to small jaw spreads; anything bigger belongs half-under water.

What is worth a set here

Build it from scrap

Buy traps if you can — a #1.5 coil-spring, a dog-proof raccoon tube, and a cage will last a lifetime. If the store is closed, you still eat.

1. Cage / box: pallet slats and 1/2-inch hardware cloth, a gravity door on a trigger stick. Bait in the back. Big enough for a coon, small enough a deer steps over it. This is the set you use near the house — you can release a cat.
2. Figure-4 deadfall: three notched sticks holding a flat rock or a weighted board. Bait on the long trigger. Rats, squirrels, a careless possum. Test it with a stick until it falls clean. Too light and you only hurt them.
3. Trail snare: a loop of wire (old fence, lamp cord stripped to the steel, or 1x19 cable if you have it) on a rabbit run, pencil-width off the ground, the loop a fist and a half. Anchor solid. A relaxing lock if you can make one. Indiana: snares only on your land or with a written yes, and the loop has a legal size cap (15 inches circumference unless half in water or a relaxing lock).
4. Bucket mouse trap: a board teeter over a 5-gallon bucket, peanut butter or bacon grease on the far end. Protects the grain room. Empty it daily.
5. Funnel crib: hardware cloth rolled into a cylinder with an inward funnel, staked in a muskrat run or a crawdad ditch. Same idea as a minnow trap.

Tip. Boil new steel in wood-ash water or walnut hulls if you want it to stop shining. Your scent is the usual failure — handle with gloves you keep in a bag of dry leaves, not the truck cup holder.

Where to put it

1. Walk the creek at first light after a rain. Tracks in the mud tell you more than a catalog. Raccoon looks like a tiny human hand. Muskrat is a star with a dragged tail line. Beaver is a big webbed print and a mud slide.
2. Set on the travel, not in the bedroom. A culvert, a fence crossing, a log that bridges a ditch, the path off a corn nose to the water.
3. Water sets freeze in January. Have a land set ready — cage at the barn, box on the ridge trail — before the slough locks.
4. Keep sets off the neighbor’s dog path and off the kids’ shortcut to the bus. A ribbon of survey tape at eye level is not pride.
5. One good set beats six lazy ones. Check what you set. A forgotten trap is how you teach the hollow you are cruel and sloppy.

Bait that costs nothing

Raccoon: fish guts, a cracked egg, sweet corn, leftover grease, a shiny piece of foil in the cage back. They are greedy and curious.

Possum: the same, plus carrion. They are not picky.

Muskrat: a piece of apple, carrot, or cattail root on a stab stick. They are vegetarians — meat bait is for coon.

Beaver: fresh aspen or willow sticks you just cut. Castor lure if you ever save a gland.

Squirrel: hickory nut or a scrap of apple on the figure-4.

Warning. Do not bait with your own trash so close to the kitchen door that you invite the problem onto the porch. Twenty yards is a start.

Check, dispatch, keep

1. Walk the line at first light. In heat, sooner. An animal in a cage in July is a clock.
2. If it is a dog, a cat, or a neighbor’s livestock: open the door, step back, go apologize with the animal still in sight.
3. Dispatch is one committed act — a .22 to the head if you have it, or a heavy, accurate blow. Do not drown a caged animal in a tub. Do not ‘let it suffer so the meat is better.’ That is a story told by people who have not done this.
4. Gloves on. Raccoon latrines carry Baylisascaris — a roundworm that can blind a child. Do not sweep dry scat. Bleach a barn latrine. Wash.
5. Young fall raccoon: skin, remove scent glands under the legs and on the back, parboil, then roast or can. Old boars are grease and work. Possum: same, cook through. Muskrat: peel, take the musk, treat like rabbit. Beaver: a lot of meat; the tail is fat for frying.
6. Cook wild meat to 165°F in the thickest part. See Process → Food safety and Deer for the rest of the kitchen rules.

Warning. A daytime raccoon that walks up unafraid is not food. Rabies is in this county. Leave it. Same for a fox or skunk that acts drunk in the noon sun.

The rest of the animal

December fur is the good fur — raccoon, muskrat, beaver. Case-skin small game (tube the hide off like a sock), flesh it, salt or stretch. A hide you ruin still made a meal.

Fat becomes soap with hardwood-ash lye if you already know that pot. Beaver castor is a lure for next year. The guts go away from the well and the creek you drink.