Once, on an excursion over into the Madawaska Valley, he came upon a deadfall temptingly baited with pork.
When, early the following morning, the Indian who had set the deadfall came, he found the cub near perishing with cold and fear and hunger.
In order, however, to better his chances of catching the mink, the hunter may build a deadfall near the trap, where the animal is in the habit of entering the bush.
He had felt the cruel pain of steel jaws; he knew better than the shrewdest fox what a deadfall would do when the trigger was sprung--and Nepeese herself had taught him that he was never to touch a poison bait.
Toward the end of the day McTaggart came to a deadfall in which a lynx had died.
Wherever a trap or deadfall was set this new trail struck sharply in, like the point of a V, so that he could approach his line unobserved.
Why didn't you have a deadfallfor the foxes as you had for the bears?
Newhouse steel trap intending to set it if the deadfall was down without making a catch.
But all this does not signify the deadfall is no good; they are good, and when mink trapping is consumed the deadfall is the trap you want.
The fourth winter a few weeks after catching one in the deadfall the trap was down and the bait gone.
To prove this I will mention that some years ago in one deadfall I caught eight mink in five winters and one in a steel trap, making nine caught in the five years.
Now that will do in West Virginia, but in Pennsylvania in this part of the state it takes a water set or a deadfallto catch the mink.
I give a diagram of a deadfall (called here Log Trap) which, when properly made and baited, there is no such a mink catcher in the trap line that has yet been devised.
Next a small place was excavated inside the pen and near the bait, on the deadfall spindle, the trap placed and carefully covered.
This deadfall was built on the bank of a small stream some 20 feet from the water and near a large sycamore, under which there was a den, although the trap was some feet from the entrance to the den.
The pen in illustration is purposely large so that triggers and bait can be seen, giving the inexperienced deadfall trapper a better idea of how to set.
You set a deadfall for me, and I tumbled in like a tenderfoot.
This style of deadfall can be successfully, used over skunk holes, game runways and there you do away with the bait yard.
Of course, to set a deadfall for otter it must be done in the fall before the ground is frozen.
This deadfall has never failed me and when trapping in parts of the country where lynx, coyote or wolverine are liable to eat marten in traps, use a snare and it will hang 'em high and out of reach.
The deadfall if made right and located where game frequents is quite successful.
I will describe a deadfall for bear which I use, and which works the best of any I have tried, says a Montana trapper.
It is a safe proposition, however, that not one-half of the trappers of today can build a deadfall properly or know how to make snares, and many of them have not so much as seen one.
There are several instances on record where two animals have been caught in one deadfall at the same time.
Some years ago, I remember when doing considerable trapping in Southern Ohio, I came upon a deadfall built near a small stream that ran thru a woods.
Of course a little pen has to be built when setting this deadfall with bait.
A deadfall is built and perhaps on the trapper's return an animal is lying dead between the poles.
Another deadfall much used by marten trappers is constructed by cutting a notch in a tree about a foot in diameter, altho the size of the tree makes little difference.
I have seen deadfalltriggers that would catch and not fall when the bait was pulled at, but there is no catch to these.
I make a deadfall that sets without bait, writes an Illinois trapper.
Some years ago when trapping mink, I visited a certain deadfall that was "down" each morning and the bait eaten.
The second morning the deadfall was down and in the steel trap was a small mink--the smallest I ever caught.
His is this deadfall on Barclay Street, with that hash-house keeper to give him th' dough for his checks.
Our party lose over a half-million in that Barclay Street deadfall during the past Year.
The only difference is that in the regular deadfall the log comes down and smashes the poor bear by its sheer weight.
You will notice, Captain," said the boss, "that my house is like a deadfall trap.
When he laid a trap that same deadfall looked a whole lot attractive and comforting.
Henceforth for six monthsdeadfall and snare would lie idle and unset.
A quarter mile up they built their first deadfall for martens.
