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.

Good idea Buzzard. How does the cattail puff work for covering for the trap? Maybe they would soak up water too quickly.

You could have left the picture of you and the cat on there. There was nothing wrong with that. Like I said, pictures of folks with thier catch can be interesting.

Better yet and still, why don't you take a few pictures of how to construct your coke bottle set, and post them here?

-- Hal

Will do Hal, I took the film in today.....bout Monday .

These pics of the construction will be the actual sets themselves.


Wmthrower,

The catail puff when wet from wicking moisture lays down very flat and works just the same as if dry.

Thanks for sharing that Buzzard. I trapped along the edge of a large marsh this year and I would like to try your methods in the future. Do you think the cattail puff would work in snow and ice conditions?

Whole or slices of cattail heads should make good lure/urine holders also.

Why worry about a hole for a set or covering your trap for that matter? Next time you get a chance set the trap solid on the ground and block it tight with 1" or so diameter sticks...make it real tight. On the backing side add your bait / lure. If you are worried about the cat steppin on the pan cove it with a piece of shingle and sprinkle son dirt o the shingle.

You gots to adapt the coke bottle is a neat trick but you ought to try the exposed trap set you maybe very surprised.

In Ohio, it's illegal to set a foothold trap on land without covering it.

-- Hal

Buzz

Thanks for sharing the pictures. I would probably never tried the cattail "fluff" as trap cover. It sure looks as though it does an excellent job for evey appeal.

Mike