Traps and Snares

I’ve been practicing my traps and snares lately when I’m out tracking game. Yesterday I spent my time trying to perfect a net trap to use on larger animals. I have a trip to Africa coming up in a few weeks and will be hunting my second lion. Last time it went well, but I found that using a gun was less exciting than I thought and the trip was over sooner than expected. I decided to give trapping another try and have been working on building nets from raw materials in the woods and trying to trap my hunting dog Blue. 

Yesterday I set up the trap, securing the net to a frame work above some bait to lure in Blue. The first few times the net caught on the frame when it was released and Blue just ended up walking away after a full belly. But once I was able to work out the kinks it went much smoother and I caught him 4 different times. 

Hunting an old dog is substantially different from hunting a lion, but I’m pretty confident in my net trap making abilities and can’t wait to put them to the test. 

I also practiced my basic snares so I could catch some small game to butcher and use as bait. Those went very smoothly, but that’s not too surprising. I’ve been making snares since I was old enough to tie my shoes!

I'm going to be doing a lot of traveling in the next few months, so my posts may be limited. Be sure to follow my Twitter account here to stay updated with everything that's going on.