Beaver Swamps, Cattails, and Pepsi Bottles
The plastic kind of Pepsi bottles that is. These three ingredients will help you increase your cat harvesting here in the south. As a full time beaver damage control trapper , I rarely have the time for fur trapping as the fur season here is my busiest time of the year, but this past year there were some added bonuses to my work.... CATS !!
Cat trapping in the bogs creates several obstacles one must wade thru to be successful,trap anchoring, trap covering, and water filled dirtholes. The anchoring is easily solved by dragging, these swamps all have a perimeter of high dead grass which works well with the dragging and also a great location for your sets as it doubles for a excellent hunting area for hungry predators.
Covering can be a real headache if one is set on dirt as a covering, it will have to be hauled in and re-freshened each day because of the wicking of the moisture in the ground. A solution to this comes from the cattails that also surround the swamp, it also doubles as great eye appeal that is completely natural. Once your trap is bedded ,take several cattails and twist them over the set, they will roll apart and create a light and natural covering very suitable to the environment and also stick out quite well.
Dirtholes.......what a pain in the swamp, you cant even get one finished as its full of water . I am not sure how I come upon the idea, but decided it was worth a try, I went back to the truck and found several empty plastic Pepsi bottles on the floorboard.
Cutting the top section off to create a straight sided lure and bait holder that wouldn?t be affected by the water. I stuffed them down the dirthole and added some grass to the bottom to make them look somewhat natural, added the bait and a small amount of cattail puff to finish off the set.