Traps on the Land (Clip) | Alaska: The Next Generation

It's a hard life out here. So a goal is to go out trapping and get some fur. And the animals out here that are growing with the land will make garments that are meant to be on this land. This is what I'm looking for right here.

I got a natural game trail. The animals, they continue to use this because the snow is so deep; they take advantage of any sort of little like natural trail that they make. Being on the border of this lake, there's a lot of natural cubbies for me to set some traps, but I have to be able to find them.

So I'll take advantage of the bank of this lake and this game trail. I honestly think I can take advantage of this little spot because there's a lot of these little alders standing up, and I can use that as a way to funnel the animals to the front of the trap, so I might make that little game trail. You know, I got to walk up to the trap, so using snowshoes kind of makes a nice little trail for them.

What I'll do is I'll make a trail going to the front of where I'm going to build a trap, and I'm making a connecting trail to that game path that I follow over there. The middle of winter is the prime time to trap. The reason is the fur is the thickest, and that's the type of fur that I'm after.

It's a much better cubbie than I thought it was going to be. I got these six branches to work in my favor. Uhh, the back of it is just kind of naturally encased in and close, so the animal won't go through the back and steal the bait. It's going to come around to the easy access, which will be the front.

This is the caribou stomach from the last caribou I'd shot. It's all frozen; it's technically fresh. This is the stuff that wolverines and scavengers and fox like to eat. So I'm going to offer them this, and I'm going to throw it all the way in the back there.

I've used leg hole traps in the past, and they're not always my favorite style of trap, so these are body gripping traps, and these are the most humane traps you can use. They're my preferred trap to use, so I just take this rope, put it through the hole here, straight through, pull here, and what that does is compress the springs.

So these are compressed these springs, and I got a little clip that holds them on, and that's kind of like the safety. This is the trigger, so if a wolverine or a fox or something like that came through, it's going to hit these, and the strap will close on it.

Any curious animal, it's going to find itself inside the body trap before reaching the bait. There's no suffrage; there's no pain. Because these things are, these things are dangerous, man. I mean, this could easily break my arm. So then you got to feel confident; you got to feel comfortable with, or you’re gonna get yourself hurt.