Snares

This last weekend I had the pleasure of camping the last of deer season with my good friend and AMM Brother Scott "groundhog" Miranda, among the many accomplishments we made this weekend, he showed me how to make a Paiute snare. This is something I've wanted to touch on for awhile now. With his experience it only took an hour or so to put together and make a functional snare that I can see being very effective.
    First, our trappers in the early west do not seem to be using these, not anything common anyway. Natives are mentioned using snares, and it's only a possibility that our trappers might have. There seems to be various reasons for not seeing the use of snares.
   Our trappers working for a fur company are after beaver mainly, otter and muskrat fall in behind but all other fur is far down the list of demand. None of these animals are mentioned being taken by snares, by company trappers. There may be a slight chance some trappers used snares for beaver, but nothing is known of doing so.
The use of snares is going to be for a food source more than anything else, real beneficial to natives during different times of the year. Snaring a rabbit or other small game wouldn't do our parties much good , Osborne Russell sums this up:
  

"And now as I have finished my description of the Buffaloe and the manner of killing them I will put a simple question for the reader's solution - If Kings Princes Nobles and Gentlemen can derive so much sport and Pleasure as they boast of in chasing a fox or simple hare all day? which when they have caught is of little or no benefit to them what pleasure can the Rocky Mountain hunter be expected to derive in running with a well trained horse such a noble and stately animal as the Bison? which when killed is of some service to him."

From what Osborne Russell is saying, there's not much benefit in spending time with small game, and likely to be our situation with large parties of trappers.

 Even though snares would be rare, I'm keeping an open mind to the use of them as our trappers would likely be familiar with them. There is a hint of survivalism here, and we don't want to run rampant with paleo caveman ideals , lets just stick with the idea we are working for a large fur company and will have hard times to deal with and possibly have to snare a rabbit one day, so pay attention to our Native freinds and see how it's done. 

   The set up that Scott showed me is amazingly simple, but effective and strong. Choose a good sapling that will lift a small animal off the ground, and keep the twine tight. The one we chose in the picture should lift a small rabbit , possibly a heavier animal. 

    An ax, and a knife is necessary , and the twine should be something strong enough. I made the twine in the picture from small hemp and twisted with a home made walton engine. I finally found a good reason to add this twine in my bag.

 

You can make these pieces before you go out. In the picture I did not hide the twine just for the sake of pictures, it would probably be best to cover the twine so it would not be so obvious.

  This is something worth trying some time, it's cheap , effective and interesting.

 Another common set is the deadfall , which goes by several names. When I was a kid I was taught a "figure 4" , which had a trigger and a wooden crate set to fall and catch the animal alive, many use a large log or rock made to fall and kill the intended animal. This deadfall might prove to work well on birds or maybe squirrels, but would have to be of a large size for something like rabbits, at this point I'm inclined to like the sapling much better.