I remember when I was a kid (like 6 or 7 probably, I still mostly act like a kid) but anyway, my Dad gave me a card board box and told me to prop it up on a stick with a string tied to it and hide under the pine tree with some bread crumbs under the box and yank the string to catch a bird.
I bet I spent hours trying that, every time a bird went under the box, and I yanked it somehow the bird got away.
I did learn patience and watching the game etc.
don't know what I would have done had I caught a bird.
while I have never attempted it I suspect snaring birds is something that takes unique skills.
Still snares are now a pretty sure way to get small game for me if I really need it and have time to set up a drive.
most of my "trapping" was done with muskrat boxes which are just wire cages with spring loaded doors set where when they exit their dens they are caught in them and drown. I have sometimes gotten 4 or 5 in one box nose to tail. Back in high school we got $5 per pelt, and I pretty much was one of the "richest" kids in high school just for trapping in season.
Beyond that I never much trapped and learned snaring from the same old fellow who taught me to catch muskrats. He used it to keep his stew pot full.
Which by the way, muskrat makes a passable substitute for rabbit, but I pretty much just don't care to eat em.
Now I have also burrow snared groundhog which I love to hunt with a decent rifle or snare or any other way to get them. They help the farmers save their crops and since mostly fed on clover and soybean and such are a clean meat that I substitute for pork chops and have never had complaints.
bread n fry em up boneless with a pan of biscuits and some fried taters and it's a good dinner. (My friend Rip, the retired butcher, well his Mom was a old hillbilly from the hollers and could turn stuff like that into a fine meal.)
You should have tried her way with salt pork, made it downright yummy.
And don't get me started on what that woman could do with a few teal or other ducks.
Ok, now I'm hungry. Gotta make a munchie run.
Thad.
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