In this episode I discuss my absolute lack of bobcat trapping experience, but provide some information and suggestions for a new trapper looking to trap bobcats for the first time. There are a lot of DVD’s available with good bobcat trapping information. I suggest one or two from a trapper in your general area/habitat type. If you find bobcat habitat, travelways and sign, all there is to do is make the proper set and you’re golden!
In the second part of the episode I discuss marten/fisher and weasel trapping in Maine and New York and how it is affected by food availability, primarily driven by the strength of mast crop that varies year to year. Enjoy!
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I see you modified your 120 exclusion boxes from your original video (added notching to the long section). What was the reasoning for this? Was 5″ not enough for the trap springs when opened? Did you keep the existing 18″ measurement of the long piece, plus the 5″ to the location of the trap? Or did you shorten distance that up? I am currently building my boxes for this year.
Hey Ty,
The 5″ slot is usually long enough for the 120 springs, but sometimes it’s nice to have a little extra length so I went with a 7″ slot, which is still within the legal length. I moved a good part of the slot over to the long end of the box so that I had more room to stuff lots of bait in the back of the box behind the trap. Note that I did keep part of the slot (about 2″) on the short end of the box. That’s so I can lift the large end up and down (swivel it open and closed) without having to pull the trap out. So you can open the box up, set the trap in the small slot in front of the bait, and close it shut. Just make sure the slots line up with each other so the trap can fire freely. Also be sure you secure the two pieces together tightly with a good piece of wire or something similar. This seems to work well but there are lots of other ways to do it. The long end of my box is about 19″ long on most of them. Hope this helps.