Scouting for Success Joe Kosack Associate Editor P RESEASON and in-season scouting do more to ensure trapline productivity than almost any other activity a trapper will undertake to increase his or her success. It ensures that your traps are set where furbearers are coming through. And, being on location is everything in trapping. In my early days as a trapper, I assumed hotspots from previous seasons always stayed that way. I also gave the calling powers of lure and bait more credit than I should have. Both assumptions were mistakes and guaranteed that I checked more empty sets than I should have. In fact, time has taught me that it’s better to have 10 sets on scouted locations than 25 placed in unconfirmed areas. Stringing steel on hunches is almost always a waste of 34 time and money. Meaningful scouting starts about three weeks before you plan to trap, and quite frankly more trappers would be doing themselves a favor if they held off on stringing steel until about Nov. 10. Waiting a little longer to set will help ensure prime pelts on the furbearers you trap, and better prices from the fur buyers taking your pelts. Once you start scouting, plan to continue doing it for the rest of trapping season. It’s as important to your success as bedding your traps properly and checking your traps early. There are a few basic strategies in scouting. The first is to seek out places other trappers aren’t hitting. Private properties help to give you that sort of exclusivity, so do remote areas that WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COMhttp://WWW.PENNGAMENEWS.COM