Figure 4 Deadfall Trap Overview

Description

Krik of Black Owl Outdoors gives an overview of the legendary Figure 4 Deadfall Trap.

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Tags: black owl outdoors,nature,camping,hiking,backpacking,survival,bushcraft,wilderness,forest,backcountry,figure 4,deadfall,trap,trapping,primitive

Video Transcription

hey yourself turtles it's creek here with black owl outdoors and today I'm going to be doing an introduction to the figure-four deadfall trap I have it set up right now and that this particular deadfall trap is comprised of three sticks and it resembles the shape of a for underneath what the trap is resting on I have a pretty much buried rock which is going to help when this crushing rock up here that is propped up by the trap when this falls is going to give a nice effect a hard surface to land on that's potentially going to crush and kill the game you're trying to trap for that's important step making sure this rock is you have a hard surface underneath the trap set up now the basic parts of this trap right here that the stick is running we're going to call this the vertical stick and at the top of this stick it's carved to a point with a little bit of a platform at the top as I'm looking now might be a couple millimeters thick died diagonal stick that I'm tracing right now where it meets the vertical stick there's a notch carved into the diagonal stick for this platform of the vertical stick to rest coming down the diagonal stick here at the end of this is carved into a sort of a flat point you can imagine almost like a reed in a wind instrument this sort of the design i have for this and that is being connected and held with tension on the horizontal stick that i'm tracing with a notch in the horizontal stick and then coming back from the horizontal stick back here this is also called the bait stick because your bait would be right here when I'm moving around here for the end will come and chew on there's also this I have the vertical stick sort of squared off you can't really see it from that angle but I have this square to a 90 degrees and then I have a little bit of a notch cut into the horizontal stick and I practice with a few different methods down here at this say stress point of a few different ways this is where the variability that I've seen a lot come in to this figure 4 dead fall where the variability comes in with the way these two touch each other but this is the way I've liked I've tried I've found that I can get it pretty sensitive and I'll doing more in depth and how to I'll complete walk along on how to make this in the future I just want to caution that you potentially can't hunt it or trap with this method so please if you do want to try this out and actually try to get game with it make sure you check the local laws and regulations on trapping in your area but basically what's going to happen here say I'm going to be an animal small game Rodin anything you want like come out bouncing around bounced around touch itouch off snow food down here and you're going to have your bait down here at the end of the stick and you really want to rub it into the stick get it on not just easy for the animal to come and pick off and leave because you need the animal to put some sort of weight back here to trigger this system and a little bit off the ground so hopefully the animal put its four four legs on top of here to get its body weight and to trigger the system this is something you have to practice there's a lot of variability you really want it feather sensitive and that comes with practice and figuring out the physics of how this works and what doesn't work solid contact smooth and you can see what's laying around here how all of my sticks have sort of left quote the kill zone these are all sticking I got this one partially under there and this is laying flat against this rock as you can see I picked this up there's really no gap there's no gap in here if the animal was in here as opposed to if I did if these sticks were a little bit farther underneath and these could probably potentially prop it and give the animal some space to crawl out of and now I did that on purpose and i'll show you when i set it up i'll just give you a quick close up of the sticks here we have the vertical stick i'm going to face it to you as it was facing me and right here this is where i have the square it off as i mentioned this is the front of the face that would be facing me as i'm setting it up and I have this squared here the back and then squared the front a 90 degree angle and what goes into that is this notch right here as you can see you try to get the profile it's sort of 90 degrees itself as well and then when they meet here you sort of have this effect and that's how that rests right like that I'm gonna let this fall for a second show you the top now this is the diagonal stick I have a notch right here that sits at the top and this is that platform I was sort of telling you about a couple millimeters thick I've it to like that read shape I was saying and there's i flattened it off at the top just a profile shot of it that sits in this notch The Rock's going to be sitting here and then i'll hook this against that and basically that's the general shape again the reed coming off a diagonal stake this shape again that i mentioned a certain i'm going to call it a read because that's what it looks like the most to me i'm a wind instrument coming into a notch on the horizontal state now i'm going to show you how to set it up vertical stick your diagonal stick the same hand and a millimeter half of a millimeter really fine distance really matters a lot on how sensitive this whole system can be you just have to practice you have to practice you have to practice I'm going to get that mm-hmm where I thanks good hold that pinch that with this hands lift up the rock feel where the rocks going to go feel the weight kind of its actual center point where the way it's going to rest is that where I know where to put my trap and I'm keeping the vertical stick not underneath here like I mentioned before from this fall is sticks are underneath is I'm going to try to put it outside of it a little bit so when it falls it's not going to be in the way I'm holding that this is I'm holding this with force because it will fall if I if I don't so we're getting a precarious situation with my hand underneath the trap get this really close to where I want it let the wait hold on it and then back off and there it's set and ideally the most ideal situation this can be is that it basically is almost falling over you want it so sensitive but the slightest bit of pressure from an animal will drop this you can make this very strong where it won't want to drop with a little bit of pressure but with practice and you know some messing around you can get it pretty soft as you can see I sorta a sort of kind of fudged up with the setup see how these fix are propping there's a little bit of space under here on this side and that would not be ideal but that's just the variability of doing this and with practice the first time I did it no problems second time a little bit an issue that's that's the practice practice comes involved like I said I'm gonna do another in-depth video on how to make one of these go from the start to the finish up this video is hopeful any comments any suggestions any tips you can offer me please leave a comment this is Craig signing out with black outdoors later turtles