How to Use Underalls With Traps

Underalls were a popular brand of women's underwear years ago. They were never used specifically for trapping, but the term was adopted by trappers to describe a method used to keep dirt from becoming packed under the trigger pan of foothold traps and preventing them from firing when an animal stepped on it. Traps are often buried just under the surface of the ground to hide them from the animal being trapped. Several products are used as trap underalls, including cotton balls, polyester fiberfill and others. Many trappers use wads of the fiberglass insulation often used to insulate building walls and ceilings.

Things You'll Need

  • Fiberglass insulation
  • Foothold trap
  • Trap stake
  • Dirt sifter
  • Garden trowel
  • Hammer
  • 2-inch Paintbrush
Show More

Instructions

  1. Set Your Trap

    • 1

      Choose the location you want to set the trap and use a garden trowel to dig a depression in the soil slightly larger than the diameter of the trap and deep enough so when the set trap is put in the depression and dirt filled in, the trap will be covered with a quarter-inch of soil.

    • 2

      Pile the dirt you dig out of the excavation you are digging to make the trap bed into a dirt sifter to be used later.

    • 3

      Drive a trap stake through the end of the chain on the trap using a hammer. Pound the stake into the bottom of the excavation you dug to bury the trap all the way in until the head of the stake is flush with the bottom of the trap bed.

    • 4

      Open the jaws of the trap and secure the latch that holds the jaws open under the notch on the trap's trigger pan to keep the trap open and ready to fire.

    • 5

      Set the trap firmly into the trap bed pushing it into the dirt in the bottom to make the trap sit in the bed solidly and wobble free. The only part that should move when an animal steps on the trap is the trigger pan.

    • 6

      Pinch a lemon-sized piece of fiberglass insulation from a bat of the material, wad it into a ball approximately the size of the trigger pan, then push the wad of insulation under the pan so when the dirt is added to bury the trap, none of the dirt will go under the pan.

    • 7

      Sift the dirt you dug out of the trap bed over the trap and use a 2-inch paintbrush to sweep the dirt level over the trap to disguise the trap site as nothing more than a bare area of soil.