| Subject: Re: Shed Trapping |
Author:
Hornhound
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Date Posted: 10:25:45 03/03/03 Mon
In reply to:
Bill
's message, "Shed Trapping" on 05:39:08 02/28/03 Fri
Bill,
I appreciate your 'antler clamping' design but it does have a few drawbacks particularly the need for electricity and the risk that the clamp might damage some of the antlers. Believe me I've played around with design and had it break a 12 inch drop tine off a bucks rack. I cried for days, my family couldn't get me to come in the house I just sat out there in the snow it was ....aweful.
Fortunetly I developed a solution to this problem. The key is to develop a hanging snare type contraption.
Here's what you do.
First off you'll need about four or five thousand feet of nylon rope a large 4X4 vehicle with a good winch, preferably a Hummer or Suburban(they're the same thing anyways), and several tons of corn and molasses. Now what ya do is drive that big truck back into the woods a little ways and find an area that deer travel through quite abit and has an abundance of trees that are about 5 inches in diameter at chest height. Place your winch cable at the top of a tree and winch it down to the ground you'll probably need a chainsaw to to cut other trees out of the way. BUT NOT TOO MANY you'll need as many trees as possible. Ok, once you've got your tree winched down what you'll do is make what is essentially a snare but the loop must hang as you say 'about antler high'. It'll take you five to seven hours to do this - repeat twenty to thirty times so that the whole area is covered with the hanging antler snares. Now I have a few words of advice, you must do some experimenting with your snare design so you get the amount of tension required to trigger the snare is just right, I recomend 2-4 pounds. It is also important to not use your arm, hand or any other body part to test the snare I've got a buddy that we call lefty, do I need to say more? Also it is important not to set your traps too early. You must wait until the deer are ready to shed. Your local conservation officer may take a dim view of you launching deer into a low earth orbit. So with all that in mind your ready to put the finishing touches on your antler trap. At this point you have two options you may choose to go with the 'hang em high' technique or 'antler catapult' method (a personal favorite). The real difference between the two is how loose you set the loop on the snare and how much tension is required to trigger the snare. Essentially hang em high will loop around the antlers between the G-1's and the G-2's and snug down so when the snare is triggered you antlers will be hangn'high in the tree and you can collect them at your leisure. The antler catapult is a little harder to set up but much more conveinent. What you want here is a very light tension and a tight loop. If you bend the trees is the right direction and you live within ten miles and not too close to an airport you can get the catapult to deposit the antlers right in your backyard! How's that for easy shed huntin'. I must warn that this is not a good technique for novices if you set the snares too low or too early you could wind up bombarding your own home with deer. Believe me a 250 lb buck can really make a mess of your patio door, or roof.
With all that in mind and once you have twnety or thirty snares set about head-high go ahead and spread the corn and molasses under the snares- I reccomend doing this on hands and knees. Now your ready to go.
Hope this helps,
Hornhound
>Boy, did I start something or what? And I appreciate
>Ed's reply that it was a relatively innocent and
>speculative question from a novice. Remind me not to
>ask you guys for advice or guidance again.
>
>Anyway, I resolved it myself by coming up with an
>entirely new approach - it involves putting out about
>a ton of cracked corn laced with molasses spread
>evenly over some flat ground. I then rigged a
>clamping device that swings across the feeding area on
>a pulley that is just "antler high" so to speak. The
>whole rig is run by a quiet electric motor that has a
>solar cell which charges it up during the day time.
>The clamping device snaps together every 1/2 second as
>it sweeps silently across and grabs any antlers that
>happen to get in its path. It works well for antlers
>that are ready to shed but I'm still working the kinks
>out from when it lifts an entire buck off of the
>ground and carries him through the air and dumps him
>in the shed antler bin, which is simply a large
>dumpster. Boy, does that seem to make them mad! And,
>I've also accidently picked off the occasional doe ear
>but that will give them a more distinctive look I
>think. Of course, there was that one unfortunate
>incident involving that local farmer's kid with a
>sweet tooth who wandered in and got in the way, but
>he's not too mad since he gained 6 inches in height
>and he was just a little squirt to begin with.
>However, his buddies now call him "Long-Neck" - kids
>can be so cruel sometimes, you know?
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