Setting Traps for Food

When out in the wilderness, one of the best ways to procure food is by setting traps to catch animals. When food is scarce and your in a survival situation, the last thing you want to do is burn up a ton of calories. This is why traps make an excellent approach to catching wild game. Once the traps are set, you can just sit back and wait until you catch something without wasting valuable calories.

When using traps for wild game, the secret to being successful is to use many traps; you can’t rely on just one. Often you will be required to set several traps in the hopes of catching just one animal. Traps in general only work if an animal happens to come across it, so to increase your odds of success, you must lay several traps in multiple areas if you hope to have any chance of catching something.

When looking for places to lay your traps, you want to look for areas that show that animals have been there and frequent the area. One of the best spots to look for are tracks and trails in the vegetation that animals use to get around. Animals often use the same trails to get back and forth from where they sleep, and places that they feed and get water. This makes these trails the perfect spot for a trap because you know they will be back. Other good signs of animal activity in the area are animal droppings, nesting sites and chewed vegetation.

Another important thing to remember is that you must mask your scent in the area around your traps. Most animals have a very keen sense of smell and even the slightest scent of humans will alarm them and possibly make them avoid the area where your traps are set. Covering your hands in mud before handling your traps is an excellent way to do it. Try using mud that is full of rotting vegetation for the best results. Another good way to mask your scent is with smoke. Make a small fire and add some green vegetation to create smoke and blow it on and around your traps.

Probably the most used and easiest trap to setup is the snare trap. Snare traps consist of a single piece of wire or string with a loop on one end. Simply slide the other end of the wire through the loop and tie it to a fixed position like a tree branch.

What you have basically created is a noose. When an animal tries to run through the noose their body pulls on it, closing the noose around the necks and entangles or chokes them.

This is why the best place to use snare traps is on animal trails and runs. Animals are often running back and forth on these trails and will run right into your trap. A helpful tip is to place thick branches and sticks in the ground around and leading up to your trap to create a hallway effect, guiding animals into your trap and not giving them the choice of going around it.

There are many different types of traps you can use and they all work pretty much on the same principle. Find an area where animals are most active, set your trap, and cover your scent.