Dog Proof Victory Disease

The dog proof raccoon traps have been so successful for me I have gotten reckless.  One night I set three traps, and as I was setting the third, I knocked the cross bar of the rebar stake off.  I foolishly decided I would just leave it that way, I mean, I already have two other traps set...

Unlike some of the other dog proof traps, the three I set were all push/pull systems, and naturally the only one that caught a raccoon was the one without a proper stake to secure it.  Awesome!  So I saw that and set out to find where in the world my trap wandered off to.

Well, I got lucky...

King Coon

A couple weeks ago someone asked me the best way to get rid of raccoons so I showed him various dog proof coon traps.  He bought a brown Z trap which has a push/pull trigger.  Yesterday he showed me some trail camera pictures of an enormous coon that was terrorizing everyone.  In one picture, standing near a buck, was King Coon, and he looked like a bear.  It was ridiculous.  Apparently his neighbor has been terrorized for quite some time by this "bear"--he actually thought it was a bear.  His bird feeders knocked down and wrecked.  One time he set a live trap and one of the side panels was ripped off...  Well, King Coon has finally fallen to the mighty Z trap.  The interesting thing about all this, is that this guy was messing around with some bear bait, specifically anise, and got this bait on his hands which he didn't wash when he set the trap.  King Coon never bothered this guy's deer feeder until after he set the trap with anise covered hands.

Red Badge of Courage

The first time I caught a badger, I thought the Russians had dropped a bomb on my set.  Then I saw the badger in the trap.  But soon I caught a couple more of them and I realized that it's about the same thing.  My friend Jimmy Hill trapped with me some while I was in high school.  Now Jim caught a badger one day and clobbered it good with a broken hickory shovel handle.  The badger moved, so he clobbered it a couple more times.  Convinced it was finally dead, we then put it in a gunnysack, Jim tossed it over his shoulder and we headed for home.  'Bout halfway, the badger decided he didn't like the confinement of a gunnysack.  The easiest way out was through the side of the sack, which would have been fine had Jim's back not been in the way.  Now, if you've never seen a badger's front claws, you are in for a surprise.  Not quite the same surprise that Jim was in for, though, because feeling those claws tear through your shirt gives you a much better appreciation for those claws than just looking at them.  The furor of an angry badger makes the Tasmanian Devil look like a downy chick.  By some miracle, we managed to get the badger subdued for good.  Jim of course, smeared the blood from his back around real well for effect before we headed back to tell our friends of our heroic acts in the face of grave danger.  Jim was a wrestler.  Wrestlers are like that.

Not only are badgers ferocious, but they are downright ornery.  And they can practically turn around inside their skin.  Their skin fits so loose that if it is grabbed by a coyote or anything else stupid enough to try to catch one, the badger can spin around and bite back no matter where it is held.  A couple years ago, I saw a large badger started to cross the gravel road near my home.  When it saw me coming in a minivan, this ornery cuss turned, bared its teeth and came at the van.  His arrogance has earned him a permanent place on my wall.

Bernie Barringer, Bernie Barringer's Complete Guide to Farmland Fur Trapping (Crystal Lake: Moving Mountain Publishing 1997), 289-290.

Easy Set Dogproof Raccoon Trap

I set up a couple of these traps last night because I knew there were still raccoons slinking around at night.  They like to sneak in the garage and try to steal feed, and of course, they like trying to get inside the coop.  They have been getting quite bold.  A couple days ago I actually stood a mere 15' away from one that was sneaking around before dark!  I placed baby marshmallows near the traps and some inside.  I was not sure if I would need more bait, but I wanted to try out marshmallows first because I did not want to spend more money than I needed to.  The marshmallows I set around both traps were gone, but only one trap was set off.