The trap consists of a number of rings with a funnel on each ring. It is emptied by untying the hind end. All of the fish is usually found in the innermost chamber. Two leading nets guide the trout into the trap. It is extremely important that one completely blocks all possible bypass routes around or underneath the net, or your catch will be significantly reduced.

The stream where we use this trap most of the autumn is rather unsubstantial, but still my father caught in excess of 2000 spawning brown trout in about one and half month last year. This year we set it a little too late in the season, and the total catch was around 500. The two times I emptied the trap, there was 46 and 97. In this we do not count the fish that are of bigger size, they we release back into the stream. Reducing the population is the objective of the fishing, not food. They would make good food, although lean, but we don’t have the capacity or stommachs for taking care of all of this fish. Here is a photo of the inner chamber being emptied on the ground. The other photo is of the catch one of the days.

I have yet to try burning undergrowth to promote better conditions for food production, but I have an idea on how to do it safely. In earlier times you could pretty much do it whenever you wanted, but of course, now you will be prosecuted if things get a little out of hand. In early spring, when the snow still is a major factor in the landscape, you can burn the bare spots without fear of it spreading, since any snow will halt a small fire’s progress.

Fish is overabundant in much of Norway. Brown trout is the most desirable fish specie in most areas and I commonly transplant fish from one location to another, sometimes to boost a thin population and sometimes to start a new colony where there are no fish. Fish them as carfully as possible, gill nets are not recommended, since they will rip of a lot of scales. Fish traps work wonderfully for this. Put them in a container with fresh water in and carry them to location. If the trip is long, you will have to change the water of the fish every now and then. Especially in the summer, when the water is hot and the oxygen levels are low. I had no waterproof natural container this time, so I used a large, empty water bottle. Natural container alternatives include washed stommachs, birch bark buckets etc… All of these pictures contain fish, though not so easy to see. The first one is of the fish in the bottle along with the trap, in the second I’m releasing the fish and the third the fish is swimming away.

Please, if you don’t know the area very well, don’t do this. You may and probably will spread around unwanted species in your will to do good. The energy you spend doing this will probably be well rewarded. If the growth conditions are good in the lake you put them, you are likely to collect big and fat fish at a later date. Yummy!

My home made fishing trap was only out for three nights. The spawning fish usually run during the night, especially in such shallow streams so having it out during the night is more likely to get you a good catch. The trout also doesn’t run when there is ice on the streams, which accounts for a lack of success the first night of fishing. Also, if there is a full moon, regardless of clouds, the fish don’t run.

This way of using the fishing trap does not make use of bait, but instead you fence the stream, leading the fish into the trap. The fence can be made out of sticks or rocks like here. It is an advantage if there is a little water flow through the fence, to ease the flow going through the trap. The holes must of course not be big enough for the fish to pass through. Especially, check under the trap, the corners there are easy to miss. You don’t have to fence much over the waterline since the fish will take the easiest route, which is through the funnel.

Be sure that you fence them into the trap. Fish arn’t terribly bright, which is why this trap works in the first place. So if you place the fence in the middle of the trap like the example here shows, the fish are unlikely to find their way in.

The trap must be weighed down a little to keep it in place. Place some stones inside too. See the fish?

Emptying the trap is easiest to do by taking the whole trap out of the water and take them out through the hole. It makes a mess out of the fence, but it will still reduce the time you spend fiddeling around with your hands in the cold water.

On these two nights I caught 7 and 14 trout. I carried them to a different lake which has too little fish, since food was ample at the time.

The quickest way is to carefully lay a net over a stream or a pond in the river. You will scare the fish standing right next to you, but if you don’t make too much commotion, you will not scare the ones close by. Chase the fish by throwing rocks into the side where you expect most of the fish to stand or wade into the stream yourself. The latter is most effective in small streams. Voila, you should have fish in your net. The capacity of the gill net will quickly be exhausted and the net will turn into something looking like a rope. All the remaining fish will escape. Because of this I really prefer to fence the stream and use a landing net instead, but I didn’t have such one this time. I will illustrate this method with some photos.

Photo 1: Chasing the fish.

Photo 2: Net with fish in.

Photo 3: Closeup of the net with fish in it.

The second method is a variety of seine netting. Except you use only a regular gill net. You tie the net to land in one end and start walking around the pond. This only works in round ponds and the net’s capacity will probably max out at around 30 fish. But you can take several turns of course. I have taken several hundreds in one day, fishing like this. For this method you need a longer net.

The third method is to simply block the river or stream and wait over night. It might provide you a few fish. A recommendable, passive way of getting food. But it might provide too few fish for survival on it’s own.

Happy fishing!

• The trap is put into the squirrel’s domain, the conifer trees.
• The trap is set so high that it is harder for most predators to pick the squirrel out of the trap.

On the negative side, this trap involves quite a lot of extra work compared to the stone deadfalls. Use densly grained spruce or pine or preferably broken trees that has split naturally. That will save you a lot ow energy.

