“One drop of sweat will ruin the whole deal,” he says, so he even uses sweat bands on his head and arms when trapping in warm weather. He is careful to never breathe on the snare or trap and even chews spearmint gum to avoid the smell of his breath in the area while constructing a set. He uses Scent Killer spray when he sets traps and never touches any equipment with his bare hands. “You can’t fool a wolf’s nose,” he says, “so you have to come as close to eliminating scent as possible and make your set so appealing that it overcomes the fear of the remaining scent.” Whether using traps or snares, Klassen is a self-confessed scent-reduction fanatic. One of the keys to the equation is scent control. You rarely get more than one chance at a wolf. They figure things out very quickly, so you can’t make mistakes. “You have to realize that each time you catch one, you are educating an entire pack.” “Their brain is 20 percent larger than a comparable-sized dog, and they learn very quickly,” he says. “Wolves are not hard to trap,” he says, “but you have to do it by their rules.” A fox or coyote trapper might catch an animal and soon have another in the same trap. I spoke with Gordy at length, and he offered some advice to first time trappers. He offers what he calls a college course in wolf trapping and hunting each year, and the week-long event is booked well in advance. He travels around Canada giving wolf-trapping seminars both privately and for government animal control agencies. Alberta’s Gordy Klassen is recognized as Canada’s premier wolf trapper. In Canada and Alaska, wolves have not had the protection they’ve known in the Lower 48, and many hunters and trappers have developed and refined techniques that have served them well. The best way to learn how to catch a wolf is to look to those who have been doing it. ![]() ![]() In this first of two parts, I will examine strategies and techniques for trapping and snaring wolves in part two, I will cover hunting over bait and predator calling. This has led to a hunger among outdoorsmen for information about how to hunt and trap these amazing but wary canines. First in the West, then in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the chance to take a wolf appeared for the first time in nearly a century. In the past five years there has been an explosion of opportunity for hunting and trapping wolves across the U.S. It then underwent improvements and clearing work in the 1980s and 1990s.Featured in the Predator Xtreme WOLF Issue, a FREE Digital Magazine It is unclear exactly when it was built but is believed to date back to the eighteenth century the only certainty being that it was restored in the mid-nineteenth century. The hunters, suitably armed with weapons, prevented the wolf from escaping via the waters of the rivers, driving it into the fojo, where men were waiting to kill it. ![]() The fojo pit itself was covered with horizontally arranged wood and a layer of branches, easily crossed by the wolf. It is believed that it was mainly used in winter, the time when farmers drove their goats and cattle to Monte de Baixo, located southwest of the village and bounded by the Fafião and Cávado rivers. The walls total about 64 meters in length and with an average height of 2.17 meters, converge into the mouth of the fojo (trap), into which the wolves were driven by beaters. It consists of a granite structure of converging walls, and a circular pit. These structures, today a cultural heritage, occur only in the North of the Iberian Peninsula.įojo do Lobo de Fafião is considered one of the best preserved examples in the Iberian Peninsula and represents to the local community a symbol of its history and culture as well as the struggles between men and wolves. This animal, now protected, was for centuries the object of persecution motivated by a fear that was instilled in the minds of upland peoples through its association with the after world and also by the attacks made on their animals as they grazed in the mountains.
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