Wax

[Walleye Joe]

Trevis, thanks for the info.
After I dye my traps in the boiling dye for a few minutes I remove, shake vigorously, and put them in a large covered stock pot over the side burner of my gas grill. Leave the lid off about 1/3 to release any remaining moisture and hold some heat in. This dries out the traps and keeps them hot so it doesn't cool my wax too much. When waxing, you'll know when they're ready. No vapor or sizzling. Works great for me! I'm not sure I want to do the Resin thing. If I do I'll add it to the wax when I only have a half dozen or so left to do. See what works best and pray it doesn't ruin my wax.

[trkyslyr]

I always hang to dry after I dye. Then I hit them with either the air or water hose to knock off the residue so I keep my wax as clean as possible. When I wax, I keep the heat going and my traps stay in until they start to bubble the wax, then a little bit longer and remove. The wax doesn't cool down enough to matter this way.

[krank]

My secret is to dunk hot traps. Good adhesion and thin layer that is locked into the grain of the steel. I put the dyed traps in a box with a hot air gun for a few minutes. Waxing in the summer with the black traps in the sun work good too. Dunk a cold trap and get cake frosting affect.

[krank]

Okay so no takers on original question. To move on the next practice of bygone days, does anybody remember trappers using a wooden stake on traps? I knew one old fox trapper down in Shannon county that says that's all he ever used.

[trapper340]

I've heard of that but haven't seen it done. It did get me to thinking about what type of wood would be good maybe hedge wood.

[krank]

Split oak. All them old Fur Fish and Game show traps anchored with sticks through the ring.

[Walleye Joe]

Dec 20, 2018 8:09:32 GMT -6 krank said:

Okay so no takers on original question. To move on the next practice of bygone days, does anybody remember trappers using a wooden stake on traps? I knew one old fox trapper down in Shannon county that says that's all he ever used.

The question was: Has anybody ever seen traps dipped in wax floating on water?

I have never seen it! 

[trkyslyr]

I tried it that way once, ONCE.

[krank]

The floating wax works if you know how.

[Walleye Joe]

Ok. When I have no other choice I may try it! Otherwise it's ALL wax for me!
I guess the wax could displace (most, not all) the water. Does the wax get hot enough when floating?

[krank]

Understand old timers didn't have 5 gallon buckets of wax. The wax is just fine as long as you drop the trap and leave it in the bottom. When you pull it back up is when you get the excess. Purpose of thread is to point out the ways of the past and how advanced modern trappers are.

[tjm]

Dec 20, 2018 18:44:21 GMT -6 trkyslyr said:

I tried it that way once, ONCE.

once for me too
I never talked to an old timer that did this but I read in an old book and tried it. Most of the old timers in the 50s and 60s used their traps as is. Some did bury them in muck, which works as a tannin treatment and also hides the traps from casual thieves. I can't recall any trapper that played with his traps, there was a guy that coated his traps with a concrete slurry and set them uncovered on the glade ledges for fox and coons, did pretty well too.

I don't recall any trappers using any kind of stakes, some used grapples, flat rocks with holes in them, clogs, and so on but the trappers I remember walked, and walked, and walked and carried very little that was not absolutely required. Hay wire would be about the only common carry in used. I will say this on wooden stakes, they will hold much more than steel stakes in most ground. The notion of stakes was to cut them where you were from what ever tree was the right size and from the stories I heard as a kid were used commonly until the hay balers came into the country, after WW1 I think. Grandpa had one of the first stationary balers in these parts, but I'm not sure what year. Hauled it from one location to another custom baling.

[krank]

Thank you Trevis.
The trapper in my Grandfathers day carried traps and an ax and a hank of wire. Maybe they had a bottle of secret lure.
The best backwoods man I ever personally knew was Old Lawrence.(born 1900) He didn't even have a steel trap. He had a two day line of deadfalls. It took him a day to get to the end and a day to get back. He carried a .22 and an axe and a sack of bait (corn). At night he slept on the ground in front of a fire with some biscuits or a can of beans. A rabbit or a squirrel meant a feast. He caught skunks and possums with an occasional coon and supported a family that way. Understand back then that 50 cent possums and $1 skunk surpassed $1 a day factory wage.

[tjm]

One trapper would star drill holes in lime stones in summer and leave them along the river to tie to as drowning drags; set right the edge of a drop off so that the coon would tilt it at the first lunge and it would slide to the bottom with coon and trap. He was still using those flat stones in '86 or 87 when the market died. That old guy killed a lot of mink in his life. He did wax his fox traps because they got bedded in wood ashes as frost proofing, (one at a time in a sauce pan)but his skunk, possum and water traps had hard rust on them and the only tinkering was filing triggers. Told about a star skunk he trapped when he was a fourth grader that brought a weeks wages for a grown man, teacher sent him home to get the smell off and he spent the day setting more traps. Walk a two-three mile trap line every day for a month and you will find you don't need a lot of that supply house stuff that fills up your truck.Then picture a 10-12 mile line and how many rebar stakes you want to carry on that.

[krank]

We built cubbies out of rocks and used them year after year. Recently I found one down at the family farm that was still standing.
The old dead fall made out of fence rail is outlawed now in Missouri as well as the old spring snare. Rightfully so I suppose.
Understand back in the Depression, wildlife was scarce here and it was mostly skunks and possums around here. That wasn't a bad deal as they compare to ten and twenty dollars of todays money. With that said, my Grandpa was making more money tying 1 1/2 longsprings to trees and baiting with an ear of corn than todays trapper out with all the latest gear.