Leaving a deadfall near its mouth they followed the shore and made a log trap every quarter mile just above the high water mark.
Deadfall traps are especially valuable to the northern trapper, who, with axe, knife, and rifle, penetrates vast solitudes in search of furs.
From the largest bear to the tiny ermine the drop or deadfall produces death, just as we see the common slide-door cage successfully used in taking alive either the royal Bengal tiger or the pilfering kitchen mouse.
In such cases the knowledge of how to construct a practical deadfall will be of value.
However, both the deadfall and the snare are good traps for certain animals and it is well to know how to make and use them for one may sometimes see a good place in which to place a trap but may not have a steel trap along.
Seems in resetting the deadfall the lever with which he was raising the 'fall' log broke, and somehow Bill got one leg under it and there he was caught in his own trap and with a broken leg to boot.
A deadfall is about the only way of catching one of that kind.
But you shall have a chance to see a deadfall before you go back.
Long about noon he found him by a deadfall alongside of a bar.
The second day I looked after the traps but there were no signs of bear being about either the deadfall or the steel traps and I feared that I had frightened Bruin out of the country in building the deadfall.
Now and then a big, old coon was so strong that he would tear the deadfall to pieces and I would be compelled to build it all over and make it stronger.
While the deadfall cannot take the place of the steel trap, yet a well constructed deadfall under some conditions has advantages over the steel trap.
The stone deadfall with the figure 4 trigger, I have found in common use in nearly all sections where large flat rocks were to be had to use in making the trap.
This deadfall may work well on mink, skunk and opossum, but I hardly think it a good trap for other animals and it requires too much time to construct it.
This style of a deadfall is alright as to handling bait, but I do not consider it a sure trap, as often the animal will set off the trap before it is far enough under the drop to make a sure catch.
With some hard work and heavy lifting I got another good deadfall built that day.
This stone deadfall is alright in mink trapping and smaller animals but it is not favored much in coon trapping.
Comrades, as I have been asked to give my idea on the deadfall as a practical trap in taking the fur bearing animals, will say that I do not consider it a useless contrivance as some of the boys of the trap line claim.
When the boys came in the night of the day I built the first deadfall for bear, they both reported seeing bear tracks and they said the tracks all seemed to be going south.
He will rifle a deadfall from the slanting back roof where there is no danger; so the trapper overlays the back with heavy brush.
It would be useless to bait a deadfall with meat when an unpolluted feast lies on the snow.
A deadfall will act just as effectively; but there is one point requiring care.
But neither the steel-trap nor the deadfall is wholly satisfactory.
So when the trapper has built his pen of logs so that the front log or deadfall will crush down on the back of an intruder tugging at the bait inside, he overlays all with leaves and brush to quiet the pekan's suspicions.
His next visit shows the deadfall torn from behind and robbed without danger to the thief.
It was a wonder that he had noticed neither the deadfall nor our hard-packed, snowshoe trail.
Later we intended to set a deadfall for him, if by any means we could catch fish to bait it.
After we caught three of them, we spent the rest of the morning setting a deadfall at each of three pools where the otters were working.
Then I noticed for the first time that the old path near the deadfall was getting moss-grown; a faint new path began to show among the alders.
Again I examined the deadfall carefully, but of course I found nothing.
Halfway across, at a point where the path ran over a little brook, I found a deadfall set squarely in the way of unwary feet.
Near old Noel's deadfall he paused an instant with raised head, in the curious snake-like attitude that all the weasels take when watching.
She had heard stories of men surprised by them, and she knew that the forest full of dry deadfall and resinous trees, was on fire.
The timber thickened, and they suddenly encountered a tremendous barrier of deadfall ten or eleven feet high, with the fallen trunks criss-crossing in all directions.
I had to cut away quite a number of interlacing branches, and hoist you out of the crevasse with the pack ropes, then slide you down the deadfallas best I could.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "deadfall" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: deadfall; decoy; gin; mine; mousetrap; pitfall; springe; trap
