Science of Trapping: Describes the Fur Bearing Animals, Their Nature, Habits and Distribution, with Practical Methods for Their Capture

In Short

Elmer Harry Kreps offers an exhaustive, hard-won manual on the craft of taking North American fur-bearing animals. Chapter by chapter, he details the physical traits, natural ranges, and behavioral quirks of target species, pairing them with field-tested sets using steel traps, deadfalls, and snares. Beyond mere capture, Kreps guides the reader through reading tracks, preparing scents, and properly skinning and stretching pelts for market. The book endures because it is a clear, unpretentious snapshot of early twentieth-century bushcraft, where survival and income depended entirely on an intimate, respectful observation of the natural world.

The Story

Kreps opens by establishing trapping as both an ancient industry and an active, evolving art. Far from being a relic of the frontier, it remains a vibrant, profitable calling that demands man match his intellect against the sharp senses of wild creatures. Success requires understanding animal behavior with absolute intimacy.

The core of the book moves systematically through North American furbearers, beginning with the smaller, ubiquitous species and escalating to large predators. Kreps starts with the skunk, detailing its habits, preferred baits, and various methods for dispatching it without triggering its defensive scent. He then covers the aquatic and semi-aquatic hunters—mink, weasels, marten, fisher, otter, and beaver. For each, he explains specific sets: building timber pens for fishers, placing beaver castors near water edges, or setting otter traps under ice to drown the capture cleanly.

As the survey moves into larger land animals, the strategic stakes rise. Muskrats require simple bank sets, but the fox and wolf demand extraordinary caution. Kreps details how to construct blind trail sets, utilize scent formulations made from rotting fish or skunk fat, and mask human presence. He notes that while man is superior to brute life, the fox and wolf frequently outwit even expert trappers. The journey continues through raccoons, badgers, opossums, and the cat family—including the elusive Canada lynx, wildcat, and cougar—explaining how to leverage their natural curiosity or hunting routes.

In the final movement, Kreps transitions from animal pursuit to essential woods knowledge. He outlines the distinct signatures of animal tracks in snow and mud, helping the reader interpret the forest floor. He then addresses the post-capture economy: how to skin, flesh, and stretch pelts using specific wooden stretching boards so the fur retains its commercial value. The book concludes with a technical survey of steel traps, from light muskrat gear to massive forty-two-pound bear traps equipped with heavy chains and spring clamps, leaving the reader with a complete, operational mastery of the trapper’s trade from setup to sale.

How It Unfolds

The foundation of the craft Kreps introduces trapping as an enduring, skilled profession that requires deep animal empathy, precise equipment maintenance, and strategic mechanics like spring poles or balance poles to hold catches securely.

The small furbearers and scent management The text details methods for catching skunks, mink, and bloodthirsty weasels, giving specific instructions on killing skunks cleanly to avoid scent and using bright wood or wire-hung bait to attract martens and fishers.

Water sets and river engineering Instructions shift to otters, beavers, and muskrats, focusing on narrowing streams with brush, using beaver castors as bait, and setting under-water traps connected to sliding poles to drown animals quickly and preserve pelts.

Outwitting the wary predators Kreps outlines advanced strategies for taking foxes, wolves, and coyotes, describing complex scent formulas made of decomposed mice or fish, trail sets placed far from large bait, and techniques to minimize human scent.

Cats, bears, and reading the earth The guide surveys lynx, cougars, and bears before detailing how to identify tracks, construct Canadian-pattern stretching boards, and safely set heavy, high-tension steel traps using specialized clamps.

The People

Elmer Harry Kreps The author and voice of authority throughout the book. He wants to impart practical, realistic wilderness knowledge to both novice and experienced outdoorsmen. He approaches nature not as a romantic poet, but as an observant, highly disciplined practitioner who treats wild animals with pragmatic respect.

The Native Trappers Appearing in Kreps’s observations as Indian trappers, these individuals represent traditional, highly effective wilderness knowledge. They desire maximum efficiency on the trapline, using techniques like splitting green wood stakes to create bright pen interiors that draw curious fishers toward bait.

The Canadian Furbearers The collective animal subjects—ranging from the cunning red fox and bloodthirsty weasels to massive grizzly bears—serving as the trapper's living adversaries. Each species possesses distinct instincts, diets, and wariness that stand in the way of the trapper's success, forcing human reason to adapt to animal nature.

In Its Own Voice

"In order to be successful, one must know the wild animals as a mother knows her child."

Kreps establishes the fundamental requirement of the craft in his introductory remarks.

"A single animal to kill more than thirty chickens in a night, sucking only a little of the blood from each."

The author describes the voracious, bloodthirsty nature of the small brown weasel.

"Every trapper knows how difficult it is to set a large trap alone in the woods, especially in cold weather, when the fingers are stiff..."

Kreps introduces the practical necessity of using spring clamps when handling heavy bear traps in winter conditions.

What It's Really About

Beneath its procedural instructions, Science of Trapping is an exploration of human reason competing against wild instinct. Kreps frames trapping not as brute force, but as an intellectual chess match played in remote forests and frozen streams. The text asks how man can successfully integrate into the natural order by reading subtle environmental signs—a bent twig, a footprint, or a shift in the wind. It ultimately argues that success in the wild depends on self-reliance, rigorous discipline, absolute patience, and an uncompromising attention to detail, where a single missed step or lingering human scent undoes days of patient labor.

Why Read It Today

This book appeals to bushcraft enthusiasts, wilderness historians, and readers interested in early twentieth-century outdoor life. It feels less like reading a manual and more like sitting beside a seasoned woodsman who explains the forest in quiet, unhurried prose. The text offers a vivid, unfiltered look at a time when North America's waterways and forests were active working landscapes.

Readers should be prepared for period attitudes that treat wildlife strictly as a harvestable resource, alongside candid discussions of animal dispatch, skinning, and heavy steel trapping mechanisms. What remains long after reading is Kreps's keen observational eye and his fundamental insistence that to survive in the wild, one must pay meticulous attention to the subtle habits of the living world.

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