The New Year-New Products-New Website

We are working on a shiny new website, a big plus for both administrator and user in the coming year.  Lots of work yet, this should offer many advantages with more opportunity to add features in the future.  Less limited, the new store will allow for direct ordering from mobil devices.  Electronics change rapidly.  Its hard to keep up, but we are staying with it.

Tomahawk has several new items from Comstock Custom Cage they are looking to add to the line up over the winter, hopefully ready for spring, including the lightweight, small chimney traps we have been making here.  With some great people working to produce the Comstock line and the new 6,000 square foot addition to the factory, it's only getting better.  The power coating has been great.  

Additionally, we have new gear we are making in our small shop in New York.  The two bobcat traps have seen improvements over the past months.  Our Bi-fold door traps, for instance, now have a door made with rods, incorporating a slot for a catch pole.  These traps nest inside each other in sets of three in both single and double door models, the double door models yet another first.

Still working on new and or improved, as time permits, we hope to be able to introduce more traps and accessories to make life easier for nuisance control wildlife.

Off to set another beaver location later today, we now have caged beaver number 700 in our sights after taking more beaver in the last few weeks than expected.

Merry Christmas  

Canadian Certification for the Comstock 12x18x39 Beaver/Otter Cage Trap

We are very proud to announce that this week marks the positive conclusion for the certification process of the Comstock Beaver Trap.  The traps were tested this fall for a period of weeks to see if they could meet the requirements of the Canadian Fur Institute.  Though we were confident that they would pass, its always a relief to get the paperwork that indicates the traps were the certified.  What this means is that the traps are now legal for use, not only in Canada, but also in Europe and Russia.

Custom Orders

We do get calls for specialty traps, like the large double door 15x24x36 Angled Powered Ring Lock Traps we just built for fox last week to be used for bobcat and fox a hunt club.   This week we are working on 10x12x40 inch beaver traps, which might make some wonder why, since we already make a 12x12.  Due to regulations, the smaller traps may be better suited for the situation as in how the traps relate to the regs, so we are more than happy to accommodate.  We used 12 gage 1x1 to make a really beefy unit.  Short doors are very powerful and snappy.

Next up we are going to make some nesting sets of bi-fold door traps that come in three sizes for bobcat, fox, etc.  At this point they are not standard production, but may end up as such, as this unique set up offers more possibilities than the guillotine door counterparts.  The bi-fold can be covered, flush mounted and has the advantage of having no parts protrude above or outside of the cage box itself to catch or hang up on brush.

Of course the Powered Ring Lock traps for bobcats and fox can be made in just about any size required.  

Great Finish to ADC Year 2015 for Beaver

In the past 13 days we caught 35 beaver, mostly in a night or two, while trapping a few hours a day.  One job produced 9 in two nights. I was lucky enough to find 3 different locations with super cut offs on stream colonies that so far were responsible for 10 of he catches and cleaning the locations.   In the last location, some 3 weeks plus into the regular fur season after someone had been trapping there presumably for most or all of the season, we picked up three large beaver first night, including a beaver missing a toe with estimated weight of 55 pounds.  The scale said 54.5, close enough.  All of the beaver were taken in cages as is usually the case, placing the season average at 93.7% caged beaver.  The first 43 of 44 were all caged  this year and the last 39 of 40 were caged.

The cages were used in a variety of ways, cut off channels, castor sets, a culvert, dam breaks, bottom edge, front doors etc., set shallow and set deep, with almost limitless ways to set them.

If anyone has questions about how we do they are encouraged to give us a call.  And, for those who want to share experiences, we are all ears.

In the coming weeks we hope to announce the creation of a new website to make it easier for those looking to see what we have and what we are doing.  

Colorado 1982, Article Coming in Trapper's World on Johnny Thorpe

This is a photo taken by Judy in the mountains near Woodland Park above Colorado Springs, October  1982.  I am on the right, Johnny Thorpe at center.  I became involved in trapping nearly 50 years after meeting Johnny in Lake Vanare, N.Y.   Johnny died on October 27, 2015 at his home in Stony Creek.  As a staff writer for Trapper's World, Johnny will be remembered in the next issue.  I have contributed an article for the magazine, highlighting some of John's accomplishments, while providing a few details of times I spent on the beaver line with Johnny in Virginia in the 70's.

No Tail Beaver

A friend who uses the Comstock Beaver Cage Trap to take beaver that flood his hunting property regularly uses but one trap in a dam break set to control the beaver.  Last year he took 9 with one trap, one location, one set.  The beaver kept coming and he kept setting the trap until they were gone.

At times beaver can put mud in a cage without firing it, which isn't a problem since the beaver does not get wised up having not sprung the trap.  This year, for the first time, not only did the beaver plug it, but did it several times.  We spoke about moving the trap upstream in the channel if the dam break did not produce on one last try.  He called yesterday and to say that he had him.

Strange, the 30 pound plus beaver had absolutely no tail at all, which I think is the first time I ever saw that.  A birth defect or damage done when the beaver was young it hard to tell, but it did almost look congenital, very odd.

We sell all Tomahawk products and use a number of them, including the Bailey Live Beaver Cage Trap

When beaver either get educated by springing a trap that I have set or we inherit one from another trapper, a smart beaver can be maddening to remove.  Once they know they are the target, they are on guard, watching every change, looking for traps and then firing them.

The Bailey Trap is large, but can be camouflaged completely in the right situations, offering a very good shot at taking that last problem beaver.  Its a fine line we walk, trying to catch that hold out beaver without pressuring him to the extent that he leaves the pond.  The goal is to keep him there fighting with you.  You can make multiple "mistakes,"  while the beaver has only to make one.

I have found the Bailey to be a great asset in taking the only beaver in a colony that counts, the last one.  With our Swim Through Comstock Beaver Cage Traps we take most of our beaver, but being visible like conibear traps or snares, smart beaver will often avoid those devices.  Like a foot hold trap, the Bailey can be sunk into the mud, then draped with Lilly pads and pond weeds, rendering it invisible.  Since beaver do not like swimming under or through obstacles once they have been alerted to trapping, the Bailey fits the bill, because the beaver simply swims over the trap in his normal routine. With the small trigger under water, the beaver breasts the mechanism, which fires both jaws that lock securely.

Yesterday I ended a battle with a large male beaver in a remote pond many miles from home that had begun several years earlier, a long story.  The Bailey requires some focus, as attention must be payed to how it is set, but set properly it can solve some aggravating problems with wised up beaver.  Not as experienced with the Bailey, I once did not check the safety catches that were hidden in deep black muck.  Because one safety was not kept clear, when the beaver fired the trap the safety caught the cage wire, my mistake.  Live and learn, I will not repeat that error.  If the jaw retainers are set near the edge and the cables clear, the trap should do the job.

Having seen the other clam shell type live traps, before I had ever seen the Bailey, I thought, "wouldn't it be nice if there was a trap that would lay on the bottom in shallow water with both jaws firing together, coming up to meet in the middle, triggered by a beaver simply swimming over it."  That is the Bailey.