Trapping 102 -by Toe Catch

Baits are just that , a bait. Baits can be broke down into four distinct groups : Food stuffs , Liquid , Paste and Chunked. Depending on animal you are trying to draw in , they can be as simple as a donut , peanut butter , jelly , sardines or an extensively tested and commercially manufactured formula and anything in between. Baits are used year round with great success , for everything from the smallest pest like mice to the largest predators like bears. Baits are used for removing wildlife and pest by Animal control personnel , hunters , fishermen , homeowners and trappers alike. For the purpose of this article I will talk about trapping baits and their uses. Used with or without lures. Let's start with the least used which is liquid baits. Liquid bait is just that a liquid or semi liquid. Liquid are baits that have been ground into liquid form , has additives making it semi liquid or are liquid byproducts of making another bait. Fruit can be ground in a blender to almost pure liquid and then have things like simple peanut oil or glycerine added as an extender and glycol added as an antifreeze agent. This can be used for trapping Raccoon , Muskrat , Opossum , Skunks , Grey & Red Fox and Coyote in cages , dogless , cubbies and dirt hole sets. Another that comes to mind is Horse Hoof liquid which is liquid bait that when used in a dirt hole set will cause every K9 species around to have an extreme digging reaction. Some baits are actually used to catch trapping bait like mice , rats , moles , etc. Then those can be frozen and used whole at a later time or ground into a paste to be mixed with other ingredients to make a predator bait with some to great success. Which brings me to the group of paste baits. Commercial paste baits are usually some type fruit or meat base (either fresh or tainted meats , I'll explain this process later) mixed with glycol's , glycerine , oils , glands , fixatives , extenders , tinctures, etc. Depending on the species or group of species the bait is targeting. A good fruit paste bait is persimmon , the fruit is ground up and mixed with glycol to prevent freezing and lanolin or corn starch to get the consistency desired. Meat paste baits are meat that is ground up and mixed with ground up glands from different species depending targeted species. Mink , Muskrat , Beaver , Skunk , Coyote , Fox and Bobcat glands are all used with great success in paste baits. Mice , Beaver and Bobcat meats are all common meats to be used with glands from Muskrat , Mink and Beaver Castors for an extremely good predator bait and mixed with skunk essence (a little goes an extremely long way) and lanolin or corn starch to get desired consistency and a preservative like sodium benzoate to stop it from aging any farther. Paste baits can be smeared on backing or down a dirt hole which is the most common. Chunk baits are what is typically made by the trapping public meats can be anything , but Fish , Venison , Beaver are the most commonly used. The meat cut into chunks and mixed with sodium benzoate to preserve and a commercial bait solution that already contains all the other ingredients needed for predators and used in dirt hole sets. Meats are used fresh or tainted (aged) both need to be mixed with a preservative like sodium benzoate (SB) to stop the aging (decomposition) process. The (SB) can be mixed as is with the meat , but I have found it reacts fastest if desolved in a small amount of warm water first and then added to the meat. This still takes about an additional three days to be exorbed by the meat so adding it is crucial or the meat will rot and become us less unless you want to catch every opossum within 100 miles. The aging process varies from person to person , but is typically done in a cool dry area away from heat and direct sunlight. A good rule is when it starts to get a slight odor of "Going Bad" it's time to add the preservative and mix in the other solutions and additives. Then allowed to age awhile longer. I will go into further detail in another article on making meat baits. Toe Catch