Friday, April 20, 2018

turkey traps for other birds

I recently found some old pictures of a turkey trap, its simply a cage made of stacked sticks ,at one end a ditch or trench is dug and bait is placed along the trench and in the cage , the bird can walk into the cage by ducking under ,and apparently can't find its way out ,  i wasn't sure if it would actually work as a trap so i tried it on a pigeon

I took a shopping basket and dug the trench and added sunflower seeds as bait
the trap worked perfectly ,for some reason the birds can get in but cant seem to find their way out again .
the last picture is the traditional way to do the turkey trap
so in a survival situation this trap would be well worth trying .

video of the hare trap


Making the hare pipe trap is relatively simple but i have also made a video to show how i made it ,the instructions are quite plain in Mascalls book but the picture makes sense anyway 







Wednesday, April 18, 2018

a book of engines and traps, L Mascall. the hare pipe

So having searched and searched for ages i finally found a few books containing some traps i have never seen before,  Leonard Mascall's A booke of engines and traps to take polcats .buzardes, rattes, mice and all other kindes of vermine ........  is one of the books i found ,it contains many traps and  i will replicate some of the traps and post pictures here and videos on youtube,  here is the front page of the book.
l mascalls booke of engines and traps




The book is about 428 years old but the pictures are quite decent the first trap i have decided to replicate is the hare pipe trap 
the hare pipe
The hare pipe is basically a snare with a wooden or metal pipe that the snare runs through ,once the hare is caught in the snare it pulls the snare tight and the spikes at the end of the hare pipe dig into the animals throat / neck , it seems quite a weird and unnecessary trap , but i think it might  have been a way to stop the animal chewing out of the trap ? 
my hare pipe 

Here is the version i made ,as it says in the book i made it from elder , the cord is passed doubled from the back end to front and one end is put through a hole near the back and large knot is tied , the long end is then attached to a peg secured in the ground 
the book doesn't actually mention to how set the snare up to catch the hare so here is a way i thought this could be done 
set up hare pipe 
Thanks for looking, next i will replicate the basket fall trap