Bedding a trap "By Hawkeye"

I'm going to give you my method. I'll bet there are guys on here that have a better and faster way, and I hope they share theirs, but this is how I do it.

First of all, I began using polyfil a few years ago, I quit using pan covers. I put the polyfil under the trap, put the trap down and visually trace a line around it in the dirt, set the trap aside and take my hammer and pound an indention in the dirt deep enough for the trap in the shape of a set trap, a little deeper where the springs are. I have a home made trappers cap I made out of a large tomato sauce can, it fits a Duke 1.5 CS perfectly. I sift some loose dirt between the jaws and the cap, and take the handle of my hammer and tamp the dirt, just like I would if I was setting a fence post, add more dirt and tamp, I repeat that until the tamped solid dirt is level with the pan. I don't mind if there are a few small pebbles, it just make less tamping, and they will not fall under the pan. Then I do the same thing on the out side of the jaw and the spring. When I lift the cap the top of the pan, the inside edges of the jaws, and the top of the springs should be all that is visible. Then I sift dirt over the set so everything is covered and level. The I lay down very small guide sticks. If this is a cat set instead of laying the sticks down I will stick them in the dirt so they are sticking straight up about an inch high. A cat has very soft paws and I have found out they aren't as shy about stepping on a stick laying down as a coyote is, but they don't like anything that might stick them.

I stand up and use a handful of dead grass to brush out the prints from my knee pads and footprints and back away.

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