Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Average amount of traps on a trapline

On average, how many traps do you have out/in the ground per trapline, or per season? my home state Utah requires a check every 48 hours, not that a good trapper wouldn't want to do checks at least that often anyways. but that makes a lot of sets- especially a lot in remote locations pretty time consuming.

Fur in this region is pretty much worthless
except for beaver, bobcat, and otter, and the
bobcat and otter still have to get a CITES.
I only nuisance trap myself, and usually only
have around 6 sets total for all types combined.
I have 3 B.G.'s out now for small varmints.
IIRC I have 40 or 50 of all types combined
at my disposal.
Most of the people I know of that set for
fur have several dozen out if not more.

From reading about the old mountain man
fur trade days, most all accounts have
each man making 6 sets for beaver with
the 6 they owned. I don't recall reading it,
but I imagine in those days of blacksmith
handmade traps, I'd bet they were expensive
to buy.

I run 20 dog proofs for coons and have 20 jaw traps for canines and cats. I hit small areas here in Missouri. 100 to 200 acres. I give each area at least two weeks or until catches stop coming.

Curious as to your foot traps
What sizes do you use?

Mine are mostly #2 and #3 and I have 3 #4 LS IIRC

I'm fairly new at this but I use Bridger #2 dogless as that's what was available locally. I have had great service from them.

Ok thanks

I have Bridger # 2's , but they're regular dog type.
I was going to buy dogless at one time, but the
vendors were on b/o at the time
I have some Bridger B.G.'s and the T3 D.P.'s that
are well built

I thank you all for the replies, and the info on what kind of traps your using as well

When I was a kid I had around 80 traps set at one time. I was trapping along a river and up a couple of creeks out of a small jon boat. I had land sets and water sets. This was late 70s when fur was worth something. Possums and a few muskrats were worth catching then. Coons Mink and foxes were a real payday. Minimum wage was 2.35 an hour and coons were 20 to 30 dollars. Boar mink 35. Gray fox 42. Beaver weren't worth much but were a nuisance to landowners. I would trap beaver to get access to trap the other animals worth catching. I used #3 longsprings and coils for beaver. 1 1/2 victor coils and #1 and #2 B&L longsprings for most of my sets. #1 Onieda Jump traps for muskrat sets.

Are those worth anything these days?

I have 3 #1 Blake & Lamb jump and
an oddball # 1 Blake & Lamb single
longspring, only it has 2 springs on
the same side both with eyes, a smaller
one inside of the other
The jumps are still pretty stout to be
as old as they probably are

They would be worth using.
I have been nuisance trapping for a friend this year. most traps I have had out at one time is 8.

Yessir. They're very useable for the smaller
varmints. I had to put a pan on one because
an unruly varmint doing cartwheels knocked
the original antique- ey one off

When fur was worth skinning, late 70's into the early 90's, except for the time away due to my job for a bit over 4 years, I had anywhere from 200 to 400 sets out during the entire trapping season. Was on a 24 hour check for everything back then. Averaged over 150 miles per day from the first of November to the end of February. Limit of 20 on raccoons back then, too....usually had that on the first half of the first check.

I currently have 11 traps in the ground, all of them are NO BS K9 extremes. I’m targeting coyotes and bobcat.

I had as many as 25 in the ground the first week of season when I took vacation. Now I have them all fairly close to the house and only have to open 2 gates to check them.

Back in the 70's my partner and I worked night shift and trapped days during the season. We'd run around 50 sets for fox and coon over about 30 miles. After that we'd switch over to water trapping, muskrat and mink, by boat and ran something over 100 sets.

I’ve currently got 12 wolverine sets, 5 wolf sets and 3 110 connibears for marten strewn out over a few miles. The marten sets are to get rid of a few bait thieves as I am not interested in anything but wolf and wolverine. I would throw the rest of my wolf traps out but don’t have any spot in mind and like to keep a few on hand for when I see a golden opportunity.

I throw an occasional lynx set out too when I cross a set of tracks but have none out at the moment.

When I trap, I mostly go after coyotes. I got mostly #3 in a variety of brands. I use the #3 Bridger 4 coil on beavers and the occasional otter. You got to remember, just because the trap size number is the same, the trap size is not the same. A #3 Bridger is the same size as a #4 Duke. Both have 6 1/2" jaws.

I haven't counted in a while, but I got about 2 1/2 dozen #3's, about 8-10 #1 1/2's, and 4 DP's.

Right now I'm not trapping.

Bitch yote waiting for me this morning. This is the second this week at this location and the 5th total from this location.

She was caught almost all the way up to the wrist.

Two dozen per line in Northern MN for coyotes back before wolves replaced them.
We have a limited roughly 45 day season for bobcats. For that I ran maybe 8 sets with 650 casts, and another 3 sets with cages. It’s a 5 cat limit.

Osky

AWESOME Photo!!