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One of the most sought after furbearer for most trappers is the red fox and a valuable prize for those who attempt to catch it.Its smaller cousin the gray fox is not as valuable as the red and is not as common but have a habit of confusing those who have one visit their sets and not get caught and never come back.
The first thing before the season you have to have your traps tuned properly to maximize your chances to hold the animal when its it caught. In this part of you trap preparation is to adjust the pan tension, shortening the dog to the right size squaring off the dog and pan notch. Adjusting the pan tension on the coilspring is achieved by loosening or tightening the brass bolt to increase or decrease the tension. Shortening the dog requires a file or bolt cutters. This is needed to shorten pan travel and decrease the chance of the trap no firing due to dirt under the pan.Squaring the pan notch and dog is also done to shorten pan travel and it is advisable to square the notch before shortening the dog.
When trapping on land often dyeing is not necessary but is a good thing to do and you also need to wax your traps. When you dye your traps it helps hide your traps better in case your covering is blown off or eaten in some cases. Dyeing traps is done by boiling traps in logwood dye or walnut hulls and other methods. waxing traps is done to protect traps from rusting and lubricating the trap adding speed. All you do here is melt wax in water dip the trap in the wax of two minutes then dry. Another method of doing this is using sped dip or cold dip that lubricates and dyes. When trapping canines it is important to be as clean as possible to prevent scaring away a sharp nosed canine like the fox. When constructing a new set wear clean gloves, use clean traps (clean meaning no smells),and have a kneeling pad commonly used for gardening so you can sit down on and keeping you smell form further being add to the set site. When you add the lure, bait or lure to the set take off your gloves and up another pair on or just don't put another on if you prefer.
When you ask permission to trap on somebody's land you just don't wait till season and set traps anywhere on the property and expect to catch a fox, you have to scout. When you are scouting you are looking for trails,tracks, dropping, signs of feeding. When you find the sign of an animal record its location in a notebook and when you come to make your sets set near where the sign was found.
Sets used for foxes are the dirthole and the flat and their variations. The common dirthole is made in ht following way: First dig a trap bed just larger than the set trap and about 2 in deep, stake your trap (or use grapnels) and cover the stakes with 1 inch of dirt then place your trap in the bed and pack the dirt around and on the inside of the jaws and leaving no dirt under the pan and then shift dirt over the trap and blend in ht trap when necessary. After bedding the trap make a hole about 3 inches in diameter and 12 inches deep (can be shorter if you cant dig that far down). After making the hole place you rabbit, lure, or urine in the hole or use a combination of the three. Remember to use different combinations at each hole and never use the same one twice in on area. Also when choosing a set site make sure there is a backing (clump of grass, rock , something that keep the animal on the trap side of the hole). Variations of the dirthole is a double dirt hole which is two dirthole with one trap and the trap is placed in the middle of the two holes. The distance between the hole and the trap is about 6-8 inches back and 2 inches to the right of the hole. For the gray fox I'd use 4 in back and 1 inch to the right. The flat set is constructed the same as the dirthole but there is no hole but some kind of attractor scented with a gland lure or urine and use the same trap placement as with the dirthole. If a gray fox visited your dirthole set and didn't spring the trap fill the hole level full of debris and usually the next day you'll have a gray fox waiting, sometimes you mighty have to wait a couple days.
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