Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Experiences with live traps

As a kid I remember my dad having an old wooden box trap for rabbits. It was made in Germany by work buddy of his. I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be able to catch animals in there alive and then I could let them go or harvest them. Looking back this big wood trap must have been an interesting thing to import to the USA?

It was not long after using this trap every day, that I saw the adds in Outdoor life for the Mustang and the Havahart brands of traps. I would have done anything as a kid to get one of those Havahart traps! Eventually I did save enough money from mowing lawns and shoveling snow to buy one, I think I was about 10-12 years old. I still have that trap to this day. Mine was a #3 which was 3 feet long and about a foot square. Unfortunately it got beat up badly from Raccoons, they chewed the mesh sides so badly that it was just an eye sore. Although it still works it was a tough life with all the coons.

I eventually bought a Tomahawk brand which was a step up from Havahart. However that Havahart design was, and is still the vision of what a live trap looks like.

I have caught so many things in those traps, things I never intended or imagined getting in there. Coyotes and fox were targeted and captured. They are probably the apex catch for a live trap. I caught turtles, and owls in them too, actually countless species of birds. The challenges with a live trap are huge compared to foot traps or snares. I made one 4' long by 16" square with a single door using the trigger design of the tomahawk. All stainless steel and aluminum.

It's made with a solid metal bait box in the back 12" The mesh sides top and bottom are also expanded aluminum. I've had this big one for 30 years now and it still looks like new. Being aluminum with the expanded metal mesh prevents the problems with coons chewing it up too.

I've been trying to thin down some problem animals here on the ranch, so it's been set and checked every day for the last year. I have captured an amazing amount of birds, but last night I caught a first..... I have a huge porcupine in there! Using dry dog food for bait, I wonder what this Porcupine wanted in there? They can't possibly eat dry dog food as a pure vegetarian?

Anyway, I thought I would share this. A life time of trying to catch stuff in live traps and I still manage to catch another first!

Funny capture this week, Trying to rid the pond of Muskrats which are undermining the bank with a lot of damage. I don't want to kill anything else in there like the baby wood ducks and geese. So I am using this live trap.

It's an old double door live trap from 1936 made by a guy named Rupert Merkle

He sold the patent to the Allcock manufacturing company which is now the Havahart brand. It looks the same as a #2 havahart, but it's made with commercial fishing mesh used in the atlantic in the 20's and 30's. Looks like chicken wire but much heavier and galvanized with some kind of heavy zinc to protect it in salt water I guess?


Funny what you can catch in a live trap!

I've used live traps, but I sure prefer the footholds.

Getting a coyote in a live trap is impressive.

I catch groundhogs and coons with the live traps mostly. Nuisance animals causing damage or raiding trash cans. Coons are hell on a live trap.

A couple of times I dug a small hole for a can of cheap cat food. Set the live trap so the can is just beyond the trigger. Now forget about all that. Place a couple of small logs running along side the trap with a foot or so sticking past the back of the trap. Now place a foothold trap in the little cubby you created. The fox is leery of the live trap but wants to sniff that bait. Possible double? This set caught 2 greys for me.

I have caught quite a few Bobcats here in north Idaho in live traps. I actually prefer them to footholds. Our season starts in the middle of Dec. They work better for me in the snow and freezing rain. Easier to keep working.

I understand what a kill trap is....bodygrip, snare with entanglement, drowner, etc..

But you all realize a foothold is just as "live" and safe as a cage trap....so why refer to a cage trap as a "live" trap?

Another interesting catch, this trap is 81 years old and still captures all sorts of creatures!

This mink was pretty entertaining, how many of you have heard them shriek like a siren? They can really make a loud shrieking sound when they are stressed!

Once caught a huge feral mink in a beaver set along the Yakima River. The big leghold caught him around the hip and junk... never heard such an awful sound...

Back in the Late 50's, here in Arkansas most every kid had a home made wooden box trap for rabbits. There were lots of old grown up fields that would yield rabbits, that could be sold for $0.50 each. Of course I never got any money as we ate the ones that I got. miles

As a kid I had a Havahart #2 & #3. I set them all over the farm and fields to catch anything I could.

Now I use live traps to catch skunks. With the live trap I can move them to a secluded section of the property to release and shoot.

I think when I got my #3 as a kid, I was more excited and anxious to use it then when I got my first bike!

I captured so much stuff in that #3 over the years on the farm. Eventually the raccoons chewed the wire so badly that it was becoming difficult to get level and set. I bent the wire out of the way of the trigger and it was really getting ugly!

I remember getting those havahart booklets in the mail with all the pictures and stories of animals that people caught around the country.

Yep, I got my two traps for Christmas when I was 13. I was so excited for months waiting for Christmas to finally get here. I read and re-read that little Havahart booklet. I thought I was only getting the #3 and was super surprised to also find the #2.

I still have the two, the three was chewed beyond usability after a decade of capturing stuff as a kid. It was actually stolen. However it was likely set in a place I should not have been trapping anyway as a kid.

They really could galvanize stuff in the old days without EPA restrictions. That 80 year old trap is still perfectly rust free. I think a newer one would be rusty in a few years now.

I found the old #2 pre Havahart name, made by the guy from Austria that created it. That's the one in the pictures above.

Fox in a live trap is as good as it gets!

I caught two, this was the first. After the 2nd I quit trying. I let both go.

I never was able to catch a fox until I switched from putting the main bait on and under the trip pan to putting it in a shallow hole and putting the trap over it with the trip pan covering the hole, then run small pieces of bait all the way thru like normal.

My three traps, two Havaharts and one I bought at a gun show several years back.




The little #2 is what I prefer to use for skunks, I can move them in it and they will not spray. When I catch one in the larger traps I have to shoot them where it sits.

I am trying to catch raccoons, rats, and squirrels.

I catch some cats and let them go. Usually the cats run so fast they are out of sight in one or two seconds and I never see them again. But there is one big black and white that does not run away fast when released. And he gets caught again and again. Either the bait is worth the jail time or he is stupid.

Nice catch!

What brand trap is that?

That trap is someone else's, 880 miles from here next to a feed mill.

But I have killed a lot of coons that came for cat food in a Have-a-Heart live traps.