Just got done making my lure for the upcoming trapping season.
Don't know how much time I will get to trap, but part of the fun of hunting, trapping, and fishing (for me at least) is the getting ready part of it.
Years ago I had very good results from a lure named "Big Deuce" (do you remember $70 red fox). The lure was made and sold by a fellow by the name of Gorold Weiland from South Dakota. Mr. Weiland also wrote a few trapping books.
That lure disappeared from the market sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. And I have used other lures from other makers since, but I have always remembered that Big Deuce. Actually, I liked the smell of it myself, although most other people around are going to hate it. People tell me I am crazy when we go by a dead skunk on the road and I tell them it smells good.
Remembering what I remember, I attempted to duplicate the Big Deuce for this years season. And I think I came extremely close based on the smell as I remember it. I hope the fox, coyote, and maybe even a cat or two and a fisher or two will like it as much as their forefathers and foremothers did!
If you want to try it out yourself, try this.
Get a few 16 oz plastic bottles with the flip top on them. I used shampoo bottles. You could use soda bottles too if you wanted to. Whatever is cheap, or free.
For each 16 oz bottle:
1. Add two ounces of glycerin.
2. A tablespoon of salt.
3. A couple of ounces of ground beaver castor.
4. An ounce of ground mink musk.
5. Fill to the top with sun rendered fish oil (or if you prefer you could use regular fish oil but the original lure had the sun rendered stuff).
Shake good and use. Don't be stingy. Use an ounce at a set if you can. I used to use it on cotton balls.
And for the WINTER Version, take the above lure and add 5 or 6 drops (or whatever you like) of tinctured skunk essence. You do not want to overpower the lure with the skunk. Just enough so you know its in there, but not too much so that you overpower everything else that is in there.
One of the things that I like to do is find small pieces of weather worn wood and drill a hole in them. about an inch wide (yea big drill bit) and a couple inches deep. Then I saturate the cotton balls with lure and stuff them into the drilled out hole, and place that piece of wood at the set.
Anyway, if you make this stuff yourself, even if you have to buy the ingredients, you still come out alright because your making 16 oz of lure for about 12 bucks, wheres you can pay that same amount for 4 - 5 ounces of lure if somebody else makes it for you.
You could, of course, add other musks to this lure if you wanted, and you could also add other types of ingredients if you wanted, like say some catnip if you were trapping cats, or some cherry oil if you were trapping coon (i'd leave out the mink musk then). Its a versatile recipie.
And if you have beaver meat, or muskrat meat, or bobcat meat, or even some roughfish like carp, you could grind the meat and then add a bit of this Big Deuce type lure to it as a bait solution. Some with the skunk in it and some without. (if you do this, also add a tablespoon or two of salt for every pint of ground meat)
Have fun making it. Don't spill! And if you do get some on yourself make sure and take a shower before going to bed with your spouse and/or lover, as it tends to linger for quite some time.