First chop the tree down. To give you as little chopping with the antler axe as possible, break it after only having chopped around slightly. Cut off where you find it to be a good length. Longer length makes for quicker action on collapsing.

Split it down the middle.

Wedge the bottom log between two trunks to make it sit securely. This will also make the upper log fall directly down. But you need to make sure you remove any twigs or cracked bark in the way, otherwise it will not fall freely.

I used a regular figure 4. I have found a way to make them more sensitive and more quickly producable with stone as tools and spruce twigs as materials.

The bait is walnuts, a bait I have had success with in previous years.

This is staged, the noose is too small and too high up, but you get the idea. There seems to be virtually no hares in around this city. Probably due to everyone walking their dogs.

Over a hare trail, find a branch of decent thickness, break off the branches and the top.

Tie a forked stick to a standing tree, or break a suitable branch standing in a good position.

Tie the noose to the the bent down tree. Stretch it out with two small sticks.

When the hare struggles to get loose, the bent branch pops out and tightens the snare even more. If you have sufficient lenght on the bent over tree, the whole hare might become suspended. Below: The triggered snare.

Here the trap is ready for action again.

The other one was obviously not sensitive enough, and the squirrels had eaten off the bait without releasing the trap. Below: Tracks from one of the squirrels who have had a feast on my almonds.

I am starting to become a little annoyed by the lack of sensitivity of the figure four trigger. Because of that I set a new trap, this time with the paiute trigger. It seems likely that I will more or less start using this trigger type on the nible squirrels. The stability of the figure four will however still be useful when trapping fox and other large animals. Below: A deadfall set with the paiute trigger.

In addition to this, the prototype trap was set to carry out the field tests.

To achive a reasonably steady supply of trout throughout the winter, you are likely to need at least 20 lines out. Some days you will have many, but you will at least be almost certain to catch one every day. This of course depends on how numerous the fish is in the area in question. In some places you may get by very well on 20 hooks, other places that is way to little. If you have to set more than 20 hooks to get fish every day, I would seriously consider moving to a better fishing location. It takes time to check all of those hooks and if the return on them is poor, you may be better off spending more time on setting traps. But as a general rule: Fish is a more dependable food source than game.

One of the main advantages of fishing through the ice is that you need comparatively less line than when fishing from the bank. This being of the simple reason that the ice helps you drop the line straight down on the fish.

Setting a line and hook:

First, of course, make a hole through the ice. Make it bigger than you expect the fish in the lake to be. Scoop out the ice bits and snow out with your hands.

Bait the hook with something you know the fish like. Trout likes worms and other small creepy things. But these are hard to come by in winter, so they have to be stored. The Saami use reindeer fat. I have tried elk/moose fat and have yet to have any success with this. Other, more aggressive fish like pike, seems to like pieces or whole fish. Old bait doesn’t work very well. The bait should preferably be changed every day.

The fish usually stand just a little over the bottom of the lake. So that’s where your bait should be. Use a sinker to get the hook down. I often find that the best fishing locations to be where there is little water under the ice, maybe just a metre or two. Especially in the spring. In mid-winter they often stand deeper. Below: A line with a baited hook.

Tie it or wrap it securely around a stick at the desired depth. A few motions on the hook can often give you a fish right away.

Don’t try to lift big fish directly out of the hole. Everything weighs less in the water. Grab it by the gills and lift it up. I have saved a lot of fish unhooking in the hole, by grabbing the confused, but freed fish down in the hole.

Make sure the line doesn’t rest on one of the sides. Otherwise, when the hole freezes over you will have a lot more chopping on your hands, with the risk of cutting the string of course. Cover the hole with snow to reduce the freezing. Spruce boughs can be laid underneath, but I usually just showel a pile of snow over the whole thing. I have seen the Inuits make a small igloo over the hole, but I don’t find it to give any advantages over the previous methods. If anything, it has to be less snow in the hole.

About safety. Check the ice on intervals to avoid falling through. Especially where there is fast flowing water. Carry a long stick if you are insecure about the ice. Then you can use it to climb back up on if your luck turns sour.

The ice was firm, but layered. Using the antler axe for chopping through was practically impossible. That is the main advantage of using a ice pick instead of an axe; you don’t have to worry about the ice not being solid all the way through.

We got one non primitive hook out first. While I was making a new hole, he was making motions with the stick to try to make the pike to take. Suddenly the pike took the bait and I rushed to help. The hole was too small however and before we managed to enlarge it, the pike was gone with the hook and all. I think that, if we had planned a little better, we should have made a little gaff of a split branch, hooked it through the gills and used it for pinning the pike’s head to the ice. That would have left us with more time to enlarge the hole.

After that we set one primitive set and one more modern. On the modern one, the pike left with the hook and bait, which was by the way herring. No contact yet on the primitive set, but they have all been left until tomorrow. Hopefully there will be something there then. I will also set another set of primitive hook and line to increase the chances of finally proving that these hooks are effective, even on hard mouthed fish like the pike.