Thread: Trapping.

Get that trap bedded man, you'll get a lot less escapes.

How close you get the trap to the tree and how much lure you use is a personal thing.

The hand width from tree and lure up to approx knee height (50cm) came about in the 1990's (and subsequently taught) from the need to have a standard approach to possum montioning. With monitoring (which is a statistical protocol, essentially "counting" possums) there is a need for each line and each set, regardless of who sets it or where, to be the same. I.e. to minimize human bias. So hence the need for teaching and requiring a very standard approach. Many people took that to mean its the best way to set a trap. That is not necessarily so. The old school skills used by skin hunters for many decades last century, such has hazing etc, work very well.

Just don't go burying it or covering it with leaves etc -the old Lanes Ace (what some call "gin" traps) worked well for this but modern #1 sized traps just are not big enough to handle the rubbish.

Before someone flames me, I do set about hand-width out and about a knee high of lure, because that's what I've always done....