I’m no trapper but I do stock a number of mouse and rat traps in case things ever get so desperate that I need to start trapping animals for food. Along with snare wire and Dale Martin’s Trapper’s Bible any prepper or survivalist will be ready to trap small animals for food. Hunting large animals in an emergency is best left to the suckers, I mean hunters, who think that if the economy collapses they’ll be able to live out an extended vacation hunting deer while the world starves.
Chipmunks, squirrels, birds and other small game can be caught cheaply and effectively with minimal tools and a little forethought. Mice and rats can also make a fine emergency meal – if you have no choice. Drill a hole in the wood platform to tie the trap down somewhere, slap some smelly bait in there and place the trap in discrete locations where you know there are various vermin and rest up while the traps do the work. This system isn’t perfect, but it’s light, economical and fairly versatile for emergency poaching. For you sub-urban types your backyard gardens and empty office parks are often enough teeming with small, edible critters.
But #110 Conibear traps are actually not that more expensive than the common rat trap and is much, much more versatile as Dave Canterbury demonstrates in this video. Canterbury not only demonstrates the traps proper usage for catching small game, but details how it can be used to catch a bird and even a fish. Yes, a fish: