Fox Scent and Bait Methods

Hello. Thought I'd leave you with a brief excerpt from my recently acquired book on trapping: Trapping North American Furbearers, by S. Stanley Hawbaker.

Fox Scent and Bait Methods
In preparing any of these scents and baits, in skinning or cutting up of the meat, fish or castors, your knife and hands have got to be clean and everything has got to be free from foreign odors. Bait making is the hardest job in all trapping rules and has to be done right or nine times out of ten you yourself will condemn it when really it is your own fault.

Scent
No. 1
For an all section scent this is a good one. Put 4 oz. of well mashed fox liver in a well cleaned fruit jar. Add this to one pint of pure sun-rendered trout oil, 12 anal glands, the contents of 2 fox galls. Add one half of a pint of red fox urine, 2 drops of anise and 2 oz. of glycerin, add to this 1/4 oz. of pure skunk musk. Put the cover on the jar without the rubber, don't seal. This is all to be done in early spring. Jars should be set in sun all summer and do not allow flies to lay eggs into this mixture. Do not use the ances from fox that are in heat. These should be saved in fall and kept clean.

No. 2
During the summer months catch some trout or in fact any kind of fish. Cut them up and put them into a thoroughly cleaned jar and hang out in the sun until they decay. Then skim off the top, just the oil. Take about one half pint. To this add about one half of a beaver castor, six muskrat castors taken from the rat in the spring and only two drops of oil of anise.

No. 3
In the summer months kill a skunk. Take only the fat, cut up in small pieces and put in a well cleaned jar. Let this render in the sun, then add three rat castors taken in the spring, three field mice, three drops of anise and two skunk scent sacks cut open. Skunk sacks are to be added after all have become decomposed, also rat castors should be decomposed before adding to this.

Bait
No. 1
During the summer months take a house cat, an old tom cat is best. Skin out and use only the hind parts and back as far down as the first ribs. Be sure and do not cut out any of the sexual organs. Cut all up in small pieces and fill a well cleaned two quart fruit jar about two thirds full. Do not seal tight. Add to this 6 field mice, 6 rat castors taken in the spring and be sure the rat castors are decomposed before adding to all. Do not let flies deposit their eggs in any of this scent or bait.

No. 2
About the 15th of September kill a porcupine, use only the hind parts. After skinning, cut up in pieces about the size of a walnut and fill a well cleaned one quart fruit jar half full. Put a 1/2 teaspoon of my no. 2 food scent in, then fill to the top. Put in another 1/2 teaspoon full and put cover on but do not rubber and do not seal. Keep this out of the sun, in a cool cellar is best, and this will be ready about the first of November.

Coyote bait
Take and cut up what will fill a 2 gallon jar 2/3 full of bobcat or horse meat. Add to this one quart of sheeps blood, then one quart of rotted down bobcat or house cat meat. Let this taint in good shape, then add at least 4 oz. of pure skunk must and you have a bait no coyote will fail to dig out.