I use my little trapping shovel and hit them across the nose and it stuns them. I lay them on their back, lay their chin out in front of them and hit them hard across the throat with the edge of the shovel. If their legs snap straight out stiff on the 3rd swat, they are dead. If not hit them again. Take your shovel and poke them in the eye and if they blink they need tuned up a little more. Seems if you shoot anything in the head it ruins the skull and the animal just gained 2 quart of blood to leak out. Till last year, I never carried a gun on the line. Killed everything cept beaver with the shovel. NOTE... Do note use Mohawk bullets on head shots on beaver. We point blanked a beaver and threw it in the boat and took off up the river. All of a sudden the beav is standing up in the middle of the boat so we shot it again... dead... till it got up again. When we skinned it it had 5 of the Mohawk bullets on top of the skull and the skull was not cracked. Ray
